Robot Dreams

It’s peculiar that they chose “Robot Dreams” for Isaac Asmov’s contribution to the collection: it’s a very uncharacteristic Asimov story.

Asimov’s whole point in writing his robot stories was to fight the “Frankenstein complex,” the irrational sense of doom that people had about technology. He felt that AI would inevitably have safety precautions built in, and that robots would almost inevitably end up to be less dangerous than human beings themselves.

As I said, “Robot Dreams” is unusual for Asimov; it's not abou that at all, except perhaps in the sense that the Frankenstein complex afflicts even the robot-makers. I suppose they picked it because it was one of his last stories, and because it’s undoubtedly very good.