Liar!

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Liar! (1941) is science-fiction short story by Isaac Asimov.

Through a fault in manufacture, a robot, RB-34 (Herbie) is created that has the ability to read minds. While the roboticists at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men are trying to analyse what happened and why, the robot tells them what the other people are thinking. But the First Law still applies to this robot, and so it is deliberately lying to them about the thoughts it has read, in order not to hurt their feelings, especially in terms of the problem it was initially designed to solve. However, by lying it is hurting them anyway, and when it is confronted with this fact by Susan Calvin, the robot experiences a logical conflict and a total mental breakdown.

The application of the Laws of Robotics is again the subject here, like in many others of Asimov's stories, but in terms of telepathy. The lexical ambiguity that is explored here is the definition of injury, the robot having to take into account psychological injury as well as physical.

The story is also a striking early example of the "Does not compute" theme: an artificial intelligence being unable to resolve cognitive dissonance and hence self-destructing.

Another telepathic robot called R. Giskard Reventlov was later introduced by Asimov in The Robots of Dawn.

In 1969 this short story was adapted into an episode of the British television series Out of the Unknown.

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