Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in I, Robot, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Morality and Ethics
Human Superiority and Control
Irrationality, Fear, and Folly
Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, and Humanity
Summary
Analysis
Powell and Donovan start to test the new multiple robot DV-5 (Dave) at an asteroid mining station. The two men are arguing because, even though Dave had passed all his field tests in the labs, the robot is not passing his test on the asteroid. This would lead U.S. Robots to lose millions of dollars and possibly to Powell and Donovan being fired.
“Catch That Rabbit” has many of the same characteristics as “Reason and Runaround,” in which there is a problem with the robot that Powell and Donovan seem unable to comprehend, particularly as they try to parse the robots’ actions through the lens of human behaviors.
Themes
Donovan has been watching the robots on some shifts and not watching the robot on others. On the shifts when he watches, Dave and his six subsidiary robots (which they refer to as “fingers”) perform their work perfectly. But three times when he didn’t watch, the robots didn’t bring in any ore. Nothing appears to be wrong with the robots when this happens, they just don’t produce any ore and don’t come back on time.
Referring to the subsidiary robots as “fingers” demonstrates how the men are trying to understand the robots in terms of human biology. It also makes a distinction between Dave, whom they give a name and whom they treat like a human peer, and the fingers, whom they clearly treat as subhuman because of their lesser intelligence.
Themes
Powell is looking through the “Handbook of Robotics” when Dave comes in. Powell asks him what went wrong with that day’s shift. Dave says nothing went wrong. When Powell reminds him that he didn’t produce any ore, Dave says he can’t explain what happened; he doesn’t remember. Powell and Donovan decide to put him through brain-reaction tests, but there is nothing wrong with his positronic brain.
Powell is unable to understand what might be going wrong with Dave; so, too, is Dave unable to understand what is happening to himself. This is why it is inappropriate to think of the robots as having the same qualities and behaviors as human beings—sometimes they simply short circuit like any other machine and cannot remember what has happened, rather than harboring “sinister” motivations, as Donovan thinks.
Themes
Donovan wonders if Dave may be lying, but Powell says that robots can’t knowingly lie. Donovan says there’s something “sinister” about the fact that Dave only malfunctions when they’re not around. Powell decides to install a “visiplate” over his desk and focuses it on the part of the mine being worked. He says that they can’t know how to fix the robot before they know what’s wrong. They can’t cook rabbit stew without catching the rabbit, he philosophizes.
Donovan’s suspicions again stem from this fear of what the robots might be doing, and the worry that the humans may be losing control of them. But this is an unfounded fear, as robots are fundamentally unable to harm human beings. There is also an additional irony in Powell’s statement that robots can’t knowingly lie, because in the next story, “Liar,” a robot does just that. It’s interesting that Powell compares Dave to a rabbit here, since characterizing the robot as a sort of animal they must exert control over situates Dave as inherently inferior to them. Whereas Donovan seems to be overestimating Dave’s intelligence and agency, Powell is underestimating it.
Themes
Get the entire I, Robot LitChart as a printable PDF.
During the next shift, Powell and Donovan watch the visiplate. They see an unusual sight: Dave marching with his six subsidiary robots, wheeling and turning and changing formations. They immediately head into the mine. When they come upon Dave, the robots stop marching and get back to work. They ask Dave what’s been going on. Dave says that all it remembers is handling a “tough outcropping in Tunnel 17,” and then it was aware of humans close by. Donovan watches the robots for the rest of the shift.
Again, the fact that Dave doesn’t remember what is happening makes Donovan fear that there is malicious intent behind this, and that he has been lying. The marching actions, as Donovan reveals in the ensuing pages, make him believe that Dave might be raising an army—again emphasizing his irrationality.
Themes
Donovan returns and announces that the robots were fine when they were watched. He wonders if Dave might be building an army. Powell stops him, saying that an army would contradict the First Law of Robotics. Powell instead theorizes what might be causing the problem: when humans are not present, Dave must have a larger amount of personal initiative, so there must be some issue with the parts of his body involved in personal initiative. Donovan says that personal initiative isn’t controlled by a single circuit. Instead, he proposes, they have to figure out the condition that is throwing Dave off.
Powell tries to contradict Donovan’s theory by showing how it goes against the ethical code that is so embedded in the robots. But even if they are trying to be as logical as possible, it is clear that both Powell and Donovan share concerns about not being able to control the robots’ actions, nor figure out what is going wrong with it. Asimov uses this inability to illustrate that the humans may not actually be superior to the robots.
Themes
Powell and Donovan interview one of Dave’s subsidiary robots, which they called “fingers,” even though the robots have bodies and can talk. They interview DV-5-2, whose name they do not know, asking what happened on the occasions when the group stopped working. DV-5-2 says that each instance occurred after some kind of cave-in or dangerous blasts. They would receive an order, but then would receive another order to start marching.
Asimov highlights the different levels of anthropomorphizing that the humans ascribe to the robots. While Dave has a name and they generally think of him in many of the same ways that they think of fellow human beings, DV-5-2 is not given the same treatment—perhaps because it is meant simply to take orders, and does not have the same level of intelligence and consciousness that Dave does.
Themes
Donovan starts to get skeptical of both Dave and DV-5-2, believing that they are withholding information. Donovan concludes that they simply have to create an emergency situation to figure out what exactly is going wrong with Dave in that moment. He and Powell set out to create a mild cave-in near Dave in the mine’s tunnels. When they set off the detonator, there is a flash of light that prevents them from seeing what happened with the robots. They also realize suddenly that they have trapped themselves in the cave-in and cannot get out. There is a small opening that they can peek out of, but “at no point was there room for a rabbit to squeeze through.”
Asimov proves once more how the humans’ fear and irrationality has led to their folly. Donovan’s worry about what Dave might be doing leads him to propose a very dangerous plan, which ultimately puts them in life-threatening danger. Asimov makes another reference to the story’s titular rabbit, demonstrating a shift. Whereas earlier, the rabbit represented Dave, here the rabbit represents Donovan and Powell, showing how their own status has been lowered to that of an animal.
Themes
With only about six hours of oxygen, Donovan and Powell decide their only course of action is to attract Dave’s attention to get out of there. They see Dave coming closer to their corridor, leading the other six robots in another march. They try to shout for Dave’s attention, but the sound doesn’t carry. Instead, Powell throws the detonator at one of the “fingers.” Dave immediately snaps out of the march and comes over to rescue Donovan and Powell.
There is further irony in the fact that Donovan and Powell are only able to get out of their predicament with Dave’s help. Like in “Robbie,” the robot ends up not as the danger, but as the thing that rescues the humans from the danger that they put themselves in.
Themes
Powell realizes the problem that Dave had been experiencing: in an emergency situation, he must mobilize all six subsidiaries at once. This need for personal initiative had overwhelmed him. With only five robots to handle, he was only transmitting five-way orders and had snapped out of it. Donovan asks what the marching and dancing was all about, and Powell explains that Dave must have simply been “twiddling his fingers.”
At the conclusion of the story, Asimov includes another instance of the humans being able to understand the robots only in the context of human behaviors. It is also worth noting that it is Powell making the comparison, whereas in “Runaround” he had been wary of ascribing human traits to Speedy, perhaps showing how the robots have progressed and Powell now can no longer help but think of them in human terms.
Themes
Susan Calvin recalls these stories of Donovan and Powell with amusement. The reporter asks if she ever had a robot “go wrong” on her, personally. She says that one did, almost 40 years ago, when she was 38 years old. She is at first hesitant to talk about it, but then begins the story of Herbie, the mind-reading robot.
In the following story, “Liar!”, Calvin demonstrates that even she, as the top robopsychologist at U.S. Robot and Mechanical Men, also makes mistakes in terms of understanding robots by the benchmark of human behavior.
Themes
