A brief summary of the story and its significance.
Isaac Asimov wrote "Runaround" in October 1941, at the dawn of what would become a legendary career. But the story's most famous element—the Three Laws of Robotics—was not entirely his own invention. In a December 1940 conversation, legendary editor presented the laws to Asimov as a fait accompli , claiming he had abstracted them from principles already obvious in the early robot stories. Asimov, who had grown disenchanted with the common "Frankenstein" narratives of monstrous robots turning on their creators, eagerly embraced the framework. As he wrote in a later foreword: "I resented the Faustian interpretation of science. Knowledge has its dangers, yes, but is the response to be a retreat from knowledge?" isaac asimov runaround pdf