Robot AL-76 Goes Astray
From Freepedia
Robot AL-76 Goes Astray is a humourous science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, originally published in Amazing Stories, February 1942, and included in the collection The Rest of the Robots.
AL-76 (aka Al) is a robot designed for mining work on the Moon, but as a result of an accident after leaving the factory of US Robots and Mechanical Men, it gets lost and finds itself in rural Virginia. It can't comprehend the unfamiliar environment and the people it meets are scared of it. When it comes across a shed full of spare parts and junk, it is moved to reprogram itself and it builds a powerful mining tool of the kind it was designed to use on the Moon - but better and using less power. When angrily told to destroy it, it obediently does so and thus the secret of the reprogamming and the improved tool is lost.
The theme of a robot reacting to an unfamiliar environment and reprogramming itself has been revisited on many occasions, including the film Short Circuit.
| The Complete Robot |
| Boy's Best Friend, A | Sally | Someday | Point of View | Think! | True Love | Robot AL-76 Goes Astray | Victory Unintentional | Stranger In Paradise | Light Verse | Segregationist | Strange Playfellow | Let's Get Together | Mirror Image | The Tercentenary Incident | First Law | Runaround | Reason | Catch that Rabbit | Liar! | Satisfaction Guaranteed | Lenny | Galley Slave | Little Lost Robot | Risk | Paradoxical Escape | Evidence | The Evitable Conflict | Feminine Intuition | —That Thou Art Mindful of Him | The Bicentennial Man |
