WORK
Robbie
Asimov's 1940 first-published robot story — about a nurse-robot who loves a child, and about the adults who cannot tolerate the love. An early fictional meditation on human-AI attachment and the cultural resistance it provokes.
Robbie (originally Strange Playfellow, Super Science Stories, September 1940) is the first Asimov robot story published. A robot named Robbie serves as caretaker and playmate for eight-year-old Gloria Weston. She loves him. Her mother, influenced by neighborhood fear of robots, has Robbie sold back to the manufacturer. Gloria's grief is the plot engine; the resolution is her father quietly arranging to reveal Robbie in a rescue scene that demonstrates Robbie's care is real. The story has no on-page statement of the Three Laws — they had not been formalized yet — but every beat of Robbie's behavior is consistent with First-Law protection of Gloria.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Robbie is Asimov's first argument that the fears around robots are more cultural than technical. Mrs. Weston's objections are not about Robbie's safety record (perfect) or capabilities (excellent). They are about what the neighbors will say and about her uneasy sense that Gloria's attachment to Robbie is somehow