In Asimov's book the Three Laws of Robotics were used as a plot source, with ambiguities and conflicts between the laws driving plot twists.
Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
What would count as true or false
True: in Asimov's robot stories (for example, the collection 'I, Robot'), the Three Laws repeatedly drive the plots, with ambiguities in the laws or conflicts between them producing the twists or puzzles. 'Book' may refer to the collection. Mostly true: this holds for many but not most of the stories, or for a different Asimov book than the one implied. Mixed: the Laws drive the plot in some stories, but just as many have plots unrelated to them. Mostly false: the Laws appear but rarely drive the plot. False: the Laws play no plot-driving role.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Runaround (story) - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“As in many of Asimov's Robot stories, conflicts in the application of the Three Laws of Robotics is the subject of the plot. In contrast to the majority of such stories, in which the lexical ambiguities of the Laws are employed to fashion a dilemma, the robot featured in "Runaround" is actually following the Laws as they were intended.”
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E2 Runaround (story) - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“The conflicting Laws cause what is basically a feedback loop which confuses him to oscillate around the point where the two compulsions are of equal strength, which makes Speedy appear inebriated.”
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E3 Three Laws of Robotics - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“In 1982, science fiction scholar James Gunn wrote, "The Asimov robot stories as a whole may respond best to an analysis on this basis: the ambiguity in the Three Laws and the ways in which Asimov played twenty-nine variations upon a theme".”
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E4 Three Laws of Robotics - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“He wrote two robot stories with no explicit mention of the Laws, "Robbie" and "Reason".”
Reasoning
E1 says that in many of Asimov's robot stories, conflicts in applying the Three Laws are the subject of the plot, and that most such stories use the lexical ambiguities of the Laws to set up a dilemma. E2 shows the central puzzle of 'Runaround' coming from a conflict between the Laws. E3 cites scholar James Gunn, who reads the robot stories as a whole as variations on the ambiguity in the Three Laws. E4 notes two stories, 'Robbie' and 'Reason', that never explicitly mention the Laws, but those are exceptions and do not undercut the claim that the Laws repeatedly drive the plots.
Cite this claim
Rodney Brooks, “In Asimov's book the Three Laws of Robotics were used as a plot source, with ambiguities and conflicts between the laws driving plot twists.” (said 12 January 2017). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_98b0214a96f6, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_98b0214a96f6
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.