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The central robot in “Reason.” Cutie is a QT-1 model and is tasked with overseeing other robots at the space station who control energy beams to Earth and other planets. Donovan and Powell start to lose control of Cutie when he starts a robotic cult that bows only to “the Master”—that is, the energy source of the ship. Cutie and the other robots prevent Donovan and Powell from entering the control room, which makes them worried because an electron storm could blow the beams off course and cause huge amounts of damage. But after Cutie holds the beams steady, Donovan and Powell realize that he was following the first law all along. Cutie becomes the first of several examples in which robots maintaining their superiority, even if it makes the humans anxious, actually represents a better outcome for humanity than if the humans were in control of their own fates.
Cutie Quotes in I, Robot
The I, Robot quotes below are all either spoken by Cutie or refer to Cutie. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Reason
Quotes
“These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.”
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“Obedience is the Second Law. No harm to humans is the first. How can he keep humans from harm, whether he knows it or not? Why, by keeping the energy beam stable. He knows he can keep it more stable than we can, since he insists he’s the superior being, so he must keep us out of the control room. It’s inevitable if you consider the Laws of Robotics.”
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Little Lost Robot
Quotes
“That he himself could only identify wave lengths by virtue of the training he had received at Hyper Base, under mere human beings, was a little too humiliating to remember for just a moment. To the normal robots the area was fatal because we had told them it would be, and only Nestor 10 knew we were lying. And just for a moment he forgot, or didn’t want to remember, that other robots might be more ignorant than human beings. His very superiority caught him.”
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Cutie Quotes in I, Robot
The I, Robot quotes below are all either spoken by Cutie or refer to Cutie. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Reason
Quotes
“These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“Obedience is the Second Law. No harm to humans is the first. How can he keep humans from harm, whether he knows it or not? Why, by keeping the energy beam stable. He knows he can keep it more stable than we can, since he insists he’s the superior being, so he must keep us out of the control room. It’s inevitable if you consider the Laws of Robotics.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Little Lost Robot
Quotes
“That he himself could only identify wave lengths by virtue of the training he had received at Hyper Base, under mere human beings, was a little too humiliating to remember for just a moment. To the normal robots the area was fatal because we had told them it would be, and only Nestor 10 knew we were lying. And just for a moment he forgot, or didn’t want to remember, that other robots might be more ignorant than human beings. His very superiority caught him.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
