Isaac Asimov's The Bicentennial Man

Science fiction texts brilliantly undermines the belief that human and robots are incompatibly

different and in doing so, makes the reader question what it means to be a human being in the

universe and is there a large difference between man and machine.

In one of Isaac Asimov’s brilliant story, The Bicentennial Man it is clearly highlighted that there

is extensively a small difference between human beings and robots. From the onset of the story

the ‘self’ is questioned (the self refers to the state of being human), the robot, Andrew Martin, is

the first to speak in the story and uses a human tone to have conversation with a robot surgeon.

Andrew is a robot that desires to be human and he requests that he undergoes surgery.

It means that

every cyber-heart contains a pacemaker as part of its structure. In the case of the metallic variety,

this is an electronic device that keeps the cyber in rhythm. It means an entire battery of

miniaturized equipment must be included to alter the heart’s rhythm to suit an individual’s

emotional and physical state. Occasionally something goes wrong there and people have died

before that wrong could be corrected.” “(Asimov, I 1995b pp 161).This how ever does not sway

the senate, he takes his chances with a metallic heart. The surgeon leaves and has a conversation

with a medical engineer and it is revealed that in reality the surgeon tried to keep the senate

human yet he is a robot. It is also revealed that he is a segregationist. Superficially the surgeon

wants the senate to have a non-metallic heart because he is a sceptic and he does not like the ideal

of human beings becoming more robotic or robots becoming more human through organ or