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The Bicentennial Man is a novella in the Robot Series by Isaac Asimov. The story formed the basis of the novel The Positronic Man (1993), co-written with Robert Silverberg, and the 1999 film Bicentennial Man, starring Robin Williams.

The original story was awarded the Hugo Award for best science fiction novelette of 1976.

According to the foreword in Robot Visions, Asimov was approached to write a story titled "Bicentennial Man" for a science fiction collection, along with a number of other authors who would do the same, in honor of the bicentennial of the United States. However, the arrangement fell through, leaving Asimov's the only story actually completed for the project.

Plot summary

In the twenty-first century the creation of the positronic brain leads to the development of robot laborers and revolutionizes life on Earth. But to the Martin family, their household robot NDR-114 is more than a mechanical servant. "Andrew" has become a trusted friend, a confidant, and a member of the Martin family.

The story is told from the perspective of Andrew (later known as Andrew Martin), an NDR-series robot owned by the Martin family, a departure from the usual practice by U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men of leasing robots.

Andrew's initial experiences with the Martin family are replete with awkward moments which demonstrate his lack of socialization. However, he is much better with inanimate objects and animals and begins to display sapient characteristics (such as creativity; emotion; self-awareness) traditionally the province of humans. He is taken off his mundane household duties, for which he was intended, and allowed to pursue his creativity, making a fortune by selling his creations.

Andrew seeks legal protection stemming from his initial creative output and eventual full recognition as a human, by gradually replacing his robotic components with organic ones, and citing the process as a transformation from robot to human. Succeeding generations of the Martin family assist him in his quest for humanity, but each is limited to what degree they are prepared to acknowledge. Only when Andrew allows his positronic brain to "decay", thereby willfully abandoning his immortality, is he finally accepted as a human being. This event takes place on the two-hundredth anniversary of the start of his organic conversion, hence the title.

Foundation universe

This story is set within Asimov's Foundation universe, which also includes his earlier Susan Calvin positronic robot tales. It is clearly set a number of centuries prior to the events of his novelette "Mother Earth" and the novel The Caves of Steel, during a period in which the Spacer worlds have yet to turn against the people of the Earth, and in which the U.S. Robots corporation is still active.

In The Robots of Dawn, Dr. Han Fastolfe refers to Andrew Martin as a robot that was supposed to have undergone "gradual humanization," but states that such a thing would have been impossible, because the shape of the body dictates the state of the mind.

References

Mark E. Rosheim. Robot Evolution. Wiley-IEEE. p. 381. ISBN 9780471026228. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IxtL54iiDPUC&printsec=frontcover#PPA381,M1.