Susan Calvin had been born in the year 1982. At the age of twenty she had met Dr Alfred Lanning of US Robots who had shown her the first robot with a voice. It was a large, clumsy, ugly robot which was going to be sent to the mines on Mercury.
Susan was a cold girl, plain and colourless, who disliked the world around her. But as she watched and listened to the robot, she felt the beginning of a cold excitement. In 2008 she completed her final degree at Columbia University, and began work at US Robots as the first robot psychologist.
For fifty years she watched the development of robots and now she was leaving US Robots at the age of seventy-five.
‘My newspaper reaches the whole solar system,’ I said to Dr Calvin. ‘We have three billion readers, Dr Calvin. They would like to hear your views on robots.’
Dr Calvin didn’t smile at me. I don’t think she ever smiled. She was small and thin and her eyes were sharp, though not angry.