Caliban
Caliban, or CBN-001, is a fictional robot from the novel Isaac Asimov’s Caliban, written by Roger MacBride in 1993. According to the novel, it is an experimental robot that was created without following the Three Laws of Robotics.
Instead of positronic brains, in the novel, Caliban possessed gravitonic brains, which allowed it to build new sets of laws. The robot was controlled under careful laboratory conditions for observation of what rules it would be able to evolve for itself. Ironically, it escaped and was pursued by police officers for being suspected of killing its master.
Near the end of the novel, Caliban was able to meet key characters. It recounted its life history, a characteristic that suggests it had memory and that it spoke in a natural human voice, or at least knew speech synthesis and speech recognition.
Caliban was able to prove itself innocent of the crime through the help of Sheriff Kresh. If future robots would be constructed and created following the fictional characteristics of Caliban, then the world would be a dreaded one to live in, as robots would be more controlling than humans.
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