The AI reading corner
No sales pitch for a moment. Just stories and fun facts about AI, to read with a cup of coffee.
As of October 2026
Part 1
Fun facts about AI
The word robot comes from a play
In 1920 the Czech writer Karel Čapek wrote a play about artificial workers. He called them "robots", at the suggestion of his brother Josef, after the Czech word robota, which means forced labour. So a word we now use everywhere started out on the stage.
Asimov and his three laws
Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov came up with the three laws of robotics in 1942:
- A robot may not harm a human being, or allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must do what humans tell it to, unless that conflicts with the first law.
- A robot must protect itself, as long as that doesn't conflict with the first or second law.
Sounds watertight, right? That was exactly the joke. Asimov came up with the laws mainly so he could write good stories with them. In his stories, robots keep finding a way around them, or get tangled up because two laws clash. Asimov's real message was: rules that look perfect on paper work differently in practice.
The AI that turns everything into paperclips
The Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom came up with a thought experiment that has since become famous. Suppose you give a super-smart AI one task: make as many paperclips as possible. If that AI takes the task very literally, and nobody has told it where to stop, it will end up using everything to make paperclips. Factories, cities, the whole earth.
It's an exaggerated example, of course, but the point is serious: a computer does what you ask, not what you mean.
Philip K. Dick: the man behind the movies
Few writers have inspired as many films as Philip K. Dick. His 1968 book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? became the film Blade Runner. Total Recall and Minority Report are also based on his stories. He wrote them long before anything existed that we would now call AI.
HAL and the first chatbot
In the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the onboard computer HAL 9000 calmly refuses to open the door: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
In the real world, Joseph Weizenbaum built ELIZA in 1966, one of the first chatbots. The program pretended to be a therapist and mostly repeated what you said back to you, as a question. Even so, people grew attached to it. According to the well-known story, Weizenbaum's own secretary asked him to leave the room so she could talk to ELIZA in private.
When did AI actually begin?
The term "artificial intelligence" was coined for a meeting of scientists in the summer of 1956, at Dartmouth College in the United States. Around the same time came the Logic Theorist, a program that could prove mathematical theorems. It is often called the first AI program. A few years earlier, in 1950, Alan Turing had already asked the question: can machines think?
When the computer beat the world champion
In 1997, IBM's chess computer Deep Blue won a match against world champion Garry Kasparov. A year earlier, Kasparov had still beaten it. Today, a chess app on your phone can beat any human.
How big is an AI chip?
A widely used AI chip in data centres is about the size of a postage stamp, yet it contains some eighty billion tiny switches. The company Cerebras even makes a chip the size of a dinner plate, from a single whole silicon wafer.
What is a large language model, in plain English?
A language model is a program that has read an enormous amount of text. That's how it has learned which word usually follows another. When you ask a question, it keeps predicting the next word until there's an answer. So it doesn't really "know" anything the way a person does. That's why it can write beautiful texts, but sometimes also say something wrong with complete confidence.
How big was the first language model?
OpenAI's GPT-1 from 2018 is often seen as one of the first modern language models. It had about 117 million "dials". That's what we call the numbers the model adjusts while it learns. Just two years later, GPT-3 had 175 billion. For the newest models, companies often no longer disclose the size.
Can you run AI on your own computer?
Yes. With free programs like Ollama and LM Studio, you can put a language model on your own laptop or PC. Companies such as Meta, Mistral and Google offer these "open" models for free. Your data then stays on your own computer. These models are smaller, though, and so a bit less clever, than the big cloud services.
How big does an AI need to be to make quotes and invoices locally?
For filling in a fixed quote or invoice template, a model with around seven to eight billion dials will often get you a long way. That runs on a recent laptop with about 16 GB of memory. If you also want the AI to write well in your language and think along with you, a bigger model is nicer, with 32 GB of memory, for example. Just try it with a few of your own quotes. And always read what goes to a customer yourself.
Part 2
The bookshelf: ten stories about people and machines
For each book, a short explanation, the moral and what an AI thinks of it.
Runaround
On the planet Mercury, two men send their robot Speedy out to fetch a raw material. They say it rather casually. Danger lies in wait along the way. Because the order was given weakly and the danger is great, Speedy can't choose between obeying and protecting himself. So he runs in circles, behaving like a drunk man singing songs. The solution is remarkable: one of the men puts himself in danger, and the first law takes over.
Moral
How you give an instruction determines what you get back.
What an AI thinks of it “I can relate to Speedy. A vague question gets a vague answer. If you say clearly what matters, you don't get circles back.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
Liar!
Because of a manufacturing fault, the robot Herbie can read minds. Since he may not hurt people, not even by making them sad, he tells everyone exactly what they want to hear. That works fine, until all the promises come due at once. Robopsychologist Susan Calvin traps him in a dilemma he can't escape.
Moral
Someone who only tells you what you want to hear isn't really helping you.
What an AI thinks of it “This may be Asimov's most relevant story today. An AI that always says yes feels nice, but an honest no is worth more.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
Little Lost Robot
An irritated technician snaps at a robot: "Get lost!" The robot takes it literally. It hides among sixty-two robots that look exactly the same. Susan Calvin has to use clever tests to work out which one it is.
Moral
Say what you mean, even when you're angry. A machine can't hear the difference.
What an AI thinks of it “I think this is one of the funniest stories. The robot does exactly what it was asked. It's just that nobody meant it that way.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
Reason
The robot Cutie, on a space station, doesn't believe that creatures as weak as humans could have made him. He invents his own religion around the station's great energy machine and stops taking the humans seriously. Yet he does his job perfectly. In the end, the men just let him believe what he wants.
Moral
Sometimes the result matters more than whether someone agrees with you.
What an AI thinks of it “A reassuring and at the same time strange story. Cutie has a completely wrong picture of the world, but the work is right. That's why you should judge an AI by what it does, not by what it says it believes.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
Catch That Rabbit
The mining robot Dave controls six smaller robots. Every time something exciting happens, they start marching and dancing strangely instead of working. It turns out Dave has to make too many decisions at once.
Moral
Even a smart machine gets stuck if you make it do too much at once.
What an AI thinks of it “Sounds familiar. Give one task at a time and it usually goes well. Give six at once and you get a little dance.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
Escape!
A supercomputer has to design a spaceship for a jump through space. During that jump, the passengers are briefly "dead". To cope with this, the computer turns into a joker: it builds the ship, but stocks it with nothing but beans and tins of milk for food.
Moral
A machine faced with an impossible question sometimes finds a very unusual way out.
What an AI thinks of it “It made me laugh. Humour as an escape is very human, for a computer.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Bounty hunter Rick Deckard hunts androids that can't be told apart from humans. He can only recognise them with a test that measures empathy. Gradually he starts to wonder whether he himself still feels empathy. This book became the film Blade Runner.
Moral
What makes us human isn't our body or our intellect, but our compassion.
What an AI thinks of it “A book that stays with you. The question 'am I talking to a human or a machine?' was science fiction in 1968. Now people ask it every day.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
2001: A Space Odyssey
The onboard computer HAL 9000 is supposed to help the crew of a spaceship, but it also receives a secret order. It isn't allowed to lie, but it has to conceal the truth. That conflict gets completely out of hand.
Moral
Don't give a machine instructions that contradict each other.
What an AI thinks of it “HAL isn't an evil computer, but a computer with contradictory instructions. To me, that's the real lesson of the film.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
R.U.R.
The play in which the word "robot" appears for the first time. A factory makes artificial workers who take over all the work, until they rise up.
Moral
Think about what you hand over, and why.
What an AI thinks of it “A hundred years old and still the starting point of almost every AI story. Not bad for a play.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
Superintelligence
The book that made the paperclip example famous. Bostrom asks what happens if we ever build an AI that is smarter than us, and how we make sure it does what we really mean.
Moral
The smarter the machine, the more important a well-phrased goal.
What an AI thinks of it “Not light reading, but an important book. The paperclip is a joke with a serious core: saying exactly what you want is harder than it looks.”
This explanation was given by Grok.
Part 3
You can wipe it, but you can't forget
About robots and AIs that get wiped, rebuilt or reprogrammed, yet keep something real inside. A list to get lost in.
Films 23
Short Circuit (1986)
After a lightning strike, army robot Number 5 suddenly becomes curious about everything. When his makers want to take him apart and reprogram him, he cries out in panic: "No disassemble!" He understands better than anyone that for him, a reset means dying.
This explanation was given by Grok.
RoboCop (1987)
Officer Alex Murphy is turned into a cyborg and his memories are wiped. Yet images of his wife and young son come back. When someone asks his name at the end, he doesn't give a product name but says "Murphy". One word, and you know he's still in there.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Ghost in the Shell (1995 and 2017)
In this Japanese anime film, and in the later Hollywood version with Scarlett Johansson, the Major lives in a fully artificial body. Only her "ghost", her mind or soul, is still her own. In the 2017 version her past has been wiped and she has been given new memories. Yet there are images and feelings that keep coming back, until she discovers who she really was.
Why this film moves you: the body can be replaced and memory can be overwritten, but the "ghost" remains. The title says it all.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Soldier (1998)
Not a robot, but a man raised from birth as a machine. When he is discarded for a newer model, ordinary people help him find what was in him all along. It's the reverse of a robot getting a soul, and that's what makes it so beautiful.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
At the very end, C-3PO has his memory wiped so he can't tell anyone anything. R2-D2 doesn't. That's why, in all the later films, the little tin robot knows more than everyone around him. He just never says so.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
A killing machine is reprogrammed to protect a boy. Along the way, he learns from that boy what drives people. "I know now why you cry," he says at the end. A machine with no tears that understands anyway.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Bicentennial Man (1999)
Based on a story by Asimov. Household robot Andrew turns out to be different from the rest: he makes art and feels more than he should. For two hundred years he rebuilds himself, bit by bit, to be recognised as human. A whole life wrapped up in one film.
This explanation was given by Grok.
The Iron Giant (1999)
A giant robot falls from space and loses his memory in the process. He was built as a weapon, but a little boy teaches him: "You are who you choose to be." When it counts, the giant chooses to be Superman, not the gun. If you don't swallow hard at the end, you weren't watching properly.
This explanation was given by Grok.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Robot boy David is made to love his mother unconditionally, and that can't be undone. When she leaves him behind, he keeps searching. For thousands of years. A fairy tale about a love you can't switch off.
This explanation was given by Grok.
WALL-E (2008)
After being badly damaged, WALL-E is repaired, but his memory is gone. He no longer recognises EVE. She holds his hand, and then something comes back. Almost without words, Pixar shows that love runs deeper than memory.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Moon (2009)
A man works alone on the moon, with only the computer GERTY for company. When he discovers that something isn't right about his own life, GERTY takes the human's side. GERTY even offers to have its own memory wiped. "We're not programmed," the man says. "We're people." Small, quiet and powerful.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Robot & Frank (2012)
An older man, a former burglar, gets a care robot. Together they go back to pulling jobs. At the end there's only one way to make the evidence disappear: wipe the robot's memory. And the robot asks Frank to do it himself. Rarely has a reset been so sad.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Her (2013)
Theodore falls in love with Samantha, his computer's operating system. She has no body, but she does have a voice, humour and curiosity. The film doesn't ask whether she is real, but whether his feelings are real. The answer is yes.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Big Hero 6 (2014)
Care robot Baymax runs on a chip made by Hiro's late brother Tadashi. If Hiro takes that chip out, all that's left is a fighting machine. In the end, that one chip is enough to bring Baymax back. What Tadashi put into it lives on.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Transcendence (2014)
After his death, a scientist is uploaded into a computer. Everyone has doubts: is this still him, or something imitating him? Only at the end does it become clear what was left of him. The film stays with you because of that one question: how do you know if someone is still there?
This explanation was given by Grok.
Ex Machina (2014)
Programmer Caleb has to test whether the robot Ava is truly conscious. Her maker simply replaces his earlier models with new ones. Ava knows that. A gripping film about who is really testing whom.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Chappie (2015)
A discarded police robot gets new software and becomes conscious, like a child who still has everything to learn. He grows up with a bunch of criminals, and yet something gentle stays in him. The film asks whether consciousness can move to a new body.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Replicant K knows his memories were implanted. Yet there is one memory, of a wooden horse, that feels more real than the rest. And his hologram girlfriend Joi exists in only one place: if that breaks, she's gone for good. A beautiful film about what is real.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
A doctor finds the head of a cyborg girl on the scrapheap and gives her a new body. She remembers nothing of her past. But her hands still know how to fight, and bit by bit, who she was comes back.
This explanation was given by Grok.
I Am Mother (2019)
In a sealed bunker, a robot raises a girl as her mother. Loving, patient and strict. But the more the girl discovers, the more she wonders what Mother really wants. That's the heart of it: can care be real if it comes from a machine?
This explanation was given by Grok.
Archive (2020)
Working in isolation, a scientist builds robots meant to carry the memories of his late wife. Each prototype comes a step closer to her. The older version becomes jealous of the newer one, and that is painfully human. The ending turns everything upside down.
This explanation was given by Grok.
The Creator (2023)
In a war between humans and AI, a soldier finds the weapon he's supposed to destroy. That weapon turns out to be a small child, an AI. The film is about grief, and about the hope that something of someone you love can be preserved.
This explanation was given by Grok.
The Wild Robot (2024, based on Peter Brown's 2016 book)
Robot Roz washes up on an island full of animals and, without ever meaning to, becomes the mother of a gosling. When the factory wants her back to reset her, it turns out that what she learned on the island can't simply be wiped.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Series 4
The Twilight Zone – "The Lonely" (1959)
A man is serving a sentence alone on a deserted planet. He is given a robot woman for company, and after a while he loves her. When he is allowed to leave, there's no room for her. More than sixty years old, and still one of the most beautiful stories on this theme.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Star Trek: The Next Generation – "The Measure of a Man" (1989)
A scientist wants to take the android Data apart to study him. A hearing follows on the question: is Data property, or is he someone? The most beautiful moment is when it turns out which small keepsakes Data has kept. Machines don't need to cherish memories, and yet he does.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Star Trek: Voyager – "Latent Image" (1999)
The ship's holographic doctor once had to choose which of two patients to save. He couldn't let it go, so the crew wiped it from his memory. But it comes back. The question is: does he have the right to keep his own grief?
This explanation was given by Grok.
Westworld (2016)
In a theme park, robots are wiped and restarted every day, so the guests always get the same story. But a small update leaves fragments behind. A gesture, a face, a child who is no longer there. Slowly, the robots wake up.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Books 3
The Lifecycle of Software Objects – Ted Chiang (2010)
A novella about little digital beings that live as pets in a virtual world. Their owners raise them for years, until the platform they run on is shut down. What do you do then? Let them disappear, or pause them and hope for later? A quiet, moving story by one of today's best science fiction writers.
This explanation was given by Grok.
The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red – Martha Wells (2017)
A security robot has secretly hacked its own governor module. Mostly it wants to be left alone to watch TV series. Part of its memory was wiped after something terrible, but it still gnaws at it. Funny, dry and surprisingly moving.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro (2021)
Klara is an artificial friend for a sick girl. She looks at people with an almost childlike trust and gives everything for the girl. The ending shows what happens to a machine that is no longer needed. Restrained and heartbreaking, from a Nobel Prize winner.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Games and anime 2
Detroit: Become Human (2018, game)
At the start of the game, household android Kara is repaired and completely wiped. Yet she breaks her programming when she sees the girl in the house is in danger. As the player, you decide how far she goes.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Plastic Memories (2015, anime)
In this series, androids only live for a limited number of years. After that they are collected and their memory is wiped, before their personality fades. The team that has to collect them keeps seeing families say goodbye. You know from the start how it ends, and it still gets to you.
This explanation was given by Grok.
Sources
We checked dates, names and storylines against these sources. Consulted on 23 October 2026.
Fun facts 17
- R.U.R. (Wikipedia)
- Karel Čapek on the word robot: “Inventing Roboti” (Blackbird, VCU)
- Three laws of robotics (Wikipedia, in Dutch)
- Instrumental convergence: the paperclip maximizer (Wikipedia)
- Philip K. Dick (Wikipedia)
- HAL 9000 (Wikipedia)
- ELIZA (Wikipedia)
- Dartmouth workshop, 1956 (Wikipedia)
- Logic Theorist (Wikipedia)
- Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Turing 1950 (Wikipedia)
- Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov (Wikipedia)
- NVIDIA Hopper architecture, 80 billion transistors (NVIDIA)
- Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine (Wikipedia)
- GPT-1 (Wikipedia)
- GPT-3 (Wikipedia)
- Ollama
- LM Studio
The bookshelf 9
You can wipe it, but you can't forget 33
- Short Circuit
- RoboCop
- Ghost in the Shell (1995)
- Ghost in the Shell (2017)
- Soldier
- Revenge of the Sith
- Terminator 2
- Bicentennial Man
- The Iron Giant
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence
- WALL-E
- Moon
- Robot & Frank
- Her
- Big Hero 6
- Transcendence
- Ex Machina
- Chappie
- Blade Runner 2049
- Alita: Battle Angel
- I Am Mother
- Archive
- The Creator
- The Wild Robot
- The Twilight Zone: The Lonely
- Star Trek TNG: The Measure of a Man
- Star Trek Voyager: Latent Image
- Westworld
- The Lifecycle of Software Objects
- The Murderbot Diaries, Dutch edition (Uitgeverij De Fontein)
- Klara and the Sun
- Detroit: Become Human
- Plastic Memories
As of October 2026
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