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The central robot in “Reason.” Cutie is a QT-1 model and is tasked with overseeing other robots at the space station who control energy beams to Earth and other planets. Donovan and Powell start to lose control of Cutie when he starts a robotic cult that bows only to “the Master”—that is, the energy source of the ship. Cutie and the other robots prevent Donovan and Powell from entering the control room, which makes them worried because an electron storm could blow the beams off course and cause huge amounts of damage. But after Cutie holds the beams steady, Donovan and Powell realize that he was following the first law all along. Cutie becomes the first of several examples in which robots maintaining their superiority, even if it makes the humans anxious, actually represents a better outcome for humanity than if the humans were in control of their own fates.
Cutie Quotes in I, Robot
The I, Robot quotes below are all either spoken by Cutie or refer to Cutie. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Reason Quotes
“These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.”
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“Obedience is the Second Law. No harm to humans is the first. How can he keep humans from harm, whether he knows it or not? Why, by keeping the energy beam stable. He knows he can keep it more stable than we can, since he insists he’s the superior being, so he must keep us out of the control room. It’s inevitable if you consider the Laws of Robotics.”
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Little Lost Robot Quotes
“That he himself could only identify wave lengths by virtue of the training he had received at Hyper Base, under mere human beings, was a little too humiliating to remember for just a moment. To the normal robots the area was fatal because we had told them it would be, and only Nestor 10 knew we were lying. And just for a moment he forgot, or didn’t want to remember, that other robots might be more ignorant than human beings. His very superiority caught him.”
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Cutie Character Timeline in I, Robot
The timeline below shows where the character Cutie appears in I, Robot. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Reason
...They have only been here for two weeks, but are already having issues. Robot QT-1 (Cutie) has been pondering his own creation and existence. Cutie tells Powell that it seems improbable...
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Powell brings Cutie to the window of the Station, which shows the “star-speckled” space. Cutie theorizes that space...
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Later, Donovan and Powell are trying to calculate data for an upcoming electron storm when Cutie comes in. Cutie confesses that he has been trying to find a logical explanation for...
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Donovan asks Cutie to explain who made him if they did not. Cutie explains that it must have...
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...beam to Mars. Donovan goes down to the engine room to keep an eye on Cutie and make sure that they start work on the Martian L-tube, but when he arrives,...
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Donovan addresses Cutie, who says that they are not going to obey him any longer, that they obey...
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...in the officer’s room, Powell is horrified to hear Donovan’s report of what happened with Cutie and the other robots. He also notes that they have another problem: the electron storm...
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Just then, Cutie enters the room. Cutie tells Powell and Donovan that they’ve lost their function, as their...
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Powell tries to reason with Cutie, explaining that the station is a creation of human beings. Cutie shakes his head, saying...
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Donovan and Powell ultimately decide to create another robot to prove to Cutie that they built him, too. After they complete this task in front of Cutie, he...
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Powell and Donovan leave to go to bed, exasperated with Cutie’s reasoning. Donovan even wonders if Cutie’s explanations might be right, before Powell snaps him out...
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Powell finally recognizes the explanation for Cutie’s actions: in accordance with the First Law of Robotics, Cutie did not want to harm...
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...The model is waiting for Donovan and Powell to test it. Muller then asks how Cutie is getting along. Powell tells him that Cutie is doing well, and that he doesn’t...
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