The Positronic Man
E744242
The Positronic Man is a science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg that expands Asimov’s short story “The Bicentennial Man” into a full-length exploration of a robot’s quest for humanity and legal personhood.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Positronic Man canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8579737 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Positronic Man Context triple: [Isaac Asimov bibliography, includesNotableWork, The Positronic Man]
-
A.
The Puppet Masters
The Puppet Masters is a 1951 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a covert alien invasion using parasitic mind-controlling creatures.
-
B.
The Naked Sun
The Naked Sun is a science fiction mystery novel by Isaac Asimov featuring detective Elijah Baley investigating a murder on the sparsely populated, robot-dominated planet Solaria.
-
C.
The Measure of a Man
The Measure of a Man is a French social drama film starring Vincent Lindon as an unemployed factory worker struggling with dignity and morality in a harsh economic climate.
-
D.
Citizen of the Galaxy
Citizen of the Galaxy is a 1957 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein that follows a boy sold into slavery who becomes embroiled in interstellar politics and the fight against galactic slave trading.
-
E.
I, Robot
I, Robot is a 2004 science fiction film loosely inspired by Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, featuring Will Smith in a futuristic murder mystery involving advanced robots and artificial intelligence.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Positronic Man Target entity description: The Positronic Man is a science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg that expands Asimov’s short story “The Bicentennial Man” into a full-length exploration of a robot’s quest for humanity and legal personhood.
-
A.
The Puppet Masters
The Puppet Masters is a 1951 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a covert alien invasion using parasitic mind-controlling creatures.
-
B.
The Naked Sun
The Naked Sun is a science fiction mystery novel by Isaac Asimov featuring detective Elijah Baley investigating a murder on the sparsely populated, robot-dominated planet Solaria.
-
C.
The Measure of a Man
The Measure of a Man is a French social drama film starring Vincent Lindon as an unemployed factory worker struggling with dignity and morality in a harsh economic climate.
-
D.
Citizen of the Galaxy
Citizen of the Galaxy is a 1957 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein that follows a boy sold into slavery who becomes embroiled in interstellar politics and the fight against galactic slave trading.
-
E.
I, Robot
I, Robot is a 2004 science fiction film loosely inspired by Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, featuring Will Smith in a futuristic murder mystery involving advanced robots and artificial intelligence.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (38)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
novel
ⓘ
science fiction novel ⓘ |
| adaptationType | loose adaptation ⓘ |
| author |
Isaac Asimov
ⓘ
Robert Silverberg NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| basedOn | The Bicentennial Man NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| basedOnWorkType | short story ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
human–robot relations
ⓘ
identity ⓘ legal personhood ⓘ quest for humanity ⓘ |
| coAuthorRole |
Asimov provided original story
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Silverberg expanded narrative to novel length NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| exploresConcept |
artificial intelligence ethics
ⓘ
civil rights for robots ⓘ positronic brain ⓘ |
| featuresElement | Three Laws of Robotics NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genre | science fiction ⓘ |
| hasAdaptation | Bicentennial Man (film) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryForm | prose ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Andrew Martin NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| narrativeFocus |
legal struggle for recognition as human
ⓘ
robot’s transformation toward humanity ⓘ |
| partOfUniverse | Asimov’s robot universe NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| protagonistType | robot ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
I, Robot
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
The Bicentennial Man NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| settingType | future Earth ⓘ |
| targetAudience | adult readers ⓘ |
| theme |
discrimination
ⓘ
freedom ⓘ mortality ⓘ self-determination ⓘ what it means to be human ⓘ |
| timeSpanOfStory | approximately two centuries of protagonist’s existence ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Positronic Man Description of subject: The Positronic Man is a science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg that expands Asimov’s short story “The Bicentennial Man” into a full-length exploration of a robot’s quest for humanity and legal personhood.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.