I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

In most conventional novels, God is not allowed to be nuts. Nor are nuts allowed to be God.

SF has at least the advantage of not depending on preconceptions.

R-4 got stuck on the First Law. "Can anyone really protect a human being from all harm whatever?" it thought. "No. It is inevitable that all humans must be injured, contract illnesses and ultimately die. The future can only be averted for humans who are already dead. Ergo..." It took a dozen cops to subdue R-4, after his blood orgy in a department store (83 dead, none injured).

Today's robots are very primitive, capable of understanding only a few simple instructions such as 'go left', 'go right', and 'build car'.

Anything can happen in SF. And the fact that nothing ever does happen in SF is only due to the poverty of our imaginations, we who write it or edit it or read it. But SF can in principle deal with anything.

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only more expensive.