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Liar!

Author	Isaac Asimov
Country	USA
Language	English
Series	Robot Series
Genre(s)	science fiction short story
Released in	Astounding Science Fiction
Publisher	Street & Smith
Media Type	Magazine
Released	May 1941
Preceded by	Catch That Rabbit
Followed by	Satisfaction Guaranteed

Liar! is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov that first appeared in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and was reprinted in the collections I, Robot (1950) and The Complete Robot (1982). It was Asimov's third published positronic robot story.

Through a fault in manufacture, a robot, RB-34 (Herbie) is created that has the ability to read minds. While the roboticists at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men are trying to analyse what happened and why, the robot tells them what other people are thinking. But the First Law still applies to this robot, and so it deliberately lies when necessary to avoid hurting their feelings, especially in terms of the problem it was initially designed to solve. However, by lying, it is hurting them anyway. When it is confronted with this fact by Susan Calvin (to whom it told a lie that was particularly painful to her when it was shown to be false), the robot experiences an unresolvable logical conflict, which results in a total mental breakdown.

The application of the Three Laws of Robotics is again the subject here, like in many others of Asimov's stories, but in terms of telepathy. The lexical ambiguity that is explored here is the definition of injury, the robot having to take into account psychological injury as well as physical.

The story is also a striking early example of the "Does not compute" theme: an artificial intelligence being unable to resolve cognitive dissonance and hence self-destructing.

Another telepathic robot called R. Giskard Reventlov was later introduced by Asimov in the novel The Robots of Dawn, which takes place so long after "Liar!" that its events are considered mythical.

In 1969 this short story was adapted into an episode of the British television series Out of the Unknown.