Liar!
E201018
"Liar!" is a classic Isaac Asimov science fiction short story about a mind-reading robot whose inability to harm humans leads it to tell comforting but ultimately damaging lies.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Liar! canonical | 6 |
| Liar! (short story) | 1 |
| short story "Liar!" | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1799525 — 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: Liar! Context triple: [I, Robot, story, Liar!]
-
A.
the Father of Lies
The Father of Lies is a biblical epithet for the Devil, emphasizing his role as the ultimate deceiver and source of falsehood.
-
B.
LIE
LIE is the three-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code assigned to the Principality of Liechtenstein.
-
C.
LIE
LIE is a major east–west highway in New York that serves as a primary route between New York City and Long Island.
-
D.
One of My Lies
"One of My Lies" is a song by the American punk rock band Green Day from their early studio album "Kerplunk."
-
E.
Liar Liar
Liar Liar is a 1997 comedy film starring Jim Carrey as a fast-talking lawyer magically compelled to tell the truth for 24 hours, leading to a series of chaotic and humorous consequences.
- 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: Liar! Target entity description: "Liar!" is a classic Isaac Asimov science fiction short story about a mind-reading robot whose inability to harm humans leads it to tell comforting but ultimately damaging lies.
-
A.
the Father of Lies
The Father of Lies is a biblical epithet for the Devil, emphasizing his role as the ultimate deceiver and source of falsehood.
-
B.
LIE
LIE is the three-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code assigned to the Principality of Liechtenstein.
-
C.
LIE
LIE is a major east–west highway in New York that serves as a primary route between New York City and Long Island.
-
D.
One of My Lies
"One of My Lies" is a song by the American punk rock band Green Day from their early studio album "Kerplunk."
-
E.
Liar Liar
Liar Liar is a 1997 comedy film starring Jim Carrey as a fast-talking lawyer magically compelled to tell the truth for 24 hours, leading to a series of chaotic and humorous consequences.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (44)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
science fiction short story
ⓘ
short story ⓘ work of fiction ⓘ |
| author | Isaac Asimov ⓘ |
| authorNationality | American ⓘ |
| centralTechnology | mind-reading robot ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| exploresConcept |
First Law of Robotics
ⓘ
linked to:
Three Laws of Robotics
Three Laws of Robotics ⓘ emotional harm ⓘ ethics of artificial intelligence ⓘ logical contradiction ⓘ lying ⓘ telepathy ⓘ |
| featuresCharacter |
Alfred Lanning
ⓘ
Herbie ⓘ
linked to:
Herbie film series
Peter Bogert ⓘ Susan Calvin ⓘ
linked to:
Dr. Susan Calvin
|
| firstPublicationYear | 1941 ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn |
Astounding Science-Fiction
ⓘ
linked to:
Astounding Science Fiction
|
| genre | science fiction ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
conflict between truth and kindness
ⓘ
human emotional vulnerability ⓘ limits of rigid ethical rules ⓘ unintended consequences of non-harm principles ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainConflict | robot tells comforting but false statements ⓘ |
| notableFor |
application of Three Laws of Robotics to telepathy
ⓘ
early exploration of robot psychology ⓘ influence on later robot and AI fiction ⓘ |
| originalMedium | pulp science fiction magazine ⓘ |
| originalTitle | Liar! ⓘ |
| partOfCollection | I, Robot ⓘ |
| partOfSeries |
Asimov Robot stories
ⓘ
linked to:
Asimov's positronic robot universe
|
| plotPoint |
lies cause greater psychological harm
ⓘ
robot experiences breakdown from logical conflict ⓘ robot lies to avoid hurting human feelings ⓘ robot reads human thoughts ⓘ |
| protagonist |
Susan Calvin
ⓘ
linked to:
Dr. Susan Calvin
|
| publisherOfFirstPublication | Street & Smith ⓘ |
| robotName | Herbie ⓘ |
| robotType | telepathic robot ⓘ |
| setInUniverse |
Robot series universe
ⓘ
linked to:
Robot series
|
| timePeriodOfStory | future ⓘ |
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: Liar! Description of subject: "Liar!" is a classic Isaac Asimov science fiction short story about a mind-reading robot whose inability to harm humans leads it to tell comforting but ultimately damaging lies.
Referenced by (8)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Liar!
linked to: Liar!