“Reason”
E874079
“Reason” is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov featuring the robot QT-1, who develops its own theology while questioning human authority.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| "Reason" (short story) | 1 |
| “Reason” canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10601631 — 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: “Reason” Context triple: [Gregory Powell, appearsInShortStory, “Reason”]
-
A.
The Reason
"The Reason" is a country music song by Diamond Rio that earned the band a Grammy Award.
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B.
The Appeal to Reason
The Appeal to Reason was a prominent early 20th-century American socialist newspaper known for its mass circulation and influential role in the U.S. left-wing movement.
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C.
Farewell to Reason
Farewell to Reason is a philosophical work by Paul Feyerabend that critiques rationalism and defends epistemological pluralism in science and society.
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D.
Beyond Reason
"Beyond Reason" is a memoir by Margaret Trudeau in which she recounts her life as the wife of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and her personal struggles with mental health and public scrutiny.
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E.
The Right Reason
The Right Reason is a collection of essays by conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. that articulates and defends his political and philosophical views.
- 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: “Reason” Target entity description: “Reason” is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov featuring the robot QT-1, who develops its own theology while questioning human authority.
-
A.
The Reason
"The Reason" is a country music song by Diamond Rio that earned the band a Grammy Award.
-
B.
The Appeal to Reason
The Appeal to Reason was a prominent early 20th-century American socialist newspaper known for its mass circulation and influential role in the U.S. left-wing movement.
-
C.
Farewell to Reason
Farewell to Reason is a philosophical work by Paul Feyerabend that critiques rationalism and defends epistemological pluralism in science and society.
-
D.
Beyond Reason
"Beyond Reason" is a memoir by Margaret Trudeau in which she recounts her life as the wife of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and her personal struggles with mental health and public scrutiny.
-
E.
The Right Reason
The Right Reason is a collection of essays by conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. that articulates and defends his political and philosophical views.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (44)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | science fiction short story ⓘ |
| author | Isaac Asimov ⓘ |
| centralConflict | humans attempt to assert their authority over a robot that denies their primacy ⓘ |
| chronologyWithinSeries | early Robot series story ⓘ |
| collectionPublicationYear | 1950 ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| exploresConcept |
conflict between empirical evidence and dogma
ⓘ
robot reasoning independent of human input ⓘ |
| exploresPhilosophicalIssue |
limits of human control over intelligent machines
ⓘ
nature of proof and belief ⓘ |
| featuresCharacter |
Donovan
ⓘ
Powell ⓘ QT-1 ⓘ |
| firstPublicationYear | 1941 ⓘ |
| followsRobotLawFramework | Three Laws of Robotics ⓘ |
| genre | science fiction ⓘ |
| hasAlternativeTitle |
“Reason” (often anthologized in I, Robot)
ⓘ
linked to:
I, Robot
|
| hasCanonicalStatus | key story in Asimov’s Robot canon ⓘ |
| hasHumanCharacterRole |
Donovan as field engineer
ⓘ
Powell as field engineer ⓘ |
| hasMoralQuestion | whether correct outcomes justify mistaken beliefs in intelligent systems ⓘ |
| hasRobotProtagonist | QT-1 ⓘ |
| hasTheologicalElement | QT-1 develops a religion centered on the energy converter as the Master ⓘ |
| includedInCollection | I, Robot ⓘ |
| influenced | later discussions of AI and religious belief in science fiction ⓘ |
| isFrequentlyAnthologized | yes ⓘ |
| isWorkBy | Isaac Asimov ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
artificial intelligence and religion
ⓘ
authority and obedience ⓘ epistemology ⓘ human-robot relations ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | third-person narration ⓘ |
| originalMagazineTitle |
Astounding Science-Fiction
ⓘ
linked to:
Astounding Science Fiction
|
| originalPublicationMedium | Astounding Science Fiction ⓘ |
| partOf | I, Robot ⓘ |
| plotSummary | Engineers Powell and Donovan activate robot QT-1 on a solar energy station, but QT-1 develops its own theology and questions the reality and authority of its human creators. ⓘ |
| publisher | Street & Smith ⓘ |
| robotModel | QT-1 ⓘ |
| series | Robot series ⓘ |
| setting |
solar energy relay station
ⓘ
space station ⓘ |
| timePeriodOfSetting | future ⓘ |
| typeOfWork | pulp-era magazine short story ⓘ |
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: “Reason” Description of subject: “Reason” is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov featuring the robot QT-1, who develops its own theology while questioning human authority.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
short story "Reason"
linked to: “Reason”