Catch that Rabbit

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Catch that Rabbit (1944) is a science fiction short story found in I, Robot and written by Isaac Asimov.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The recurring team of Powell and Donovan are in charge of field tests on an asteroid mining station with a robot, DV-5 (Dave). But the robot stops producing ore, and cannot explain why. The robot is a new model with six subsidiary robots under its control, and when they secretly observe the robot, it starts performing strange marches and dances with its subsidiaries whenever something unexpected happens. It is up to the two field testers to figure out why Dave is acting the way he is.

Here, Asimov anthropomorphises by having a robot twiddle its thumbs when it can't think of what to do. (Which is to say that one of the characters draws that analogy; how seriously Asimov meant it is unclear.) In many cases, robopsychology - personified by Susan Calvin - runs parallel to human psychology. For instance, at this point in I, Robot we have already seen hysteria and religious mania.