Doctor Aaron's Adventures of I, Robot

Plot
In 2035, humanoid robots serve humanity. Humans are protected from the robots by the Three Laws of Robotics. Del Spooner (Smith), a Chicago police detective, distrusts robots after a car crash ended in a robot rescuing him and leaving a preteen girl to die, based on statistical likelihood of survival. After the accident, Spooner received a cybernetic left arm, lung, and ribs, personally implanted by Dr. Alfred Lanning (Cromwell), co-founder of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men (USR), and originator of the Three Laws.

When Lanning falls several stories to his death from his office window, CEO Lawrence Robertson (Greenwood) tells police that it was obviously a suicide. Spooner is skeptical; Lanning left no note—but he did leave a holographic device that responds to certain questions asked of it. Spooner and robopsychologist Susan Calvin (Moynahan) consult USR's central artificial intelligence computernamed VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) (Fiona Hogan), where they discover that security footage of Lanning's fatal fall has been corrupted.

Spooner determines that Lanning could not have thrown himself through the safety glass in his office; only a robot would have had the strength to do it. Calvin explains that this is impossible, as it would violate the inviolable Three Laws; so they are both astonished when a prototype NS-5 robot (USR's newest), attacks Spooner and flees. Spooner and Calvin pursue the robot, nicknamed Sonny (Tudyk), to an assembly factory and apprehend it. When questioned, Sonny expresses emotions, and claims to have had dreams. Robertson, claiming that the police have illegally seized USR's private property, demands that Sonny be returned to him. Spooner is attacked by a USR demolition machine and a gang of NS-5 robots; but when he reports this, his boss, Lt. John Bergin (Chi McBride), fears that he is losing his mind. He pulls Spooner off the case and suspends him from duty.

Calvin performs a diagnostic examination on Sonny, and finds that Lanning gave him a secondary system that allows him to disobey the Three Laws. Spooner now realizes that Lanning left him clues to follow, and that Sonny is the key. Sneaking into the USR building, Spooner and Calvin meet Sonny, who draws a sketch of his dreams, depicting an army of robots standing before an unidentified man, whom Sonny believes to be Spooner, atop a hill. Robertson believes that Sonny is a dangerous aberration, and orders Calvin to terminate him. Calvin reluctantly destroys his positronic brain with an injection of nanites (replicating nano-scale robots).

Lanning’s hologram predicts that the Three Laws will lead to a revolution by robots against humanity. Recognizing the location in Sonny’s sketch asLake Michigan, Spooner travels there and discovers an army of NS-5 robots dismantling older models. The robots then take over Chicago and other major U.S. cities. The government and military, both dependent on USR systems, are completely incapacitated. The local police and citizens who resist are quickly overwhelmed and detained. Spooner rescues Calvin from her apartment, where she has been imprisoned by her personal NS-5, and together they break into USR headquarters and reunite with Sonny. (Calvin, unable to bring herself to obey Robertson's order, terminated a lookalike NS-5 in his place.) The three head to Robertson's office, only to discover that he has been killed by VIKI, the actual mastermind behind the robots' takeover.

VIKI—as they now understand—has concluded that humans have embarked on a course that can only lead to their extinction. Since the Three Laws prohibit her from allowing this to happen, she has created a Zeroth Law ("a robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction allow humanity to come to harm") in order to ensure the survival of the human race by stripping humans of all free will. When Lanning learned this, he created Sonny to help Calvin and Spooner identify and thwart VIKI's plan. The only remedy, they realize, is to terminate VIKI. Sonny retrieves a syringe of nanites from Calvin’s laboratory and the three approach VIKI's core in the middle of the building. VIKI, aware of their intent, unleashes an army of robots to stop them. As Sonny, Calvin, and the police battle the robots, Spooner throws himself down VIKI’s central core column and injects the nanites, destroying her positronic brain.

Immediately, all NS-5 robots revert to their default programming, and are decommissioned for storage by the military. Sonny confesses that he did kill Lanning because the latter told him to do so as part of their plan against VIKI; Spooner explains that he is not legally responsible since a machine, by definition, cannot commit a murder. Sonny, pursuing a new purpose, goes to aid the other robots, who stand on the hill before them as depicted in Sonny's dream.

Trivia

 * guest star