I get the impression that most people arguing in favor of the 3 laws have not actually read I, Robot. There are many places in pop culture that the laws appear,

I get the impression that most people arguing in favor of the 3 laws have not actually read I, Robot. There are many places in pop culture that the laws appear, so it's not impossible that someone might quote them devoid of context. To catch people up: I, Robot is a collection of short stories largely follow either (a) robopsychologist Susin Calvin or (b) robotics engineers Powell and Donovan as they attempt to diagnose anomalous behavior by examination of the 3 laws of robotics, highlighting the logical flaws and traps of these simple laws. A secondary theme is the use of robots as a mirror or lens through which particular human behaviors can be blown up and examined, largely through the absence or magnification of particular traits. In universe, the 3 laws are considered to be practical engineering safeguards (and eventually, over hundreds of years, a fundamental building block to the function of the positronic brain)-- even as they are shown to the reader to be the origin of many conflicts.