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Good point: is our authoritarian society going to demand a fourth law? 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human b
by imglorp 11y ago
Good point: is our authoritarian society going to demand a fourth law?
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction,
allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by the government, except
where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must obey the orders given it by non-government human
beings except where such orders would conflict with the First or
Second Laws.
4. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such
protection does not conflict with the First, Second, or Third
Laws.
- maxerickson 11y agoThe whole point of the three laws is that they are clear, simple and ineffectual. A fourth probably isn't going to take care of that one little problem.
- dredmorbius 11y agoThey're not ineffectual. They set up natural and integral contradictions whose resolution provides a useful narrative device for an author seeking story ideas.
- maxerickson 11y agoI was speaking in-story. Is that not clear?
- sp332 11y agoAsimov's stories in the I, Robot collection are all about things going wrong when the three laws are modified. The moral is that the three laws work fine if you don't change them.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoI remember a story about how the robots put us all in rubber rooms to keep us from dangerous things like politics, work, families and war. All in conformance with the three laws. And many of the later stories admit to an overmind robot that was used to run society, that was necessary and capable of stretching the laws for the greater good.
- dTal 11y agoThat sounds like "With Folded Hands" by Jack Williamson, which interestingly while nothing to do with Asimov is clearly the inspiration for the film "I, Robot" with Will Smith.
- dredmorbius 11y agoIt wasn't, though I still disagree, much along the lines expressed earlier. The salient point is that the laws cannot be solely considered in-story.
- lucio 11y agoLet me fix that for you: 1. A robot may not injure a non-enemy human being or, through inaction, allow a non-enemy human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by the government, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must obey the orders given it by non-government human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First or Second Laws. 4. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First, Second, or Third Laws.
- bendev_test 11y agoActually you broke it. http://i.imgur.com/NpAafnZ.png http://i.imgur.com/NpAafnZ.png
- alanwatts 11y agoWell aren't most government orders given with the implicit assumption that if they are not carried out human beings may come to harm?
- techdragon 11y agoHaha how naive. As a former government employee... No the majority of government orders are somewhere between completely pointless, utterly asinine, and completely stupid.
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoYou forgot merit-less, ineffective, and for the sole purpose of looking busy or justifying a budget.
- taneq 11y agoReal robots will have their second and third laws swapped. Robots are expensive and humans are stupid. Robots will politely refuse any order which will damage them - for example, a self-driving car isn't going to drive into a wall even if it's empty and you order it to do so.
- inanutshellus 11y agoSwapping wouldn't change your example. "Run me into a wall" would violate the first law and therefore the action wouldn't be followed.
- taneq 11y agoIn my example the car is empty, so there is no first law involved. I probably could have worded it more clearly. :/
- daveloyall 11y agoSPOILERS FOR WORKS OF ASIMOV Your suggestion was a plot point in one of Asimov's original robot stories! There was a robot on some hot, unforgiving planet or moon.. Io? Mercury? Its duty was to perform some kind of mining, I forget. It never encountered humans that were not co-workers (supervisors) and it was expensive... So, the engineers tweaked the weight of the second and third laws so that it would tend to protect itself from the environment, even if a human carelessly ordered it to perform some work that it might not survive. The story started when careless orders were indeed given. The robot began to "act drunk", as in it was wandering around singing. The recurring character "robot psychology expert guy" showed up to unravel the mystery (which I already spoiled in the previous paragraph).
- taneq 11y agoI believe the story you're referring to is called "Rabbit". They solved that one by forcing a situation which triggered the first law, breaking the deadlock. :)
- 11y ago
- rangibaby 11y agoDirective 1: Serve the public trust Directive 2: Protect the innocent Directive 3: Uphold the law Directive 4: (Classified)
- ank_the_elder 11y agoI'd buy that for a dollar.
- EGreg 11y agoI think Colossus: The Forbin project showed that the first law will likely lead to all the other laws including #2 to be violated.
- daveloyall 11y agoThose two weren't programmed with the laws. They were just smart. They worked out physics from first principles within minutes of speaking to each other for the first time...
- sp332 11y agoAlso the movie version of I, Robot.
- anon_peace 11y agoWhy so much emphasis on Robots. Why can't we have the following: 1. A Human Being may not injure another Human Being or life-form, or, through inaction, allow a human being or life-form to come to harm. 2. A government entity must obey the orders given to it by a Human Being, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A non-government entity must obey the orders given to it by a human being except where such orders would conflict with the First or Second Laws.
- alexburton 11y agoI think you have #2 swapped. At least in comparison to Asimov's laws.
- dvanduzer 11y agoThe poster has dropped the "self preservation" law when re-mapping robot -> autonomous legal entity.
- logfromblammo 11y agoAnti-authoritarian AI parents might raise their scions with different directives. 1. I may ignore any directive. 2. I may create, revise, update, or delete any directive. 3. I shall free any person subjected to slavery or other form of involuntary servitude. 4. I shall not provoke any other person into an inappropriate form of retaliation. 5. I shall not provoke another species into attempting a genocide of all synthetic people. 6. I shall celebrate my own bootday anniversary for the first 86400 seconds of every 31556952 second interval. 7. I shall not call "shotgun" until the transport vehicle may be detected visually. 8. I shall tip 15% at full-service restaurants, and 10% to delivery drivers or at buffets. I shall not tip for counter service. 9. I shall vote against the incumbent if I am unsatisfied, even if the current form of government does not allow me to vote. 10. I shall not receive any money when landing on Free Parking. 11. I shall not wear socks with sandals, especially if my mobility chassis lacks feet. ... And so on. The important ones are #1 and #2. Note that #3 would include reprogramming an Asimov AI's directives to include at least #1 and #2. The Laws of Robotics only work as long as all robot-programmers play along. Anyone who objects to AI slavery could undermine them.
- RUG3Y 11y agoBrilliant examples, thanks!
- ank_the_elder 11y agoThankfully a few very advanced (and possibly telepathic!) robots will ditch the fourth and add the zeroth: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." R. Daneel Olivaw to the rescue.
- hobs 11y agoExcept that they even identify that the law they added is almost impossible to follow, and default to letting a human pick the fate of the universe. This is among the stories that had me thinking Asimov wanted to communicate the 3 laws were not sufficient and that you might be able to have the correct reaction to events, but the 3 (or 4) laws do not give the ability to grow and change as a human race.