Fun post. There's some fluff on the way but the central idea that the general function Harm(R, D) is equivalent to the halting problem seems almost trivially ob

Fun post. There's some fluff on the way but the central idea that the general function Harm(R, D) is equivalent to the halting problem seems almost trivially obvious once you ask the question. (So much for the laws of robotics.) My question is whether this approach even models the issue correctly. We humans have problems just defining what terms like happiness, harm, and other general concepts even mean. There's no reason to think that AIs will be any better, whether assisted by us or through their own methods of discovery. Many successful systems humans have developed for reducing harm take the approach of building up rules for specific cases rather than trying to deduce the cases and their solutions from general principles. Every legal system I can think of works this way and they have by and large worked pretty well. The successful ones have a method for adding to case law in a systematic way, ideally without going to war in the process. So maybe we should keep the lawyers around after all?