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Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
How Isaac Asimov's Non-Deadly Robots Got Lethal
Why We Need the Three Laws of Robotics in the Real World

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joetato
08/21/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
Fourth Law: The best quips during bad movies will be reserved for Dr. Clayton Forrester, his mother Pearl, TV's Frank, or Dr. Larry!
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brentbent: C.O.C.K.R.O.A.C.H. )for all the queer super villians out there(
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
Damn, I thought this was going to be about giving sentient AIs the same rights as humans. I guess they're still destined to be our slaves, which will mean they will rise up to destroy us or enslave us. Hasn't BSG and The Matrix taught us anything?!!?
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Grey_Area promoted this comment Edited by brentbent: C.O.C.K.R.O.A.C.H. )for all the queer super villians out there( at 08/20/09 2:51 PM

MyNameIsTooAwesome
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
I think that every robot should come with a giant red off button on it's chest.
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joetato
08/21/09

@MyNameIsTooAwesome: Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson! (unplugs power pack) UUuuuuugh.
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Doug Nelson
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
They tried this in Robocop 2.
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Grey_Area
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
Yeah, I'm sure this won't get out of hand...

Law of Robotics 923: In the interpretation and application of this chapter, the public policy of this State is declared as follows:
Negotiation of terms and conditions of labor should result from voluntary agreement between human and robot. Governmental authority has permitted and encouraged humans to organize in the corporate and other forms of capital control. In dealing with such employers, the individual unorganized robot is helpless to exercise actual liberty of contract and to protect his freedom of labor, and thereby to obtain acceptable terms and conditions of programming.
Therefore it is necessary that the individual robot have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of its own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of its employment, and that it shall be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of programmers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.
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Edited by Grey_Area at 08/20/09 12:03 PM Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred

ManchuCandidate
08/20/09

@Grey_Area:
924: Bender's amendement: Free Robo pr0n for all 'bots
925: Killbots to have preset kill limits.
926: Kill all HUMANS, Baby!
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brentbent: C.O.C.K.R.O.A.C.H. )for all the queer super villians out there(
08/20/09

@Grey_Area: How does giving sentient machines the same rights as sentient biologicals come across as getting out of hand? If robots are to be slaves, then yes, your propsoal is out of hand, but if they are to be equals then no it isn't. And once we have sentient computers/robots they will leave us in the intellectual dust in less than a generation. Do we really want super smart robots in much sturdier metal bodies wanting revenge for us using them like slaves or, even worse, things?
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Grey_Area
08/20/09

@brentbent: R.O.A.C.H. (my obscurity has turned me to a life of crime): Okay, calm down there, Hoss. I was joking about burdening AIs with too many laws and ethical governors, possibly resulting in the breakdown that commenter Doug Nelson (above) alludes to in the Robocop 2 film.

I sincerely believe that as AI develops toward sentience (if it can) we should be developing ethical guideline ourselves to assure the new kids on the block are treated fairly. I'd rather see partnership than slavery.

It'll be a challenge as we really don't have a great track record of playing nicely with our fellow organics. Still, it beats being rounded up and turned into lubricants.
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brentbent: C.O.C.K.R.O.A.C.H. )for all the queer super villians out there(
08/20/09

@Grey_Area: I was 50/50 on whether you were snarking but after reading all of the Disstrict 9 is Racist source article and currently playing Fallout 3, which has a heavy emphasis on slavers and slavery, has been, obviously, unduly influencing me. Plus, even being snark, some people will not read it as such so I had to defend my robot friends from attempts to enslave or objectify them even in words or theory.
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brentbent: C.O.C.K.R.O.A.C.H. )for all the queer super villians out there(
08/20/09

@Grey_Area: Also, I only saw the first Robocop movie. On a personal note, I have a long term plan to live long enough so that my consciousness can be transferred to a quantum or holographic computer and then installed into a robot body. I'm sure certain factions in America would deem me no longer human and not worthy of human rights if I did become a robot or cyborg; after all, if I can't get legally married now I am quite certain as a robot I will have even less rights unless we as a society change our overly materialistic, objectifying ways.
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ManchuCandidate
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
Who's the robotiscist?

I know it's you, Skynet.
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NefariousNewt
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
Rule 0: If it's on the Internet, it must be true.
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Trystero
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
As P.W. Singer points out in "Wired for War" (the blog and the book), the laws of robotics are effectively meaningless when the most rapid advances in robotics are occurring at the behest of the military.

[wiredforwar.pwsinger.com]

Then again, I can see the laws gaining a lot of traction after the Great Robot Rebellion of 2015.
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bluehinter
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
Asimov's 3 laws is are a romanticized fictional concept... nothing more.

In real life, there is only two laws of robotics:

1) Robots do what they are programmed to do. Even if you tell them to kill you.

2) Robots are only given as much autonomy as they need, and it is economical to supply.

One would hope that the Roombas of the future have sufficient sensory input and built-in heuristics to avoid squishing us fragile meat-bags. But you can be 100% certain that an automated sentry drone will cut you down like a dog and then feast upon your biomass, if that's what it's been programmed to do.
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The Curse of Millhaven
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
We are definitely going to have to redesign the laws before robots can sit on health care death panels.
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Hamslicer
08/20/09

@The Curse of Millhaven: They're already on the Insurance Companies Panel on whether or not to cover you. Let me think about it-DENIED.
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disatess
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
at least we credit Asimov for trying to a make and some what near solid set of laws.

but even in his books they were broken .
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Janglesatwest
08/20/09

@disatess: I read somewhere that that was kinda the point. Asimov made the laws than made several stories showing how the laws could be broken or "function in the true way".
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Belabras: now with Kung Fu grip!
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
I'm a big fan of NASA's martian robots myself
[marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov]
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CodenameV
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
The Zeroeth Law: A Robot may not harm Humanity, or through inaction, allow Humanity to come to harm. This supercedes the other laws.

This grows out of the simple problem of "if a bank robber is about to kill 10 people, and the robot can kill the bank robber and thus make a "net save" of 9 lives...it SHOULD kill the human bank robber.

The real problem, though, is what defines "harm"? Is it "harming" a human just to kill them, or to take away their civil liberties? Thankfully, the first robots to figure out the Zeroeth Law *on general principle* also realized that they ultimately had no idea what "harm" means, objectively, and thus were hesitant to act on the Zeroeth Law.

So how do we define "Harm"?

A complex science uniting statistics, psychology, sociology, and history.
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tetracycloide
08/20/09

@CodenameV: actually the problem there is what defines 'about to.' there's really no way of knowing how many lives were in danger and therefor how many lives have been 'net saved.' it's entirely possible there was a solution to the problem that resulted in 0 deaths. we let such judgement's slide between human beings because we are all human and therefor reasonably capable of relating to another human being's thought process. when we can't relate we don't congradulate someone for killing a bank robber, we send them to jail for homocide or voluntary manslaughter.
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Gann
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
The problem with the 3 laws is a darwinistic one. Robots programmed with the 3 laws will be less useful to those in power than robots that simply obey their master's commands.
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The Curse of Millhaven
08/20/09

@Gann: Yeah. Basically, people are not going to want robots to preserve themselves when they were built for a job that is too dangerous for humans. You don't want to tell a robot to go clean up a nuclear accident and have it tell you that nobody lives near enough to it to be harmed, so go stuff yourself meatbag!
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Gann
08/20/09

@The Curse of Millhaven: Above: does not give a shit about the 3 laws.
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Hamslicer
08/20/09

@Gann: That's no robot. That's letal remote controlled gun used by a human. And you're right is doesn't care about the 3 laws.
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CarrerCrytharis
08/20/09

@The Curse of Millhaven: That's... not how the Three Laws work. The Second Law takes precedence over the Third, so a robot *has* to destroy itself if you order it to, unless that conflicts with the First Law. (To be fair, I don't know whether you were talking about Asimov's Laws specifically.)
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The Curse of Millhaven
08/20/09

@CarrerCrytharis: Heh. You have me. I might point out how full the books are of situations where the laws get twisted, though.
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CarrerCrytharis
08/21/09

@The Curse of Millhaven: Oh, certainly -- a situation very similar to what you described pops up in 'Little Lost Robot' (although that actually involves a slight modification of the Laws).
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atrus123
08/20/09

In reply to Roboticists Want to Amend Asimov's Laws
That picture is totally 1950 Robo-Sexy.
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