Issac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics:
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43 Comments
Watch Family Guy instead! http://tvshack.net/tv/Family_Guy/season_7/episode_11/ It’s the episode where Meg becomes uber Christian :D
Family Guy is garbage! :)
HERESY!
Nothing is completely original, but Family Guy’s plaigarism is especially heinous. The show is a collection of other people’s jokes. If you think something is funny or original, you just don’t get the reference.
Not to mention none of the characters have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Brian comes closest.
Parody is not plagiarism, dude.
It’s weird: I know that, and yet I still make that claim :)
It grows on you… after a while the non sequitors are as charming as Stewie…
Ah yes, Jimmy Corrigan, the articulate, football-headed toddler who plots against his mother… er wait, I mean Stewie
Not having any redeeming qualities is part of their charm…
Though I do love Isaac Asimov’s books… The Foundation series are all awesome. Also, Robot Dreams is a great volume of short-stories.
Anyone who’s seen I Robot knows that it eventually leads to robots restricting our freedom to prevent us from hurting each other and Will Smith needs to save the world.
The film version of I Robot is a heinous insult to the book.
Respectfully disagree.
The “book” was a collection of nine short stories, exploring the consequences of the three laws. The movie, while not really based directly on any of the short stories, was an ample exercise on how the zeroth law may spontaneously evolve from a smart enough being restricted by the three laws contemplating their logical conclusion.
The zeroth law: a robot must not merely act in the interests of individual humans, but of all humanity.
The movie was horrible at this. Yes I understand that you are talking about the zeroth law ‘going wrong’. But the book was a collection of beautiful and indearing short stories, and I think only one of them had any form of foul play as a plot device. Remember the robot that learned how to write stories? That one was my personal favorite. The robot made stupid mistakes like write about a robot (with a very similar name to his), and made himself the hero to his master. Then he got better and better. It was cute, and excellent character progression.
The film was simply nothing like this. It was just ‘robots are scary and can kill’. Pretty much the opposite of the point of the book.
I,Robot (the film) = I,Candy and not much more.
The film was simply nothing like this. It was just ‘robots are scary and can kill’. Pretty much the opposite of the point of the book.
I,Robot (the film) = I,Candy and not much more.
Were we watching the same movie?
oops that story about the robot who wants to learn how to write was from ‘Gold’, not I,Robot. I haven’t read those books in 15 years, my bad. Point still stands though.
Zoidberg!
I dont’ quite like Asimov’s novels (sorry) but I enjoy very much his short stories (The last question, The ugly boy…) and, particularly, his awesome autobiography.
Agreed. I’ve been checking out collections of Asimov stories from the library recently. I’m currently juggling being an engineering student, athlete, and jobhunting, so it’s nice to be able to read some fiction without making the time commitment for a whole novel.
Wow! Was the Good Doctor ever that young?
No mutton chops yet, either!
I haven’t ever thought of a better alternative to the Laws of Robotics since reading about them 20 years ago. Best comment: Some of the robotics stories address the rights of a robot as a sentient life form, and Star Trek the second generation did too, in “The Measure of a Man” – was Data merely a toaster with no rights, if a researcher wanted to risk destroying his memories? If we are protoplasm machines, will silicon machines be sentient enough to want to preserve themselves?
I’m no Trekkie, but I’ve recently had some aspects of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future pointed out to me: no religion, for one thing; no currency, for another. That’s pretty sweet. Not really related to your point, just also involves Star Trek…
More relevantly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? also explores the question of defining humanity, and juxtaposes unfeeling humans with empathetic androids. (It’s the book the movie Blade Runner is based on, but while the character names and setting are similar, the focus is very different. Both are awesome though.)
Asimov notwithstanding, robots think we taste like bacon: http://www.wired.com/table_of_malcontents/2006/11/robot_identifie/
And so it begins …
The thing is, in Dr. A’s universe, the robot brains would not function without the laws. That isn’t really how technology would work; if you can make a true AI, you can make an AI without a ‘conscience’.
Not to sound like a Luddite, but how much of an AI do we need? Seriously, why would we need a machine that thinks like a human? What would it’s purpose be? Where could we trust it? Not it a Robot Uprising way, but in a more basic way.
That does beg the question: If an human-like AI is viable, how possible would a Robot Uprising be?
@flea: I agree. His short stories were lean, mean and powerful. I think he saved his rambling tendencies for his novels.
Why assume that a machine intelligence would think anything like a human?
A robit would be far less likely to use “begs the question” as a synonym for “raises the question”. Unless it was programmed to.
That is very un-human-like!
Actually, the Three Laws of Robotics are not very useful in governing robotic behavior. Even as a governing principle they’re simply too vague and don’t take risks and uncertainty into account. Indeed, rather than being a serious scientific suggestion, they served as a plot device for Asimov’s stories where the numerous ways the laws could be broken created the stories.
As the man himself said: “There was just enough ambiguity in the Three Laws to provide the conflicts and uncertainties required for new stories, and, to my great relief, it seemed always to be possible to think up a new angle out of the 61 words of the Three Laws.”
Here’s a serious look at the Three Laws:
Asimov’s Laws of Robotics – Implications for Information Technology
Actually, I have always thought of these 3 laws as an excellent foundation for human ethics. (MUCH BETTER than the, say, the 10 commandments.) Forget robots — these laws should prescribe how people behave. To see why, first consider that Asimov includes in his second law of obedience the need to respond truthfully to questions people ask robots. Now think about such an algorithm for life:
1) don’t hurt people
2) be honest
3) other than that, take care of yourself and enjoy!
I’ve never thought of them this way but, you’re absolutely right!
The US military apparently thinks these three laws are rubbish. They are working as fast as they can to replace human soldiers with robot soldiers. There are already remote controlled units in action. Next come the truly robotic.
How aggressive will politicians be once they don’t have to send any sons or daughters into harms way?
What would be the difference, then, between sending the robots and playing an online game war? I mean, stop wars and let them be only simulated ones!!
I know, too naïve, but i couldn’t avoid saying it
Well how aggressive can they be? Alot of countries out there have nukes and the ones that don’t still have CNN, Al-Jazeera and the internet so what will really change?
I like iRobot.
Nobody’s perfect.
Asimov himself disproved the utility of the three laws in one of his later books – The Robots of Dawn, if I recall accurately. The entire premise can be undermined once you realise there is no binding definition of the term “Human”.
The three laws of robotics annoy me because they are stupendously vague. They need to define terms to be useful. Just take the first one for example – a robot programmed to “never, through inaction, allow a human to come into harm” would be constantly busy, preventing abortions the world over, either by pushing legislation to make it illegal or actively kidnapping women as they walk into an abortion clinic and holding them captive for 9 months (that is, if every robot in the world hadn’t already decided to spend all its time researching cures for every possible disease). And there’s no mention of risk: a human swimming is at a higher risk of drowning than a human on land, so robots might decide to go around dragging people out of swimming pools.
Robots are not going to run on “common sense”, so the rules you give them have to be *absolutely* specific. Especially if human life is involved.
Nope. A robot would be smart enough to know that a little congregated bunch of cells is not a human being, so wouldn’t give a stuff about abortion.
I thought the movie was based on Asimov’s “Caves of Steel”, albeit loosely?
No, not really. “The Caves of Steel” is a pretty straightforward murder mystery, complicated by the interaction of two highly incompatible cultures. The Will Smith movie is more of a projection of themes from all of the Robot books.
Sundog,
Oh…OK Thanks. It’s been quite a few years since I read them.
I love the Assimov books, but I think it is fairly easy to puncture a hole in the 3 laws.
1) The best way to prevent humans from coming to harm is to prevent them from doing anything.
It balloons from there, but that interpretation of the first law allows for robot domination of mankind.
I thought the point of the laws was to have holes that create interesting plot circumstances.
Ah, yup. Some folks read into it that Asimov was launching a criticism of deontology (rules-based ethics), but I think personally he was just playing with a fun plot device.
I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.
But they cannot make me watch that Will Smith movie again.
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