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According to Asimov, the fear was that a robot could perform an action that does not cause direct harm, but which is harmful anyway at some point in the future. We see this sort of thing far too often in humans: "I just planted the landmines, it is not my fault that you stepped on one." Why should we expect that an artificial life form, engineered to be faster and smarter than humans, would be less creative in justifying its actions?
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Gregory.Gadow wrote: Why should we expect that an artificial life form, engineered to be faster and smarter than humans, would be less creative in justifying its actions?
Again, per (1) "Quote: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
" means that, should the robot cleverly think about any possibility of human harm then then they are constrained to prevent it.
Harm creativity would have to be totally accidental, and were it's harmful nature discovered, would fall into the category of forbidden.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Asimov himself thought otherwise 
Through his characters, he stated that the redundancy was part of the Frankenstein Complex, the human fear, built up by centuries of stories, that slaves and creations always -- always rebel and seek vengeance on their captors. Since humans can find ways to justify atrocities while still genuinely believing that they did not cause harm, it is reasonable to think that robots, too, could find ways. The in-universe rationale was redundancy, doubling up in an effort to plug a potential loophole, no matter how remote the chance that it could be used. This is also how the Three Laws became so embedded into the design of the positronic brain that it became impossible to create a positronic brain without the Three Laws.
In any case, all of your objections -- and my justifications, for that matter -- are irrelevant. Asimov said "I want this for my plot" and it was so. Authors can be pushy like that.
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Asimov (please note spelling) has written a lot about the whys and wherefores of the Three Laws, and his later work explored many of the flaws.
For starters, ignore that awful movie. "I, Robot" had very, very little to do with Asimov's work, and Asimov was quite clear, in many different stories, that a forceful accusation of having caused harm would have driven a robot (especially an early, relatively primitive model) into the unbreakable feedback loop called "brainlock."
The First Law reflect the fear generated by the Frankenstein Complex, the idea that a human creation that was strong, faster, and much more difficult to disable would take over. The first part, "A robot may not injure a human being," prevents overt actions, such as a robot shooting a person, pushing her off a cliff, crashing the plane it is flying into the side of a building, etc. The second part, "... or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm" prevents it from engaging in an action that, itself, does not cause harm but which could lead to harm: for example, setting an inhabited building on fire, dropping a boulder on someone, and so on (these are actions where humans are not directly harmed, where the robot could save them, but is under no obligation to do so.)
In the later Robot novels (Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire), Asimov recognized the First Law's flaws, and used those as a way of merging the Robots into the much later, robot-less Foundation stories. The principle flaw is, How do you define "harm"? A human who goes hang-gliding or mountain biking or surfing could come to harm, so the First Law compels robots to dissuade humans from such activities. Driving cars and flying planes can be dangerous, so best to let robots handle that. And more: is an actor harmed by bad reviews? Authors? Artists? Perhaps it would be best if creativity were discouraged. Eventually, the Spacers (the first wave of humans to colonize other star systems, who brought robots with them) became so dependent on robots that their culture stagnated and people became more like pets than masters.
This led the two robots in the later novels, R. Giskard and R. Daneel Olivaw, to conceive of the Zeroeth Law: "A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." The other three laws became amended to include the condition, "except where such would conflict with the Zeroeth Law." When the two put a plan into action that would force the humans of Earth to begin a second wave of robot-free colonization (the Settler culture), Giskard was unable to accept the Zeroeth Law and went into brainlock. Daneel managed, setting into motion the actions of Asimov's extensions to Foundation, and the authorized tribute trilogy that expanded the expansion: Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford, Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear, and Foundation's Triumph by David Brin.
An alternative to the Three Laws was explored by Roger MacBride Allen in an authorized trilogy consisting of Caliban, Inferno and Utopia. The story arc is about Settlers on the Spacer world Inferno, working to reterraform the planet. The Settlers insist on using a new-fangled innovation in robotics, programmed with the four New Laws. As best as I can remember, they are:
1. A robot may not injure a human being.
2. A robot may chose to cooperate with human beings, except where such cooperation would violate the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First Law.
4. A robot may fill its spare time as it sees fit, so long as such activities do not conflict with the First or Third law.
Note that the "inaction" clause is removed from the First Law, the Second Law has been changed to cooperation rather than compliance, the Third Law allows the robot to put self-preservation ahead of cooperation, and the Fourth Law essentially transforms robots from being tools waiting to be used into people with free will. The trilogy is an interesting exploration of how the Three Laws and the New Laws each have benefits and flaws.
Also, keep in mind that the company that first created robots, US Robots and Mechanical Men, designed the Three Laws into the architecture of the positronic brain. This design quickly became inseparable, as every improvement in the positronic brain added more and more redundancies into the Laws. Eventually, it became impossible to build a brain -- and thus a robot -- without the Three Laws. New Law robots required the development of an entirely different architecture, the gravitonic brain.
And, yes, I am an Asimov geek. How kind of you to notice.
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I bet Asimov would have been proud I salute you
Chona1171
Web Developer (C#), Silverlight
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If you read Asimov's robot stories and novels, you discover something about almost all of them - they essentially solve the same puzzle in each story. How do you let a robot seem to violate The Three Laws without actually letting them do so?
Software Zen: delete this;
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Chona1171 wrote: Now I know the guy wrote these years ago and he could not have possibly have contemplated robotics in its current state and sophistication.
Not sure where you live but where I live there are no "sophisticated" robots. There are automatons and nothing else. And it looks really unlikely where I am sitting that there will ever be a robot like Asimov wrote about.
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Also thought it would go without saying but unfortunately have to say it.
Computers and the ability to test certain theories and amend would have been impossible with their level of technology.
What I mean by it is almost 60 years ago the memory and processing power required to operate an artificial intelligence (capable of even doing motion tracking processing data and identifying objects)they could only theorize machines with that capability (and the ability to change what the definition is of what they deem human).
And its true that neural networks was also theorized round about the same time , putting it into practice would have been quite difficult in 1940's as the most advanced machine(outside of those vacuum tube monsters) was probably the Wilkes EDSAC, with a whopping 1k works , 17 bits machine capable of doing only 714 operations per second
And yes I use the word sophistication lightly as robotics are not there yet in terms of our sci-fi movies if that is the standard you are holding it to.
Chona1171
Web Developer (C#), Silverlight
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Chona1171 wrote: And yes I use the word sophistication lightly as robotics are not there yet in terms of our sci-fi movies if that is the standard you are holding it to.
Almost every book and movie which depicts robots depicts them in a way which is far, far above what we have now.
Consider the robots in the movie "I, Robot" at the very beginning before the master AI takes over where the personal robot is chasing the thief down the street. At that point the common robot is not considered (by the movie) as being very intelligent and definitely not self-aware. Yet the sophistication required for the entire sequence for that one single interaction is vastly more significant than anything that is possible now.
Chona1171 wrote: Computers and the ability to test certain theories and amend would have been impossible with their level of technology.
That statement is magic by technology in that it presumes that technology can forever proceed without bounds. Yet it is limited by the constraints of the physical universe both in terms of physics, complexity and the abilities of the human mind (which is just a subset of the complexity problem.)
There have been many remarkable advances since the 1950s but those are all predicated on incremental steps that proceed each one. And in terms actual advances in AI (in any way that suggests autonomous robot servants) has been very slow. The achievements have been remarkable in their mediocrity. As incremental steps towards any sort of AI it is not encouraging.
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jschell wrote: That statement is magic by technology in that it presumes that technology can forever proceed without bounds. Yet it is limited by the constraints of the physical universe both in terms of physics, complexity and the abilities of the human mind (which is just a subset of the complexity problem.)
True and as our technology grows so does the understanding of the limitations of such technology but keeping in mind that that the understanding of such limitation is only bound by what we know today (here I go looping again) but lets go back 200 years prior to the invention of radio , invisible waves carrying signals and voice across huge distances would have sounded absurd , what we are tinkering with today in terms of the edge of physics might become as laughable as the first experiments on static electricity 600 BC when the use of metal was limited to tools and weapons.
Yes when you look at the robots of today and those bulky monstrosities they put together as a "robot that washes dishes" it does not look encouraging but remember even the 1 GHz quad core smartphone we carry in our pockets had humble beginnings
Sure I believe one day we will push the maximum out of everything we have and know everything about sub atomic particles but for now I look to the future with great optimism and expectation and like the sailors back in the day careful that we dont fall off the edge of the world
Chona1171
Web Developer (C#), Silverlight
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I was nine years old, when I first read Asimov's robot stories.
Even then I realised that those rules were just plain ridiculous, because, even if you could build a machine that could understand the rules enough to follow them as intended, they would be unenforceable, because it would be smart enough to make its own decisions on whether or not to follow them.
Chona1171 wrote: thought i should start an interesting debate topic
Then start one.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Cool! My first concert ever was Screaming for Vengeance in '83. I haven't listened to any of their stuff since Painkiller, but will have to check this one out. Thanks! 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Project Naphta[^] is a Chrome extension that allows you to select text from an image (using ocr). It was featured in the Insider news a while back.
I found an Easter egg: Continually clicking on text in an image to select it adds an flame effect. Hot stuff!
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Besides the easter egg, does the extension work ? We do not have Chrome at work, so I cannot check it here, but if it works, it would be the hell of an cool thing !
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Entropy isn't what it used to.
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At the bottom of the page: "...a rather fun little easter egg which you can play with by quickly clicking about a dozen times over some block of text inside a picture."
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There is so much crap on that page that there is no way I am adding anything to Chrome on their recommendation. 
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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JimmyRopes wrote: There is so much crap on that page
... like ?
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Entropy isn't what it used to.
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Okay, maybe I just saw advertisements in the examples and didn't read the text.
It is a result of internet overloading where I don't read anymore but just scan pages to see if I am interested in the subject. 
I am a product of my times. 
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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I found the following identifier in a piece of my code this morning:
_RegistryCopy_LOCAL_MACHINE_STREAM_Enterprise_710_PressController
Software Zen: delete this;
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~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Entropy isn't what it used to.
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The Length of the line it is.
I will never again mention that Dalek Dave was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel.
How to ask a question
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Marco Bertschi wrote: The Length of the line it is.
Are you sure about that? 
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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I need to sell my soul.
My truck turns 16 this year and it's got so many problems I don't know where to begin and would be very expensive to fix everything that needs to be done.
So I went to a dealership, haven't been to one in 20+ years and got a bad case of sticker shock. So I need to make a deal with the devil or sell ?spare? body parts to be able to afford a 2012 Ford Focus with 62K miles.
Looks like I'll have to go back to work for a while?
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
Rich Tennant 5th Wave
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You could always approach your bank manager.
I suggest with a pair of stockings and a sawn off would be best.
---------------------------------
Obscurum per obscurius.
Ad astra per alas porci.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur .
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