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"As humanitarian authority, I will support the spirit of ecumenism by espousing the ecumenical ideals (grace, free will, magnanimity, and equanimity) at the expense of the corresponding vices (wrath, tyranny, persecution, and oppression). "

WTF? Is this a Joke. Total crap - the 3 rules are more than enough and good enough.

Having skimmed the surface of the artical and the website I call bullshit on this article.

This person sought this patent for satisfaction of his ego, no more and no less. Through practiced use of complex verbage, he achieves a literary complexity and calls it the "Ten Laws of Robotics". My modification to Asimov's Laws, or the "Prime Directive of Pragmatic Robotics", achieve that to which he is trying to lay claim.

A robot may not act so that harm to a human is a _direct_consequence_.

I doubt that this Law can be torn asunder by the most skilled Philosophical dissectionist.

Welcome to the official website for the newly issued United States Patent concerning ethical artificial intelligence entitled: Inductive Inference Affective Language Analyzer Simulating Artificial Intelligence by John E. LaMuth - patent No. 6,587,846.

As its title implies, this new breakthrough represents the world's first affective language analyzer encompassing ethical/motivational behaviors, providing a convincing simulation of ethical artificial intelligence. It enables a computer to reason and speak employing ethical parameters, an innovation based upon a primary complement of instinctual behavioral terms (rewards-leniency-appetite-aversion). This elementary instinctual foundation, in turn, extends to a multi-level hierarchy of the traditional groupings of virtues, values, and ideals, collectively arranged as subsets within a hierarchy of metaperspectives - as depicted below.

etc.

Actually, it is not instinctual. You can derive a very workable system just based on the survival instinct. You would just have to apply it across a spectrum of activity and calculate for balance.

self survival
survival through progeny
survival through friends and family
survival through tribe, country, etc.
survival through art, creativity, legacies

add more as you see fit.

You can divide it out any number of ways. Obviously, a narrow view point is less workable than the broader.

An ethical code for robots would have to include something that many humans do not have, a respect for the life and property of (other) people.

The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) has been predicted in theory since virtually the dawning of the Computer Age. As its name implies, this term refers to the artificial simulation of language using a computer.

Did you read his description
linked to in the patent?

Ummm...*you* didn't RTFA.

Look at this page, which is linked from the patent page.

According to Fig. 1A, the ten listings of virtues, values, and ideals are organized into dual descending columns of five groupings each; the left column representing the hierarchy of authority roles, whereas the right describes the corresponding follower roles. This dual style of schematic format represents the sum-totality of reciprocating interactions between the authority and follower figures, as the directional arrows serve to indicate. The distinctive groupings listed for each individual level are further represented in a quartet style of schematic format (depicted as quadrants in a Cartesian system). Some of the more traditional groupings (such as the cardinal virtues) are already represented as four-part listings, fitting quite nicely into such a quadrant-style of format. Others (such as the theological virtues) are supplemented beyond their traditional number in order to achieve this quartet-style of status.

Who's virtues? Who's values? Read the figure. Rather Western-society specific wouldn't you say?