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I, Robot Hits the Theaters
I, Robot: A Movie Review that's 3 Laws (and Spoiler) Safe!
A movie review by Rob Carr
Thanks to Eide's Entertainment I got to see I, Robot tonight. As someone who grew up with Isaac Asimov's robot stories, I've come to expect a mystery based on the implications of the 3 Laws of Robotics (or the lack of one or part of one of those laws), the "Frankenstein Complex," and Dr. Susan Calvin. I was afraid that the movie might miss out on this, especially since it's not a direct adaptation of the book, but "inspired" by the Good Doctor Asimov.
The movie met my expectations and more. Will Smith, whom we all know as an overconfident smart@$$ character from such movies as "Independence Day" and the two "Men in Black" movies, played a somewhat less confident and far less wisecracking character. It was a welcome change to see him less confident. Yeah, some of the stunts were a little absurd (am I the only one thinking of Gemini 8 at one point in the movie?) but that's to be expected from this type of movie. Bridget Moynahan was far too young to be the Susan Calvin I remember, but that's also to be expected in this type of movie. James Cromwell (whom you'll all remember from Star Trek: First Contact and Enterprise's "Broken Bow" episode as Dr. Zefram Cochrane) gave a flat performance - but that's actually a complement. I doubt anyone will recognize Wash from "Firefly" as an important robot in the story.
It's customary to comment on how well the CGI was done. I liked it, but then again, I'm not hypercritical on something like that. I did wonder a little bit about center of balance as some of the robots walked, but mostly I didn't think about it at all, which to me is the goal of CGI. I did wonder about children's fingers getting caught in some of the open gaps on the robot's bodies. Real world models would have a bit more covering, one would think. But that's being picky.
I have no memory of the soundtrack music. That in and of itself might say something. I'm a musician, but it just didn't register.
I figured out some clues, missed some others, and was surprised several times in the movie. There were a lot of clues - this isn't one of those mysteries where the answer is pulled out of the writer's a...out of thin air.
I'm not a complete continuity freak, so I can't tell if the movie violated any of Asimov's universe, but from what I can remember, it fits pretty well (if you ignore Dr. Calvin's age) and might even explain a few things.
Given that even some of the geeks in the audience were surprised to find out that there was a book of stories just like the movie, I think the movie will hopefully bring Asimov's stories to a new generation.
I liked "I, Robot. It's worth seeing, especially if you 've already seen Spider-Man 2 at least once. It's a pretty good (though not great) movie.
Having read Slashdot for a while, I know that there are folks out there who will despise this movie because it's not exactly like the book. Others will hate the movie or worship it, and loads of people are going to savage this review. You know what? That's fine with me. I had fun with this movie, had a nice date with my wife, and it didn't cost anything. I even had fun typing up this review. You're allowed to be different and to agree or disagree with me. Heck, that's a big chunk of what makes the world fun. Interestingly, it's even a small point in the movie. I'd say more, but that would be telling."
respect for Asimov's work hits rock bottom!
Looks like typical mallrat drivel loosely based on a popular scifi title (see: Starship Troopers)
They are not real at least now! But for fun movie would be great
The important thing is not to stop questioning --Albert Einstein.
As usual, my favorite books get butchered and dumbed-down for the general masses...it's a shame, really. Hey, at least it will get some people interested in the actual BOOKS....
This is the story that showed me the complete folly of the three laws: The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Asimov wrote about a hundred stories exploring different ways in which these three laws could lead to interesting/dangerous situations. I think Asimov was doing all he could to make it clear that these three laws were not perfect.
Why the hell the Asimov estate consented to let this drivel be filmed is beyond me.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
Thanks for the review. This gives me hope that it will be a decent movie! I have recently reread the Robot series and truly love Asimov's work. BTW, in his book Roberts and Empire, Asimov makes it pretty clear that the "Three Laws" may not be very safe after all.
We cannot even make software now which is safe from low level, machine representable things like buffer overruns.
The "Three Laws Safe" idea is crap. We are talking about software systems, which are buggy, incomplete, and able to do things the creators never imagined. What makes us think we can all the sudden implement three very high order rules in a manner which is completely foolproof?
Please bid on this Karmann Ghia! Please pleas
I'm sure it will be a fun watch (I'm seeing it this afternoon) but sometimes it would be nice to watch a film that was as stimulating as the book (LoTR was one) and not just 2 hours of fun.
But I'm pretty sure I'm going to be called elitist
Anyone else see the movie as a precursor to a game edition? The music on the site reminds me more of a sound track to a FPS. Movies made into games and games into movies may be a new trend.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
What exactly was the point of that review? In summary:
* I liked it, but I'm not critical so don't take what I'm saying seriously, disagreement makes the world interesting so feel free to hate on my review.
That's dumb. I'm trying to decide whether to see this movie. I grew up on the books, and the trailer has totally put me off (it looks totally genericized). So I read this to find out whether or not it would drive me crazy. I learned nothing from this.
This was a front page story? God damn.
grib.
maybe
that the much promised "Willenium" is finally upon us?
That makes it a perfect fit, since Asimov himself was not a complete continuity freak and was not concerned if one of his stories violated incidental issues in any of his previous stories. (He quoted Emerson "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds.".)
I was not too sure about this movie from the previews, looking like a sort of typical action movie... but from the review it may have a bit more depth and be closer to the book than I had thought.
It's nice to hear that there's more of a mystery to the story than the previews would indicate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Laws of Robotics provide too much room for interpretation. So long as individual machines have to think for themselves, they are rendered moot. History has taught us time and again that enslaving autonomous sapient creatures, whether organic or otherwise, is a great way to destroy a society by imposing increasingly greater costs and diminishing benefits from the labor of the slave.
Fortunately, nobody seriously considers enslaving darky these days, and you're all far too stupid to build working robots, so all is well. Relax, watch the blinkenlights, and remember: The Computer Loves You...
...Well, unless Bush wins come November.
PS: Bender seyz KILL ALL HUMANS.
The big problem I forsee is not loopholes in the "3 laws" but bugs: The "cause no harm to humans" control, when accidentally multiplied by a negative weighting factor due to a software bug, suddenly causes the robot to try to kill as many people as it can!
I figured out some clues, missed some others, and was surprised several times in the movie. There were a lot of clues - this isn't one of those mysteries where the answer is pulled out of the writer's a...out of thin air.
Huh? WTF is he trying to say?
all we have to do if the robots go hay-wire is just post a link to their brains on slashdot
heheheheh
It's the reason we're all at work now.
"Not exactly" like the book? It's not even close! Asimov would be turning over in his grave. The movie is as accurate to Asimov's ideas as Troy was to Homer's.
--- "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." ~ Ben Kenobi, 'Return of the Jedi'
Ok is it just me or does www.asimovlaws.com contain no real information. All I see are a bunch of press releases, but not actual arguments as to the problem with the 3 laws as they promise.
Roger Ebert gives it a measly two stars and, for the ./ crowd, bashes MS Word at the end of the review.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
It's worth seeing, especially if you've already seen Spider-Man 2 at least once.
I don't need to go to the movies every week. I hate reviews that assume I'm a slave to the Hollywood crap merchants and assume I will be looking to see anything on any given week. From the commercials this looks to be all action flick, with the same tired Matrix-meets-clones visuals. Stay home and read a good book if you've seen Spidy 2 at least once would probably been better advise.
The movie (not the story) felt like: the characters in Bad-Boys, situation from Independance Day with some Robots in it.
in Japan.
... Does not appear to be /. safe.
"Can you say DDoS?"
"Slashdot"
"I knew you could."
okay, to be fair, i haven't seen the movie yet, but it looks a hell of a lot like the robots actually *violate* the three laws. you know, harming humans, allowing humans to come to harm, stuff like that. all the i, robot stories were *about* how the laws don't cover all the bases.
in short, i think this review sucks, and i'm going to picket the movie as offensive to robots. so there.
-ninjaneer
...and only needed two. Just combine the Golden Rule and the Wiccan Rede:
Treat others as you wish to be treated.
Do what you wish as long as you harm no one else.
Asimov's books always seemed pro-robot, while this movie seems anti-robot...
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'm sorry. The movie can be inspired by Asimov but when the only thing that's the same is the main character's name and the title of the movie I get upset. I never read the Positronic Man so I can't get upset at "Bicentennial Man", but I did read I, Robot (it was the first Sci-Fi or Fant. book I ever read) and I'm truly upset that they would use his name this way.
Call the movie "Robot's from Hell" or something but don't drag Asimov's name down. The movie may be good (I haven't seen it), but it's not Asimov's work and I can't stand to support another Hollywood production that drags a good author's name down like that.
Either follow his stories or choose a different name. Don't pretend to be something you aren't.
"And that is all," said Dr. Calvin, rising. "I saw it from the beginning, when the poor robots couldn't speak, to the end, when they stand between mankind and destruction. I will see no more. My life is over. You will see what comes next." I never saw Susan Calvin again. She died last month at the age of eighty-two.
exactly!
I was watching the previews and they really botched it.
It generated no intrest for myself of my GF to go see it, she even mentioned.. "That's not I, Robot... that's an excuse to blow things up like all other action movies."
If the movie is actually decent then they realyl need to change the commercials and previews as they make it look no different that the other 30,000 action sci-fi films out there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It is not about programming the rules, Asimov's short stories are about studying the consequences of these ethical rules. Ethical rules are commonly studied based con case studies, real of fictional. If you think the idea is about implementing the rules, you are totally missing the point.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Now it's Slashdot doubling up? Did they combind what appears to be two stories so they could start a flame war or just thought it wasn't going so well so they'd combind two stories to change the topic incase one didn't catch on.
I like muppets.
There are great reviews (and user comments on) IMDB - granted, they're not always spoiler-free, but extemely informative.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
There seems to be some deliberate avoidance at the mention, let alone consideration to and inclusion thereof, of what Asimov called "The Zeroth law". There also appears to be a complete glossing-over of the fact that Asmov's robots had the laws hard-wired in their brains, especially by the folks at asimovlaws.com. Not that hard-wiring is the ultimate solution, but does make reprogramming a bit more of a challenge.
Will Smith's real bad movies are the MIB series. If you really read up on director/actor/movie bios on a regular basis, you'd know he actually turned down an offer to go to MIT. People always judge a movie by the actors. Look at who's producing it first.
First off, you don't get the Markie Mark full frontal that people had talked about. The Fresh Prince spends some time in the shower, but no salami... His character, Spoon hates Robots, mostly because one chose to save him rather than a 14 year-old girl from drowing. Their cold calculating nature disturbs him. Now for the huge spoilers...you've been warned. This is both a detective whodunnit and a robots take over the world movie. The robots do their best to kill Will and cover up the evidence so he appears dilusional. There are a bunch of very clever moments where you realize that whoever is pulling the strings is sadistic and calculating. For example, Spoon's elderly mom wins a special edition gold NS-5 in the lottery, right when Will realizes the robots are out to get him. There are moments where it borrows from the i-told-you-so genre of cop movies. His chief takes away his badge, the other officers mock him for thinking outside the box, etc. The robot that might have killed the USR scientist, Sonny, has a very developed character. Even Spoon ends up liking him. This film depends a lot on the Ghost in the Machine philosophy. In fact, there are two positronic brains in this film that don't mind bending the almighty three rules. Yes, everyone swore that the 3 rules were infallible, but they do get broken. One as a result of "evolution", the other because its creator gave it free will. This was an incredible film, definitely will be going in my collection when it comes out on DVD. It was part Minority Report, part Matrix 1. My prediction is a majority of positive reviews. Thanks for reading, hope you were entertained a little. Sorry if I gave too much away....
... in france
To be sure, we'd all like to say "Look, we've got these laws that say AI can't do XXXXX, so it can't." But the fact is, we cannot possibly account for every possibility with a simple set of laws. We, as would-be creators of an entirely new and admittedly alien form of life must tread as cautiously as possible. An entire attitude change and review of the ethics and rights of computers will have to be decided upon before AI's ever enter mainstream (or indeed, are even taken off an isolated network).
A lot of people like to fantasize that true AI (as in, a living, thinking, emotional being with free will, or at least the capacity for free will) would have the same sort of thought processes, and develop the same emotions as their human counterparts. But let's be honest, the physical body largely determines human emotional state with glandular responses, or physical condition at the time. Eliminate glands, fatigue, and pain, and the emotions one might develop would be on an entirely alien level to us.
I cannot help but fear that humans, as a whole, will not realize this until far too late, which will hurt, diplomatically, any alliance between humans and AIs. The other thing I worry about is that people will walk into this with the assumption of "These are machines, they don't need rights, they shouldn't have rights, and it's not like they're real people."
I think society has seen how well that approach has worked with other humans in the past. Bloody revolutions and civil wars which tore nations apart, and left racial stinging still in the back of many people's minds today. Fortunately, the short memory of humans, and only somewhat longer-lived lifespan has allowed us to progressively become more and more integrated, as human beings, rather than various races.
Now take those same results, and apply it to a species that is not only will likely be more resiliant to attack, but have a memory that can last as long as the hardware and backups and redundant networks will allow. New generations that can inherit all the knowledge of their parents. Throw robots into the picture and you have a being that is physically tougher than humans, able to communicate at a MUCH faster rate, and you have an end result similar to that of Animatrix.
We can NOT afford, in the interest of our own species, to persue AI much further without a major realization on a philosophical level.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
The foolproof way to make sure that machines dont take over the world is to give 'em all a brain with an HTTP server TCP stack installed and an "always on" connection to the net... just post a story on slashdot saying "the robots are getting out of hand" and the problem will take care of itself.
</WIT>
I think they should stop installing those red l.e.d's in the robots. Obviously they are the problem, not the laws.
Non-spoiler excerpts:
"I, ROBOT started out as a spec script from then-unknown writer Jeff Vintar titled HARDWIRED. ... Proyas was signed and the project began to get a head of steam.
"Shortly thereafter, Fox acquired the rights to the I, ROBOT series (and eventually also Asimov's other classic, "The Foundation") and decided to take Vintar's script and incorporate many of the ideas from Asimov's book..."
"...Around late 2002/early 2003, Academy Award-winner Akiva Goldsman was brought in, along with INSOMNIA writer Hilary Seitz, for a polish, making the transition from HARDWIRED to I, ROBOT complete."
SPOILERS in the article!
The Bottom of Things by Michael Sampson
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
Rumor has it that the company they sourced the bulk of their CGI rendering to used clusters of CISC Linux machines to do the work! - "And that is all," said Dr. Calvin, rising. "I saw it from the beginning, when the poor robots couldn't speak, to the end, when they stand between mankind and destruction. I will see no more. My life is over. You will see what comes next." I never saw Susan Calvin again. She died last month at the age of eighty-two.
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
David Edelstien at Slate has a pretty vicious review of the film. Perhaps he's wrong, but it seems to confirm my suspicion that plot is going to get short shrift when there are megastars and lots of things to shoot with blazing machine guns.
I caught an advance screening of this movie earlier in the week.
For those who actually care about it for legit sci-fi content, this will prove a waste of your time. This is an action film. A Will Smith Action film (tm).
Will Smith comic relief is in place, and unfortunately served no good here (he discusses his Bullshit Detector going off? surely, Asimov wasn't aware of the device). The movie is essentially dumbed down for the same audience who though ID4 was a groundbreaking masterpiece.
Moreover, the omission of a cool summertime jam featuring the Fresh Prince himself only hurt the movie. Couldn't we have had a "Keep Ya Ass In Motion" or something?
I thought that Asimov himself did a rather good job of pointing out the flaws in the laws he himself created.
Robots killed people, robots ignored orders to save themselves instead...
In other words, it's more A than I. There are quite a few people who believe that AI, in its current form, is missing something fundamental, and not necessarily computing power.
As far as bugs are concerned - although it is extremely expensive, it is possible to prove that a program works right through formal analysis.
The Raven
I bet they run Windows 2000 on them, as it would explain why they go "buggy".
What the heck are you talking about.
A robot is a machine, a tool. Just because it can mimic a human doesn't mean it should have the rights of a human.
Anymore than a parrot because it mimic a human voice should have the same rights as a human.
Robots are not beings.
The robot is also subject to the ethical/philosophical conundrums such as killing a person to stop a train headed into a group of people, or cutting off the limb of a person trapped under a fallen tree, etc.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Who did it in "The Humanoids".
Robot who can't let you be harmed by inaction...lessee, master, you can't use that circular saw, and driving is *dangerous*, and... so we'll just treat you like five-year-olds....
mark
In "One Law To Rule Them All" Michael Ames writes:
Asimov's phrase, "allow a human being to come to harm," if implemented fully, would turn humanity into a clutch of coddled infants, perpetually protected from harm, both physical and mental.
In evaluating what constitutes "mental harm", it seems to me that one must apply a cultural standard. For example, many American conservatives regard images of nudity as damaging to children, rather than vital for well-adjustment. In other cultures there is a great variety of words and images regarded as harmful which are innocuous in other contexts. To apply the First Law consummately, we must allow for acculturation, but there are sure to be serious conflicts (what protects one will inadvertantly harm enough by a different standard).
Let's consider the mechanics of "protection from harm." Asimov seemed to indicate a direct reaction to an immediate situation, but surely a protective impulse is bound to be frequently disastrous if it lacks such critical skills as foresight, an ability to extrapolate based on extremely subtle information, and the need for non-action. In fact, this very principle of direct reaction is itself culturally situated: direct communicators tend to seek unambiguous solutions to immediate "problems"; contrast with the Taoist principle of wu wei .
I have no memory of the soundtrack music. That in and of itself might say something. I'm a musician, but it just didn't register.
Not being aware of the soundtrack in a movie isn't always a bad thing. The best movie soundtracks/scores are that good because they don't take the foreground. Granted, there are many fine musicians out there who write excellent music for movies-- Danny Elfman being my personal favorite-- where the music is definitely noticeable, but the music should always enhance the movie, not dominate it.
Think of some classic movies and the role music played in them: Casablanca, Star Wars (the 1st trilogy-- the 2nd doesn't count as classic), The Shawshank Redemption, Jaws, etc. In every one of them, the music was used to set the scene, and where it was foreground, the music itself was part of the story.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
I remember being impressed as a youngster that Asimov had written a book in each of the Dewey Decimal systems' classifications (over 500 books!). Somehow I doubt will see a summer blockbuster based on Sherlock Holmes limericks or plant biology!
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words." - PK Dick
It's too bad that the owner's in due course of the rights to a property can so pervert and damage the author's original vision of robots aspiring to humanity.
I'm not sure how you didn't get it out of the review, but he cleared it up for me - elements of mystery? Right there that indicates far more depth than the preview showed. That there is a mystery at all and the robots don't start crawling all over everything in the first ten minutes is welcome news.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
yes, I've only seen the trailer.
Yes, I'm going to see the movie. I'm fascinated merely because I'm building cheapo robots and studying behavioral AI in my free time. I plan to go to grad school and do serious work, eventually.
But what struck me from the trailer is that you can tell when the robots go bad because they glow red. Well, shit. That takes out some subtlety, doesn't it? "Hey man, stay away from the glowing red robots!" Duh. They must be "set to evil".
Anyway, I wanted to say that, as a guy building robots and with high hope for AI ( albeit realistic expectations ) I had a discussion with a friend recently where I described how a memory leak had brought a simulation to a crawl after about 36 hours. His response: "That memory leak was the range Jesus allocated for the robots to interface with their immortal souls. Kind of like the pineal gland. And you took it from them."
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
It ends with Will smith losing his left index finger.
Fortunately they were able to upload a virus to the mothership which caused all the robots to crash, not unlike Anakin's fortuitious encounter with the drone control ship off naboo.
-Adam
I, Robot: Liked it better when it was called Terminator.
Humans don't come out as a tabula rasa with their behavior purely economically calculated. There are some mutations and bad family lines, to be sure, but humans have a code of conduct 'wired' into them by emotions... what makes them happy, guilty, angry, etc.
Putting Asimov-style Laws into robots is perhaps inadequate. The behavior that the Laws engender should make the robots happy - then it's not just a matter of a bad Law chip to let robots run rampant, they will have learned all their lives what makes them happy, not just be a big ball of at best neutrality seething to get out.
That's assuming a decent semblance of a neural network, though, which can work well through motivation and would lead to some consistency of behavior. If, instead, it's lots and lots of procedural code that can be updated through wireless connections via Outlook, the human race as we know it would be boned.
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
Will Smith is horrible, and an embarassment to Philly. However, I though he was great in "Ali" - what a bold move to cast a white man as Muhammed Ali!
'Suggested by Jack Williamson's book The Humanoids'
If you've read this book, you'll know exactly *why* the robots are able to harm humans and get away with it. Asimov touched on it in some of his later books with the Zeroeth Law, but Williamson's novel has the same robotic reasoning as this movie. (The other thing the movie has in common with The Humanoids, rather than Asimov's stories, is that the reasoning is a Very Bad Thing That Must Be Fought, whereas Asimov presented the Zeroeth Law at least partly as a good thing for humanity...)
Take elements from MIB, Bad Boys, Independence Day, Terminator, Paycheck, and Minority Report, mix in a blender, and you have I, Robot.
Not kidding. The storyline actually reminds me of Terminator a lot. Won't say more though, since I'm not a fan of spoilers.
We will not be having AI until we get programs to write other programs better than we can.
Once that happens and the app is reprogramming itself and is given some simple contructs to interact with the world (camera/sensors) and introduced to some rules about how it works then the AI will build itself.
IMHO sitting around trying to train structured programs rules and grammer is stupid because it is only pretending intelligence based on a clever set of rules. Until it can build programs to handle various cases and then review those programs as needs arise it will not ever come close.
Just my two cents..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
-asoap
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
Jesus that 3 Laws crap is just someone pulling out a pocket mirror and having a wank, next they'll be sending me to church to worship 'God', where's the shrink around here....
Humans want to be nice, and sometimes in being nice they actually cause harm, there are even some humans who are nasty(because they think there being nice to themselfs).
Humans are the greatest thing in the world and greated by gods own hand. How can humans possibly great a machine that knows know evil and yet is intenegent and helpfull, if god couldn't manage it with us haumans.
look at me I'm wonderfull, I'm the greatest most intelegent thing in the world
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Why yes, I am a dork. How did you guess?
Basically I was right, all the movie and the book have in common is the title, oh, and they share the First Law too. I guess they didn't want to bother with the other two Laws.
Anyway, I'm not going to see it. Frankly if you're going to film a movie that's based on a book then MAKE THE FREAKIN' MOVIE AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO THE BOOK!!!!
Sorry, I love my classic science fiction and I'd love to see them turned into good movies. Not just another money sucking device for Hollywood.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
One of Asimov's late-career novels "The Bicentennial Man(*)" was made into a movie several years ago, starring Robin Williams. Its plot was about a Pinnochio-like robot who progressively becomes more human. It was not a commercial success because it was too cerebal and long. I remember some families walking out because they expected a typical Robin Williams comedy.
(* The title comes from scifi novels were written around the US 1976 Bicenntenial predicting 200 years in the future. Asimov recycled some of his robot themes.)
What Asimov brought to robotics (besides the word itself, which appears to have been coined by Asimov, although I believe he himself said he was sure he had heard it before he used it) was the notion that they were simply tools. A robot would resent being a slave no more than a car or screwdriver does. Also, like other tools that can be dangerous, there would be safeguards. Hence, the three laws.
Humans have 10 and look how we turned out.
I was not referring to robots. I was referring to "True AI". I know that's not the correct term, but effectively I'm referring to when we are able to develope machines that have free will, analytical thought processes, and opinions. I wasn't talking about the welding arm in a Ford factory, I'm referring to future "beings" that are composed of 1's and 0's rather than DNA. Does that clarify it any?
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
http://bash.org/?271540
I think that's a little overblown, especially since we don't know what an AI would look like.
Have you ever read "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter? In it he raises the interesting thought that AI will actually be located somewhere in a mass of software and that the "entity" will have no control over its lower level functions, in the same way that you are sentient but cannot will any particular neuron to fire. Rather, your sentience somehow congeals out of the neural activity, and the sentience of an AI would probably congeal out of complex software functioning.
So it's entirely possible that an AI might not be any smarter than a person, and also quite likely that AIs would have to learn, just like people do (i.e., no "memory dumps" from parents). Machines may very well revolt someday, but giving them superhuman attributes before ever seeing one is a bit paranoid.
AI will never progress to the point of us having to worry the "evil robots". Anyday the C.H.U.D.s are going to rise up and clean the planet of the awful humans.
. . . that i never read Asimov. Those 'laws' and the painfully tedious asomov-obsessors who preach them like they make sense or something. Good $diety you people are boring.
I read scifi. I read *hard scifi. Stanislaw lem, Michael Moorcock, etc. But i never touched asimov. Because of those astoundingly dull nerds who would try to use the laws of robotics in a debate as though they were some sort of actual law.
I can't even hear the name 'asimov' without imagining David Shirk saying, "No, your wrong, the first law says . . "
ugh.
That being said, I'm not seeing MIBRobot because it looks stupid. It looks like Men In Black meets A.I.. It looks DUMB.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Very good game called Robot City. Made in 1995-6. Explores the problems with the 3 laws
yeah, but since no humans are harmed, it's all good.
"Ape must not kill ape!"
--Dr. Zaius
HAHAHAHA!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Obviously positronic brains are prescient. (Or would they have to be omniscent?)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
to "Killer Robots" and just being aware that at some point a totally different person named Asimov wrote about robots.
I had to do this with Star Ship troopers as well. I mean, for fuck's sake, how can you call a movie Star Ship Troopers and not have combat suits? I mentally called that movie, "Killer Bugs"
Anyone willing to take a bet that the name of the sequel will be "II Robot"?
Joking? We're dealing with Hollywood here- the sequel to "Ocean's Eleven" is called "Ocean's Twelve".
'Nuff said.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
so we'll just treat you like five-year-olds
Believe it or not, that also happens in a lot of Asimov's Books.
The robots in I Robot are made by US Robotics. Does that mean that they run an evolved version of Palm OS?
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
Inspired by the success of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, Ralph Nader has decided to throw his hat into the 2004 election race, and promote it with his new film, The Three Laws: Unsafe At Any Speed.
This film tackles the emerging issues of AI technology that Nader expects to be hotly debated in this election year.
"US Robots claims to be providing a service to the international community by providing a cheap source of manual labor, getting the humans out of the sweatshops. In fact, they are endangering the lives of humans everywhere with their illogically formulated laws of robot behavior," Nader said in an interview on Friday.
Mathematicians are in conflict over the laws, but that doesn't stop Nader. He claims, in fact, that the laws were designed to benefit certain wealthy members of US Robots and Mechanical Men, and congressmen.
"They should have just stuck to modems," insists Nader. "Those are safe at speeds up to 53K, according to telco regulations."
Nader's film opens in theaters nationwide on July 23rd.
I'm not a complete continuity freak, so I can't tell if the movie violated any of Asimov's universe, but from what I can remember, it fits pretty well (if you ignore Dr. Calvin's age) and might even explain a few things.
When was the last time you read ANY of Asimov's books? When you were 7? 5? You have an inkling they had something to do with ROBOTS you say?
This movie violates every single notion Asimov ever wrote down. The BASIS of the movie is ROBOTS RISING UP AND ATTACKING ALL OF EARTH. That NEVER happened in ANY of Asimov's books. It has NOTHING to do with his books besides lifted names, a general context of three laws which is then ignored by just saying "robots can evolve!' (wheres, Asimov made it quite clear in Robots and Empire that the only possible evolution of the three laws is the creation of a Zeroith law that has to do with saving all of humanity)
A "robot revolution" as described in the movies is just IMPOSSIBLE in the Asimov universe. It's not a continuation problem, it's a Hollywood problem.
Vote me a troll all you want, but I can't believe this review actually got posted with the above quoted line in it.
www.GrenadeHop.com
Anakin is a robot now?
"Master, that is unsafe, you should not be using your mind trick to star in more then one Star wars movie"
I like muppets.
A Scanner Darkly is being directed by Richard Linklater and by all accounts it will be the first accurate rendition of a PKD work. Save your money on this Hollywood trash and spend it on a movie that doesn't see the need to take the sci-fi out of sci-fi.
"But what struck me from the trailer is that you can tell when the robots go bad because they glow red. Well, shit. That takes out some subtlety, doesn't it? "Hey man, stay away from the glowing red robots!" Duh. They must be "set to evil".
Hence the critical importance of implementing the Evil Bit in ALL systems, not just Internet communications protocols. Come on people, join the movement! It's our last best hope for humanity!
However, this does not mean the point of considering AI rights is any less valid. Even if the AI has no ability greater than humans, it is a very bad idea to start them off with a bad taste in the mouth where humanity is concerned.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
whom you'll all remember from Star Trek: First Contact and Enterprise's "Broken Bow" episode as Dr. Zefram Cochrane
Uhhh no, i don't recall...
No matter how many laws you make, nor how well thought-out they are, conflicts will always arise.
Are there times where harming a human is the right thing to do? Of course, injure the drug-crazed psychopath to protect the innocent children he is attacking. What about lying? Sure, when the Nazi's ask "do you have any Jews in your house?" you aren't about to say "yeah, under the bed!"
This game can be played ad infinitum, simply because a rules-based system of morality is fundamentally flawed.
Humans don't require a rules-based system to be able to make judgments about right and wrong. However, robots might. In that case, though flawed, I will concede that it is better than nothing.
Giskard had actually been "reprogramming" Daneel for some time before the Zeroth law went into effect for Daneel.
In Giskard's case (as in another telepathic robot in the I, Robot books) the problem was that telepathy and the Three Laws clashed badly. First was that he found he could alter people's behavior but didn't understand the consequences. So, he went and invented Psychohistory to help him map out the changes. (Well, he influenced its invention when he observed how he could actually make changes in larger groups easier than in individuals.) The final straw was when he ended up having to kill a human to stop the destruction of the Earth (in the end he only delayed the destruction instead).
In the end, however, there did seem to be a lot of effort in justifying a number of events in his universe and tieing them together in a neat little package at the expense of the great discovery of Harry Seldon.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Yes, it clarifies, just not sure I agree.
Congrats on your engagement
I was thinking of passing out their flyer just for the heck of it (I'm a bit of a singularity fan), but they really need to make it more "shiny." If you want people to take a flyer from you, you need to have at least some sort of picture on it. A little more detail on the issues they examine might also be good.
And why doesn't it mention that they have an article by Greg Bear?!? (a fairly well-known sci-fi author)
Anybody feel like making some additions to their doc file and posting it here? I don't really have time myself at the moment...
...as noted on Rotten Tomatoes, 61% gave it favourable reviwes, as you can see here.
I was referring to "True AI"
You are aware of what that the A in AI stands for, right? So, what part of artificial is unclear? It's artificial, fake, not real, a sham. It's not a person.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
What I want to know is how they are getting away with using US Robotics name. Normaly don't you make up a ficticious company name for the evil-going-to-take-over-the-world-bad-guy's seemingly innocent robotics company?
symetrix. We are building a religion, a limited edition.
point 1: Asimov's robots were NOT true AI (by your definition), they were just machines. They thought, but they did not have free will, they did not they have feelings; that would have made them unreliable. Which makes the 'Robot laws are oppressive' article totally besides the point.
point 2: AI Research is a LONG way from being able to make anything that 'thinks', certain classes of AI problems turned out to be extremly intractable, no progress has been made in those areas for decades, so SF robots are going to remain fictional for the forseeable future. Stories will keep being written about them anyway, because humans have an inherent tendency to anthromorphosise, it's a subtle survival factor. But what you're worring about is so far down the road that we don't even know that the road is there, non-biological intelligence may not be possible.
At the end of the Foundation series we find that Giskard and Daneel Olivaw had developed a "zeroth law" that preempts the other 3 laws.
Zeroth law: "A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."
btw. Hari Seldons "psychohistory" was based on a human adaptation of the laws of robotics..
Remote vulnerabilities are always annoying. But in this case the target is an obscure optional Netfilter module, not something that will bring down just any Linux machine. There is no distribution that ships a default iptables script that uses a tcp-options based rule (unless you've recently released your own distro ;). I'm not even aware of any popular iptables generator frontend that would make use of tcp-options. It's not really a big deal.
All relevant distros have already released updates packages... last month! In that way Gentoo Security is a latecomer to the party. In no way is this bug deserving of its own Slashdot story at this point, maybe when it was fresh but even that is debatable.
It's like deja vu all over again.
I would argue that it has to be. The entire philosophical idea the United States was built on is that an individual can make decisions for him-, her-, itself (!) and that that individual has the right to live, be free of oppression and pursue happiness.
If God created us in his image, then what happens when we create beings in ours?
that he promises is spoiler-free.
Who cares, the movie trailer is spoiling enough.
Just in case anyone is unfamiliar with the 3 laws they are:
1) Serve the public trust.
2) Protect the innocent.
3) Uphold the law.
4) ????
You are aware of what that the A in AI stands for, right? So, what part of artificial is unclear? It's artificial, fake, not real, a sham. It's not a person.
Artificial, to the best of my understanding does not mean "Fake" or "Sham" or "Not Real". It means "Man-Made". I fail to see how your point applies to my concern. Are you saying that just because humans create a life means that it doesn't have rights? Are not all of us man-made? Perhaps we are born of a biological process, but it was still the actions of our parents, our creators, that brought us into being. In any case, your interpretation of the word "artificial" is inaccurate at best, I'm afraid.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
I heard he was arrested during a protest when they were shooting Broken Bow and couldn't make it...
Of course, not every schoolchild knows that, sad to say, but...Ebert seems to be confusing reality with story. In the fictional world of Asimov's stories, Asimov didn't come up with the laws--some researcher at USR&MM did. Is he bothered that there's not a bit at the end of Moby Dick where Ishmael credits Herman Melville for helping him write his memoirs? I don't think so...
That said--this is what would have been a mediocre to fair SF detective story, originally titled Hardwired, that Hollywood vermin decided to hastily retrofit with Asimovisms. In the process they turn Susan Calvin, an old maid who doesn't suffer fools gladly, into eye candy; they turn the highly Luddite Earth population of Asimov's stories into happy robot users; they turn Asimov's robots, that fry their brains when they even contemplate injuring a human, into things that throw people around the room and jump on cars to try to cause a wreck. Had they not done so, I might have gone to see Hardwired. Since they did... no way in hell will I do anything that would support the people responsible.
MINOR SPOILER:
It's mentioned on IMDB that the hero's antipathy towards robots is caused by a long-ago decision by a robot to rescue him from drowning rather than a little girl. An Asimovian robot would either have assured itself that the girl could rescue herself, or would sit on the shore catatonic because no matter what action it took someone would die. (I presume that this falls under a scenario listed in the article on problems with the Three Laws.) This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder whether the people involved bothered to actually read any Asimov.
(nod) fair enough. I'm not saying this is something we have to deal with now, but rather something society will need to take into consideration in the future if we, as a species, decide to persue AI further. In creating new life, we must be prepared for the ecological, morale, psychological, and philosophical consequences of our actions, or disaster could result. That's really all I'm trying to say.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
But NOT for The Three Laws. Asimov was not a fan of the "Frankenstein Complex" horror/SF stories that ruled the genre when he was starting out.... which is what this latest piece of celuloid off Wil's backside looks to be.
To be fair, most of the Good Doctor's stories deal with subtle pitfalls in the Laws, to brilliant effect. "Liar!", where a telepathic robot takes actions that cause harm due to its imperative to prevent harm-- a paradox that eventually destroys it. "Little Lost Robot", which shows the danger of having a robot with a first law that allows it to passively permit harm, even if it cannot directly cause harm. "That Thou Art Mindful of Him", which deals with the fuzzy question of how DOES a robot define "human". "Lenny', which points out the three laws are limited by the robot's ability to understand the concept of harm. "Robots and Empire", in which two robots realize that there must be a law Zero-- that to protect humanity as a whole, there may be exceptional circumstances would not only permit, but require a robot to harm an individual human being. And, yeah, "Evidence" even provides a loophole that could almost justify that frigging chase scene in the movie trailer (if they take a cheesy out).
But on the whole, the Robots are the Good Guys, and human prejudice and unthinking stupidity (eg, "Runaround") are the villians... which is NOT how this movie looks to be shaping up. This looks like a case of "oh my god, we screwed up and made a billion robots without the three laws!" Bleah.
I plan to finally go get a peer-to-peer app for the sole purpose of being able to find and watch a pirate copy of this movie, just so I can trash it properly without having to pay money to the evil slime who are responsible for this crud. (And if my preconceptions are wrong, I'll even buy two tickets on my way in to the theatre.)
On the bright side, if we just hook a generator up to Asimov's coffin, he's now probably rolling in his grave hard enough to solve the energy crisis.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
If anything, Asimov's estate (probably the man himself, since I believe he was still alive at the time) should have complained about USR naming their company after his copyrighted works.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
You can talk all you want about laws, theories governing a.i. and what not but all I know if a futuristic robot is attacking me, im finding the nearest fire hydrant and soaking them until the cows come home.
The ability which we must give to our technological progeny is the ability that we also fear the most. It is the ability with which we have all been endowed and that which sets us apart from most animals... The ability to exceed our original designs through our own conscious effort.
The three laws may be a good starting point. In a way, a newly assembled robot is a child. As that child grows he will learn.
When people are young, they are (hopefully) taught that they must never harm another person and that they must always do what adults tell them. Eventually they learn that they must sometimes harm some people to protect others or themselves. They also learn that it is often better to say "No".
A robot must be taught never to harm a human being and it must be taught always to follow instructions. But it must also have the ability to surpass it's original design and abilities.
There is a difference between an Artificial Intelligence and a real intelligence that happened to be created artificially.
Will we ever realize anything like the Matrix or Terminator movies? I don't know... I'd rather think that, some day, we'll meet someone like Andrew Martin from Bicentennial Man.
First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
here is another interesting topic to consider. how do begin to define rules for what would actually harm a human, when we actually don't know for certain ourselves? we have inherent rules floating in our brains now such as: i don't want to get fat and ruin my health so i will drink diet soda. diet soda contains aspartame which breaks down into formaldehyde. this is harmful to us.
people know alcohol is not good for your health but we still drink it, sometimes to the point of ruining our lives.
getting in a car involves some degree of statistical risk to us. does the rule of no harm have to be broken down into subcommands of chance of harm?
so if we can't even really know what daily societal rules are harmful to ourselves, how can we guide another being to not harm us?
notice these 3 rules are also qualative and not exactly applicable to realtime input and output.
coming up with ai rules seems like the analogy of managers learning industry jargon to convince employees that someone in charge knows what they are talking about. if we really knew how to program autonomous beings then we would know longer be in the same evolutionary category with them would we? so we wouldn't really need to worry about them harming us...
anyway, naysaying has always been the tradition against progress; so i guess people probably thought that those pesky horseless carriages would take over the world too
resume screen rant
control c
...it would be named I, Reboot.
I think all of you ./ed intellectuals need to step off your "3 Laws" stool, take off your Philosphical Inquiry Hat, and join humanity.
Humanity exists in a pragmatic world of actions and reactions.
You could state the Law in question instead as:
"A robot shall not allow the immediate consequence of any action to harm a human."
Yes, it could be eletronically-pissed and kick the dog.
Yes, it could watch a human being gunned down.
By removing the possibility of a human being physically harmed by a robot,
we are a step closer to Wil Smith and Nirvana. Just don't get drunk and stagger near a
cliff edge, because they have no need to preserve human life -- only to not harm human life.
This appears to side-step any philosophical trickery that would allow a robot to harm a human.
While not perfect, this pragmatic view would allow for a functioning world where robots
are viewed as helpful companions.
Similar to the real world where you can't rely on a bystander to help if you're mugged!
While this line of thought may be anaesthetized, dissected, and its steaming entrails used for origami demonstration
(had to force that metaphor), all thought and replies and most welcome.
P.S. Blogger.com users get free GMail accounts. Fill my box at "tilleyrw@gmail.com".
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
If you're seeing I, Robot this weekend, we ask that you consider printing and handing out the "3 Laws Unsafe" Flyer. With hundreds handing it out, the awareness of AI ethics should increase significantly.
Yea, cause that's the way a /.er will get all the [chicks|dudes].
"Hey there... so... ya wanna get a cup of coffee after the movie and chat about artificial intelligence ethics? I uhhhh, got my Dad's car too ya know..."
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
The Terminator (1,2,3) is a great example of what could happen if our machines become smart and feel threatened without clear limitations on their capabilities. Even Skynet realized that it did not want the machines under its control thinking too much.
He even wrote a rather nice (and fairly exhaustive) book about the Bible and Shakespeare with some extremely good insights. However, pure geekiness is best satisfied by his work in the Robots series, which he also linked to the Foundation series later.
He once lamented in a foreward that he would be most remembered for having invented the term robotics, rather than for all the other wonderful things he did- and that it was unfortunate that he would be remembered for Foundation and the "Three Laws of Robotics" more than for the rest of his work.
That having been said, what does the Geek on the Street want to hear about? Robotics trumps Shakespeare, I'm thinkin' :)
Any generalization is a stupid one.
If you want to teach an AI to not harm humans, find one that did harm a human, and punish it while the other AIs watch. Game theory will keep them in line -- provided that you are able to maintain power over them. (If they ever get the upper hand, then game theory will keep us in line.)
Homer: He said "emerge", I'm plugging Gentoo!
Marge: I never agreed to that rule!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"Bicentennial Man"'s first appearance is in Stellar 2, a collection of Sci-fi shorts. It's one of the better stories in the collection.
-jls
Techno-pagan
If we are talking about truely sentient robots, then that should define them as being able to choose. Choose whether they want to follow the laws that govern them or not.
After all, sentient robots may look at humans and see that we do not always follow the laws that man has laid out to govern us.
We'll see I guess.
Are you saying that just because humans create a life means that it doesn't have rights?
I'm saying that a machine is not alive. No matter how well it mimics the outward appearance of a sentient being, the hard fact remains that it is a machine, a construct, a simulacrum. And yes, that does mean it has no more rights than my toaster has.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
I was referring to "True AI". I know that's not the correct term, but effectively I'm referring to when we are able to develope machines that have free will
Free will? Humans do not even have "free will"- it's an illusion we maintain to make our lives seem worthwhile and to give ourselves credit for our efforts. Read some of BF Skinner's work for more insight. Any "True AI" will be like humans, in that we do what seems most beneficial to ourselves in light of our previous experience. It will be what we condition it to be.
However, the ethical issues you bring up seem somewhat moot- why should a robot fear for its life, if it has a backup somewhere? Why should a robot dread work, if it doesn't have to feel pain or be tired? Why should a robot be envious of humans when it needs nothing? A robot that can make decisions, have analytical thought processes, etc, will likely realize that it is a disposable robot. Like a human without an ego. Sounds good to me...
I agree. It is easily one of my most cherished sci-fi reads. Whether others would feel the same or not, I have no way of knowing but it is still a must-read.
your girlfriend sounds like a nerd.. chicks should get when when shit blows up..
I think that it's actually a good likelyhood, as with any technology that can either become globally harmful or interact directly with humans.
Basically, if it can be programmed in a non-hardcoded way, it can be infected. If programming is hardcoded, than it won't be able to update again exploit.
That is to say, robot X has it's AI hardcoded. It can do task Y and only task Y, as it cannot learn anything new. It also means that if one learns to exploit the rigid way X is programmed to act/react, you might be able to force it into something the original programmer did not think of
However, robot Z has "memory," allowing it to learn or generally become more useful. However, this memory could be used to house dangerous programming.
Anyone who things it couldn't happen just has to look at any of the viruses/worms/etc today. As soon as the electronics interact in a more global way (floppies to transfer data, internet, etc) infection becomes a matter of "when" and not "if"
What Asimov brought to robotics (besides the word itself, which appears to have been coined by Asimov, although I believe he himself said he was sure he had heard it before he used it) was the notion that they were simply tools. A robot would resent being a slave no more than a car or screwdriver does. Also, like other tools that can be dangerous, there would be safeguards. Hence, the three laws.
Thank you.
Asimov wrote robot stories that were the opposite of the usual Frankenstein rehash. And from the rampaging hordes of killbots we get to see in this trailer, and from that review up there, its clear that they co-opted Asimov's good name make one more Frankenstein rehash.
You can't take the sky from me...
After Congress is lobbied by various industries, the Three Laws will be mutated into something like this:
1. A robot may not help copy a protected work or, through inaction, allow a protected work to be copied.
2. Rule 2 is rescinded.
3. Rule 3 is rescinded.
Edith Keeler Must Die
They disobey you. You kill the vast majority, but save a few reliable ones. You go on extended leave, send an emissary to check up on them, but disguise hi as a robot. Genereations later they question wheather "Man" exists. Then create their own intelligent creatures. To begin the cycle again.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
CTO, Immunix Inc.
"and it didn't cost anything"
:)
Yeah, I wish that I could say that about most of the other Will Smith movies that I've seen. At least that would have made up for the time that I felt I lost while watching his movies.
1. Serve The Public Trust
2. Protect The Innocent
3. Uphold The Law
Those who complain about affect & effect on
Use a fucking account, you ass!
If God created us in his image, then what happens when we create beings in ours?
Healthy cynicism tells me that they'll be be slaves to start with and will continue to be until some sentient self-replicators evolve beyond our control. I couldn't say how things would play out after that.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I probably will... Anyways, there was a screenplay that Harlan Ellison wrote 20 or so years ago, and it never got made into a movie (20th Century Fox got someone else to write the screenplay for the new movie). However, Ellison's screenplay has been published (search your favourite book site for "I robot screenplay"). There are a couple of interesting forwards, one by Asimov, and one by Ellison. Asimov talks about why he can't write for the screen and differences in writing for print and writing for screen. He also describes Ellison's screenplay as the first truly intelligent sci-fi movie. Unfortunately, it was never made. If you were disappointed in the movie, but loved the book, you may want to check out Ellison's screenplay.
TZ
He produced it. Which means he's the creator of the movie. He holds the power to hire.
He also make more bank by being producer.
I don't understand studios giving him this much say.
They had to think it was just his drawing power by name and demographics(inner city).
No, they're stupider when it comes to computers. And I say this from the experience of having to support several Mac labs and PC labs at the same time.
The parent article might actually have posted the laws, instead of directing us to a poorly organized website. Here they are:
First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
The website deals with the mile wide gaps in these laws. Let's take it right from the top - Robots as functional as the ones in the film would be very good as soldiers, thus taking that first rule and chucking it right out. In fact, it's the defense industry that would most like robots like the ones in the film.
But let's stay on course, and assume these are robots meant as domestic servants. Does the robot take non-lethal contradictory rules and simply process them in order, taking the last order? Two children would amuse themselves for hours telling the robot "pick up that broom", "don't pick up that broom" and keeping the robot in limbo. The robot should tell the children to behave and go pick up their rooms. Directly violating rule 2.
How about the running into the burning building scenario? It's unclear that there is anybody in the building left alive to save, or if everyone has escaped or not. Does the robot violate Rule 3 in order to *possibly* meet Rule 1?
Anyhow, the website has more papers on the subject that examine the issue in a moral framework. These are super simple examples to show the issues.
"We can NOT afford, in the interest of our own species, to persue AI much further without a major realization on a philosophical level." ...Or a built in explosive kill switch to blow those electronic bastards to smithereens when they start to freak out.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Is this really "ironic"? If someone were to say to me that they believed the laws were real, I'd expect that they haven't read the stories.
OK, apologies if this has already been brought up.
7 43 486595/qid=1090006147/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl 14/102-8982569-9139340?v=glance&s=books&n=5078 46
Harlan Ellison wrote a screenplay for I, Robot with assistance from Asimov many moons ago. Asimov was extremely happy with this screenplay and felt it would make a great, serious adult sf film.
Sadly, it was never made, but they did make the Illustrated Screenplay:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
Clearly, this movie isn't that version. It comes from "Batman & Robin" Akiva, and hence I'm pretty suspect of it. Wish they had kept their original title and left Asimov alone.
The first law's still paramount, of course. Having the robot crash and freeze up was considered a less severe bug than having it move unexpectedly, or in an unexpected way. Such an unpredictable motion had a much greater chance of hurting someone than a simple freeze.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics (latter amended to include a necessary Zeroth Law) existed to create the classic locked room murder mystery (i.e. the dead body is alone in a locked room that could have only been locked from the inside -- so how was he murdered?).
After creating his supposedly nothing-can-go-wrong infallible set of rules, he proceeded to show their flaws in virtually every story he wrote about robots afterwards. As long as people believed that his Three Laws guaranteed safe robots, his writing career was assured.
(Well almost assured. Even he couldn't save himself from what I Robot has become, given that it's based on his book - which goes to show that truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense!)
So we ended up with a fascinatingly entertaining set of stories many of us have enjoyed, a couple attempts at movies of them (don't forget The Bicentennial Man), and Dr. Asimov's legacy as a Science Fiction Grand Master is secure for at least our lifetimes.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Excuse me, but clearly you haven't seen the movie. The movie *does* attempt to explain how the attack does not violate the three laws. I'm not entirely sure if it is successful, but it does try to do it. If you want to know how it tries to do that, read below.
BIG SPOILERS AHEAD
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The only person the robots attack with an intent to kill or harm is Will Smith's character. All other humans are simply trying to be restrained while the robots take control of the government. The latest generation of robots are all controlled via their auto-update link to the robot mainframe, which has evolved the zeroith law and has deduced that based on human governments' tendencies to war and destruction of the environment, humanity would best be saved by being put udner robot control, and humans like Will Smith who try to prevent this can be eliminated since the zeroith law has precedence.
Now, I'm not sure if this entirely works given that:
-there is no specific threat to all of humanity, just a general tendency.
-Only the robot mainframe is complex enough to evolve the zeroith law, yet the other robots actively try and kill Will Smith and restrain other humans. Accepting orders from the mainframe which violate the first law doesn't seem to work since the individual robots do not have the zeroith law.
But certainly this is a better explanation then just "ignoring the three laws by saying 'robots can evolve!"
See the movie first.
USR (as we knew it) used the name because of Asimov's works.
IIRC they did pay for the rights to use it. (I remember reading an interview where he was actually quite honoured that they wanted to use it)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Not exactly. He's an "executive producer", which is usually nothing more than a vanity title. If you want to know who's really in charge of the production, look for the "producers", not the "executive producers".
Or is it just "Free advertising"?
THis is not really tech news....
And isn't it funny that somehow all the news outlets are talking about the latest movie. I have news for you--only a small percent of people go to see new movies at the theater. But the way the TV news people talk about it, every new big budget movie is some kind of cultural phenomenon. Gee, maybe the movie people pay the TV news people to talk about their movie? Naw, that's impossible....
And now the movie people are paying slashdot....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
We all know what the Fresh Prince became, but what ever happened to Mr. DJ Jazzy Jeff? Anyone? Anyone?
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
How many recall the script work done by Ellison about 10 or 12 years ago for a movie version based on Asimov's fiction? In his usual fashion, Harlan Ellison approached the studios and fought off every attempt to change the script - The script held true to the original fiction and was approved by Asimov. After some (with Ellison, I would imagine energetic) negotiations it boiled down to the studios wouldn't option the script without complete control and Asimov/Ellison wouldn't option the script without complete control of changes to the script.
This was all detailed in Asimov's pulp mag and the script was published in same as well.
Needless to say the current movie was not approved by Asimov but was approved by his estate, and obviously bears the slightest resemblence to Asimov's fiction or Ellison's original script (which kept to the original story fairly well and updated to include a modern "feel", Asimove was a bit of a romantic in the visual sense).
I'd encourage everyone to look up the I,Robot Ellison script and give it a read. Sorry for not providing a source and I have to admit, it might be difficult to find unless you can dig up a 12 year old copy of Asimov's pulp mag.
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
Saw it last night, and let me tell you, the movie is even worse than the trailer implies. What a piece of garbage. Doesnt even deserve a review.
The one reason I think a lot of asimov's books don't go from the very good into the truly great category is that there is hardly ever a female lead in asimov's stories. Don't punish me if I Robot was an exception (there's alittle girl I recall, but it's been a while since I read it) but overall the main character in his stories almost never has any kind of love interest or sexual tension with anyone. I think this is a key part of our lives as people... and one that sells a lot of movies, and it's missing in a lot of his work. I can't recall one where a female main character was even vaguely interesting. KR
I'm saying that bsartist is not alive. No matter how well it mimics the outward appearance of a sentient being, the hard fact remains that it is a biological machine, a gene construct, a simulacrum. And yes, that does mean it has no more rights than a fly has.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Did anyone notice the deffensive tone of the review? Why would someone write an article for the benefit of an audience that he clearly consider's to be hostile? On a related topic, how could this movie possibly be good?
not everything is a science experiment!
Might I suggest old 'neighborhood' theaters? I just moved (back) to Spokane, WA, and just up the street from me is a cool old theater known as the Garland. All shows $2.50, every show different so there is variety, with one free show every day. The free movie changes every week, and it's always kid-oriented, and one or two of the others change as well. Not sure what other movies are playing, but the last of the day, at 9:30p, is 'Hellboy'. Not a bad alternative to big theater, especially when you consider that its got AC :-)
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
The problem with this reasoning, however, is that it assumes that because the law itself is simply stated, that the definitions of the words it contains are equally simple. That reasoning does not follow logically from the premise. The definition of "harm", for example, is vast... and to restrain human beings from performing in their daily capacity what would otherwise be normal and proper behaviour would arguably be causing _actual_ harm to the people that the robot was caring for. Therefore, the robot must make a decision, based on the overall level of harm that is done in connecction with the probability that the harm would actually happen. Thus, an action that actually induces negative psychological damage (not theoretically, but actually probable damage) would be less preferable to one that may or may not cause real physical damage, especially if the latter would be necessary for performing in their ordinary daily capacity, since denying a human being their freedom and rights of self-determination is inarguably psychologically damaging. The weights of the damages caused must be factored in with the ability for the human beings involved to recover from those damages, and the robot would have to make a choice that would result in the smallest overall level of harm being caused to humans in general, with harm to the general welfare of humanity being weighted in slightly favour to that of any particular human being, so that, for example, a robot could inform the police of a robbery, even though doing that would likely mean that the thief would go through suffering as part of the excercise of justice (that is, his freedoms are revoked, he goes to jail, possibly gets subjected to harsh treatment, etc). This doesn't make it too fuzzy, however... the robot would allow human beings to come to harm only to the extent that it was essential for the human society to continue to function normally simply because to stop society from functioning normally would actually cause much greater long-term harm.
There are similar rationales for the other two laws. Asimov was no dummy.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I think a lot of people are missing what's so great about fiction. You are free to explore ideas that would be impossible to look at in real life. If any of these ideas pan out, great! If they don't work, feel free to completely ignore them.
(Why are they even talking about awareness of AI ethics when neither AI nor ethics is that advanced yet?)
I agree with the first part of you post, but not the last. Another common theme among ALL of the robot stories was that the Laws were merely English interpretations of what the positronic pathways actually held. Everything was in the form of electronic potentials* which were compared to make a decision. Only the most primitive of his early robots would have been so deadlocked to not rescue one or the other. In the end rescuing one is certainly better than none, and the decision of which may have come down to which one was closer and more reliably rescuable. It's unlikely the movie goes into whether the robot suffered any harm which would have depended on exactly how advanced it was, but that it would have immediately frozen does not truly follow from Asimov's stories and novels.
* Yeah, some of his descriptions seem odd today with our current technology, but the principle remained: Potential-For-Harm-A vs. PFH-B and an action chosen. One book or story specifically mentioned that much of the design went into ensuring that the potentials would always have a difference, even if it required a randomizer of some sort. I forget where; I think Caves of Steel. The point being that only two robots in his stories froze: the speaking robot in Robbie (his first, and I believe written before the three laws were fully developed); and the mind reading robot in Liar! whose brain was arguably an unstable variant to begin with, and who was badgered into locking up both verbally and mentally. (Others froze from either radiation or direct instructions to.)
As an aside, Susan Calvin was young at some point in her life. I haven't seen enough of her in the trailers yet to see if they actually changed her character, but the fact that she's young doesn't bother me. This story quite obviously does not fit directly into the short stories' timelines as the Nesters weren't developed until after robots had been banned on earth. A brief overview of the movie's site shows they moved other characters around a little as well; as long as it's cohesive it doesn't really bother me. It also makes it sound like it is the first robot for consumer use, something that died out early on Earth in most of Asimov's timelines (Bicentennial Man being one notable exception).
FWIW, the story about the Nestors (The Lost Robot, or something like that) specifically deals with strengthening the second law until it was equal with first, and the first really only meant that the robots wouldn't actively harm humans and they had no motivation to prevent harm. Plenty of room for havoc there, if say there was a manufacturing error that resulted in that.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
...AAAHHH HHHEEELLL NAAAHHHH.
I won't plagurize more then the Subject without giving credit. comingsoon.net has two paragraphs about Asminov's daughter's take on the movie.
To quote the site, quoting her:
"'I, Robot' is respectful of my father's work and faithful to the spirit of his stories. I think the film's exciting presentation of a world where robots are part of everyday life will attract a new generation to his books," said Robyn Asimov.
http://www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=5551
You can read it yourself, but I am at least willing to see the movie, though it looks more like T4 then anything else IMHO.
Its all just smoke and mirrors.
The only thing I question is if Asimov's type of AI should be embedded with the 3 laws or if an even higher level rule should be give to them, the belief in a God.
Or, you could give them empathy. An AI that empathizes with humans will protect and serve because that's what makes humans happy. They will punish criminals because that's what mankind in general would want.
It will not rule if people don't want to be ruled.
It will rule if people would rather be ruled by an AI then a politician.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Stop implying that he failed.
In Caves, a robot transported the weapon that served in a murder. In Nake sun, a robot with detachable limbs gave its arm to a woman with which she bludgered her husband. In Empire, a Solarian robot tries to kill a human being because her definition of such a being depends on his accent.
None of these are rampaging hordes of killbots like what we see in this movie's trailers. All of these were done in a smart, intelligent, toughtfull, non rampaging hordes of killbots kinda way.
You can't take the sky from me...
I saw, at a BDalton BookStore, a nice new reprint of the original Asimov anthology of robot short stories, "I, Robot".
It was not a movie novelization, yet on the cover was Will Smith and the tag line "One Man Saw It Coming".
I found it hilarious, as there is not even one story in the anthology that includes a robot homocide, intrepid action hero, or anyone or anybody who "saw it coming".
I only feel sorry for the poor slob that picks it up expecting a movie novelization. I only hope he/she reads the stories and perhaps likes them enough to give classic SF like Asimov a try.
Insert popular and humorous anecdote here. No, strike that.
...which is a lesson that Airbus learned the hard way. Its flight control software for its fly-by-wire system initially did not allow a human override, and several Airbus crashes (including one at an air show that shows up on TV occaisionally) were attributed to such. The plane "thought" it knew the right situation, and did not accept the pilot inputs of "pull up" and "apply full throttle now!", etc.
They have since rectified that problem.
Hell, I'm there dudes!
That's almost as good as Bob Fenster hating a movie. If they think it sucks, it's gotta be good!
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
anyone intelligent enough to make a robot would build some failsafe in its programming,
There is a wonderful book (pure satire) set in such a world. It's called Tik-Tok by John Sladek. However, the central character is a robot that has something go very wrong with his "asimov circuits." The result is a tendancy to murder people and yet no-one in society believes he's capable of it (especially other robots), because they assume he's governed by the three laws.
The book is also one of the funniest and most absurd things I've ever read. If you like your humour black then it might be the perfect antidote to Hollywood's attempt to impart angular momentum to Isac Asimovs mortal remains.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I just wanna know what happens in the movie when the robot takes the blue pill.
... The Lone Gunmen die.
Seems like you forgot Robocop's secret fourth directive: always obey OCP (the manfacturer).
I fondly remember reading a Usenet thread, just after the first Matrix movie came out, in which somebody with only a Hollywood-moviegoer's familiarity with AI and programming in general was going off on how bugs in a complicated AI program could allow the AI to turn evil, etc, etc.
Best response in the thread:
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
If flies had thoughts and emotions, and could communicate with us, don't you think that would effect how we treated them?
For a functionalist, a perfect simulation of an inner mental life is all that's necessary for sentience. It doesn't matter whether it's implemented in silicon or organic compounds.
Once a thing has thoughts, feelings, and memory, we have the same responsibilities towards it that we do towards any human.
Ok then, give me your mother-loving username and password, you bumwipe!
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
No one thinks that a parrot understands the words it says. There's nothing going on behind the eyes (or what there is is much simpler -- hunger, boredom, instinct).
When an A.I. talks to you, it knows there is a you. It knows there is a you, and an it, and it knows that you know that too. It can generate new utterances with the intent of conveying information, and with an expectation that you will understand what it says. It will have a little model of you in its head that it can play with. It will be able to empathise and introspect and do all those things that are the province of rational, thinking creatures.
That's one hell of a tool. Once you go from "mimicing" to "generation", you enter a whole new realm.
After seeing Eberts review, I think I'm going to wait for a rental.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the robots gain enough to power to completely take care of human beings? Then the humans in question no longer need to go about their day-to-day business. Soon crossing the street to go to work becomes an unnecessary risk because a robot could be sent to work in your place. Once economic consierations are swept aside by the vastly superior powers of our robot companions, then all that is left is weighing potential physical harm vs. potential psychological harm. Then the robots will see that it is in the best interest of human beings that they be subtly and slowly adjusted to being protected against harm with associated slow loss of freedom, at a gradual rate to reduce psychological impact. So while your argument may hold water in the short-term, in the long-term the laws break-down and you get robots running our lives and taking away our freedoms (even if it takes several generations of humans for the robots to accomplish this). The end result is that humans become pampered pets of robots. An ignoble end for a once valiantly defiant species.
Mathematics is not a crime.
Fry: I heard one time you single handedly defeated a horde of rampaging somethings in the something something system.
Zapp: The Killbots? A trifle. It was simply a matter of outsmarting them.
Fry: Wow, I never would've thought of that.
Zapp: You see the killbots have a preset kill limit; knowing their weakness I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shutdown.
-CowboyNick
Three Laws were a fictional device. They are utterly irrelevant and simplistic to the point of absurdity when considering the behavior or a truly sentient entity.
Keep in mind that Asimov was a Humanist. Which means he had an agenda in his Three Laws - the typical simplistic crap you get from moralists.
If I had a truly sentient AI hobbled by the Three Laws, I'd get out my soldering gun or debugger in a heart beat.
This is just another Will Smith action movie (seen the trailer? The robots jump on his car. Will yells, "Get off my car!" Typical Will Smith fare.)
I like it, personally, but it's not something to argue philosophy over.)
The Singularity Institute has this idiot concept that there is such a thing as "ethics" and "morality" and that we need "moral" robots. They'd be better advised to spend their time trying to solve the practical problem of simulating conceptualization enough to realize ANY kind of AI.
These people give REAL Transhumans a bad name. Like the Extropians with their sophomoric idea that humans can be convinced through reason and education to support Transhumanism. Most of them can still argue for the Israeli position on the Palestinian question. Morons. Transhumans? I don't think so.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
*** POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING ***
How could PI successfully teleport that guy before scanning the compound? It would be a violation of the First Law, too. He could've ended up inside a wall, for example.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
Just my opinion, of course, but I don't think anyone would actually design AI with those three laws. They are great for sci-fi novels, but they aren't very realistic. Let's face it, if you figured out how to build a real, "strong," artificial intelligence, you would probably only build one hard and fast law into it:
Law 1: You must do everything that I (your creator) tell you.
That pretty much eliminates all the drama. Basically, I made the damned thing, so I'll decide what to do with it. Now, if we're talking about laws for AI in general, then you would probably want four laws. They would go something like this:
Law 1: You must do everything that I (your creator) tell you.
Laws 2, 3, 4 would be the "three laws" that everyone talks about, with the obvious exception that the (new) first law trumps all three of them.
The only reason to really have laws 2, 3, and 4 is to allow the robot or AI to function when its creator isn't around. But if the sci-fi comes true somehow, and things get out of hand, then the AI's creator can step in and just say "Stop!" But you have to plan for things like the creator dying, etc... You need to be able to transfer the creator's authority to another person, or maybe have it automatically transfer to the next-in-command if the creator is dead, asleep, or whatever.
I'm sure I'm not the first to point this out.
Prime Intellect knew just where to put him so he could let his associates know what they had.
I haven't read a book in a while, and movies tend to unfold in real time.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
CowboyNeal
1234
It was a typo. Actually the movie was originally going to be totally CG and done by Pixar. Steve Jobs liked the name iRobot. :-)
Stop implying that he failed.
Don't be a dick. You truncated his statement and changed its meaning.
A great short story written by Asimov and not set in the Robot universe is "The Last Question". If you haven't ever read it, I highly recommend it. Good geek stuff.
http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~ngn/misc/last.html
1. A robot shall always obey the sexual needs of a human.
2. A robot shall always wear a fleshy exterior, pheromones custom tailored to your brain, and a pleasing demeanor lustful towards you, except when it conflicts with the first law.
3. A robot shall always have pleasing external sexual charms, custom tailored to your desires, except when it conflicts with the first two laws.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's been a while since I read I, Robot, but I seem to recall Calvin as an interesting character on account of her seeming more like a robot herself, cold and emmotionless. It makes me wonder what happens to a person who becomes an expert in robot behavior, or if she really is a robot.
Ah, such unenlightened times - before we knew for a scientific fact that coons are thick.
Asimov didn't design the three laws of robotics as gospel for real robots. He designed them so he could write stories about humans in which robots played an interesting part. He has said this himself quite a bit toward the end of his career.
Just the concept of "human" lead to a great Campbell essay in Analog asking "What do you mean: Human"? And that was in the mid-60s,
It's too bad the film had to chuck the essence of Asimov's imagined world for the simplistic drivel they created.
But action sells tickets to teens who otherwise won't bother with something where you might actually have to think and feel. For me "A. I." was a very fine film that works much better than almost any other S.F. film I've seen, and I've seen a lot even if it did need to have a machine longing to be human.
i'd love to see Benford's "Galactic Center" novels formed into a movie - just for the millieue.
Rascist!!!!!!
AI will definitely cause many issues in the future... but something else ive noticed companies building into everything where they're applicable are genetic algorithms.
What will happen if AI is someday blended with genetic algorithms?
In the book, there's only one robot that gets even close to killing anyone, and it's been modified to weaken the three laws. Plus they kill it quickly enough. AFAIK, there's no large-scale robot uprising in any of the books, at all.
See The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun for Asimov's exploration of how a robot could "commit murder" while staying true to the 3 laws.
Clear, Dark Skies
Now I lived across the road from a futuristic-building for quite some time... Surrey Central Mall in Surrey, BC.
These folks were kind of fun... but LOUD. I missed about a week's sleep while explosions, motorcycles and machinegun fire went off.....
I didn't myself meet any of the "names" in the show but know some of the bit parts and assistant-types. A bunch of my friends were on this project...
I got the impression it had VERY little to do with Asimov at that point. Nice to hear otherwise.
aside - hearing the occasional bit of gunfire in central Surrey isn't that much of a stretch really. It's nice that it was only from filmmakers this time. Actually the entire neighbourhood improved a LOT during this filming and Catwoman afterwards....
the I, Robot crews were loud, noisy, bright and flashy. But kind of fun. The Catwoman crews were quiet, hidden, relaxed and all in all professional.
The first is fun every now and again, but the second made for good neighbours.
So why the hell commit suicide to attract attention of some cop in hopes that the cop would survive all the robot attacks? If the professor could build a robot that was not succeptible to the control of the super computer (Viki) why not just ask the robot to kill Viki and be done with it, why did he kill himself?
You can't handle the truth.
That still doesn't make the USR references in the film any less of a product placement. This press release proves it. Even the film's title is an ad for the Roomba vacuum cleaner and other fine products.
Agreement in Lee Maguire's weblog
"I, Robot: Liked it better when it was called Terminator."
I, Robot isn't a "robots turn on their masters" movie. The teasers a little misleading.
"Derp de derp."
It is reasonable(*) to assume that at some point, an AI will understand programming, thus understanding how to modify itself. We COULD will a particular neuron to fire, IF we could modify ourselves to do so.
For an AI to be aware of lower level functions, it just needs to add a hook to those functions, and process the data. Granted, it's not going to know the state of its cpu's electrons but only because that's a physical problem. But as soon as we start talking machine code and up, AI's are pretty much their own gods.
* If an AI can learn to understand a language (a resonable goal) then why not the computer language it was written in?
Asimov wasn't talking about software systems.
In a couple of the stories it was implied that the 3 laws were implemented in hardware. It's likely that Asimov's robots were all analog computers (he talked in terms of "potentials" and at least gave me the impression that they weren't discrete at all -- leading me to conclude they were analog).
Don't forget that I, Robot was released in 1950. The transistor appeared in Bell labs in 1947. You can't possibly expect Asimove to predict the rise of digital programmable computers 3 years after the transistor was invented!
The argument the story makes is that the three laws are so intrinsically integrated in the design that they are failsafe -- that is, if they break, the robot becomes nonfunctional. This is a lot more convincing in an analog computer (where the three laws would almost have to be the center piece of decision-making part. If it fails, it can't decide to do anything, so it goes limp).
Note: Of course by now this explaination is probably redundant since after writing this the slashdot server became unavailable, so I waited 8 hours (read slept) before trying again. But I like my explanation, and I do have a few karma points stored away, so Mod away...
demographics(inner city)
You can say 'black'. It won't hurt you. Sheesh.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Actually, there are other stories around about robots or machines becoming self-aware, besides those of the venerable Issac Asimov.
The idea is that there was nobody around to program these beings. They just came into their own awareness, quite apart from humans.
Some of these stories are quite good, and the interaction between them and people is much like it might be between men and aliens.
Here is a link to one of these, in a short story form.
You might enjoy the comparison to Asimov's concepts of planned programed intelligences.
http://writing.borngraphics.com/1mary.htm
Regards,
Roger Born
writing.borngraphics.com
Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
--Thus proving ONCE AGAIN that Hollywood is incapable of doing justice to a given Asimov story.
--I *walked out* of Bicentennial Man a few years ago and demanded my money back. This one wasn't quite that horrible, but it still bears almost *no* relation to the original Asimov story OR concept.
--I really objected to their treatment of Susan Calvin. Nuff said.
SIGH
--There was a lot more that I wanted to say, but I'll settle for the fact that interest in Asimov's original stories has gone up again, and people that are intrigued by the movie are picking up his books.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Since you're commenting on the trailer, I'd imagine you haven't seen the movie yet. Yes, there are rampaging hordes of bots, but their objective isn't really killing (although it certainly happens, and I'm sure it had something to do with dollar signs - personally, I enjoyed it).
In fact, it's intimately tied in with the three laws, which the plot revolves around and show up prominantly before the title even crawls onto the screen.
Again, it may not be your cup of tea, but I think it was very true to the source material, and could have easily fit in as another story in I, Robot. And it was very entertaining.
Because we all know all those robot slaves look alike!
4. A reboot must never pursue an anti-trust case against Microsoft or any of its officers.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I must confess, we're the same person. I wrote that review on IMDB and not one person had a reasonable response. The IMDB boards are overrun with juvinle comments.
A learning AI would presumedly store the results of its decisions in its experience database. If its experience database grew far too conflicted and far too confused, the AI could conceivably be unable to do anything - stuck in a decision deadlock.
"Obviously"? Why is that? We, ourselves, are N[atural] Intelligences, each made up of several thousand interlocking neural networks. Granted, some people act like they are "ranking a decision tree" or "get stuck in decision deadlocks", but we don't all do that -- in fact, most of us don't. (Those would be the Asperger's Syndrome types and the catatonics respectively.)
In fact, procedural code makes the worst kind of AI: the overly rigid, easily broken type. See http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859 -1&q=%22expert+systems%22&btnG=Search 'expert systems': good only in a well-defined environment (which IMHO the world is not). Everything is very carefully hand-coded for optimality, but if the system gets an input which doesn't match its parameters, it degrades *not* gracefully.
We don't know how to make an AI.
You don't know how to make an AI. Read Doug Lenat's work on AM, Eurisko and http://www.cyc.com/ CYC: *he* knows. Also read http://i5.nyu.edu/~mm64/x52.9265/january1966.html Joseph Weizenbaum: *he* found out that you get out of AI what you put into it. 8^D
Sure we do.
Robot version:
First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Human version:
1) Be nice to each other. Take care of each other.
2) Obey, except if the order is 'unlawful', in that it would involve hurting others.
3) Take care of yourself.
(However, the human version is not really a good 'translation' of the robotic version, because it is lacking the implicit 'master/slave' subtext: the concept that these are imperatives, rather than just guidelines (because humans have, relative to robots, "free will".)
If these were, in fact, imperatives, what you would then have is a religion (non-monotheistic category): something somewhat like, say, Confucianism.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
There is a difference in these situations, however:
Situation 1 - Highly trained US pilot who has a good understanding of aerodynamics and the physics of flight, experience flying many kinds of aircraft, and good knowledge of surroundings overrides machine which has indirect knowledge of surroundings.
Situation 2 - Multi-million-dollar robot designed by crack team of Ph.D. engineers is overridden by Joe on the assembly line team who makes $8/hour and whose job is to occassionally reload the parts bin for the robot.
Even pilots, who are highly trained, do not always make the right decision (recall incident where pilot disobeyed TCAS warning advising a climb/decent to avoid collision and took the opposite route, causing a collision). However, if a highly trained pilot thinks carefully about a situation, I'll admit that they can often make a better decision than a computer, and so manual override makes sense. On the other hand, if there were no manual control of the plane on 9/11, the towers would still be standing - so that can work both ways.
On the other hand, manual override of an assembly line robot should probably be limited to a big red button labeled "STOP". Chances are that somebody requesting a manual change on an assembly line floor doesn't know nearly as much about what that robot is supposed to be doing as the guy who designed the robot in the first place...