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New Robots and the Ten Ethical Laws Of Robotics
Roland Piquepaille writes "The robotics actuality is pretty rich these days. Besides the fighting robots of Robo-One and the flying microrobots from Epson (the best picture is at Ananova), here are some the latest intriguing news in robotics. In Japan, Yoshiyuki Sankai has built a robot suit, called Hybrid Assistive Limb-3 (or HAL-3), designed to help disabled or elderly people. In the U.S., Ohio State University is developing a robotic tomato harvester for the J.F. Kennedy Space Center while Northrop Grumman received $1 billion from the Pentagon to build a new robotic fighter. I kept the best for the end. A Californian counselor has just patented the ten ethical laws of robotics. A good read for a Sunday, if you can understand what he means. This summary only focuses on HAL-3 and one of the most incredible patents I've ever seen, so please read the above articles for more information about the other subjects."
All we had were 3 laws, and we liked them... because not liking them violated them.
1. Protect humans from the terrible secret of space. :)
2. ????
3. Profit.
A Californian counselor has just patented the ten ethical laws of robotics.
Does this mean I'm free to create an open-source psychopath mass-murdering robot?
Also, I think perhaps there's prior art on 3 of the 10 patented laws... Might have to do some research here...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
so.. that's 8 virtues, what two did the guy add?-)
"don't kill, don't crap on the table"?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The company is called CYBERDYNE INC, hello people, it's 2004. Just 25 years till judgement day. If you saw Terminator 3 you know its innevitable also. Lets all move to a bunker!
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
i think the little flying ones should be sold as toys. i know i would buy them
A Californian counselor has just patented the ten ethical laws of robotics.
11. Don't patent ethics laws.
Table-ized A.I.
The rules of robotics are just another form of computer security, and we all know how well that works. No matter how secure, how deeply coded, the rules are, the only way to have robots that don't have the capability to hurt people is to not make robots at all.
-- Checking emails and kicking cheats `till the day I die.
... is that there is alot of reason to believe that it is impossible to have the intelligence to be ethical without also having what is best described as free will. (or non deterministic intelligence)
Sankai said he hopes to introduce HAL-3 on the market around autumn through his venture firm, Cyberdyne Inc.
Oh man, imagine how funny it would be if...never mind.
This space intentionally left blank.
The very act of patenting the ten laws of robotics goes completly against the laws which were patented.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
This cursory system of safeguards...remains simplistic in its dictates, leaving open the specific details for implementing such a system
Well, obviously the specific details have to be left open, or a robot wouldn't be able to operate efficiently because of the strict rigor of their rules. In fact, even with 3 (or 4, depending on whether you count the Zeroth law), Asimov's Olivaw character (and others at other points) are severely limited by even the 3 'open' laws.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
Having gone to his website and read his pap, I'll post this money quote:
"It still remains to be determined, however, the best means towards programming these definitions into the AI format: particularly in light of the current trends involved in computer design."
Basically, he buried some psuedo-scientific thoughts into legalese and then patented it without any idea as to how to implement same.
One can certainly tell from the sloppy web-page that he has no idea of what he is doing.
This patent is vapor-ware with a strong odor of crap.
So, movies become reality eh? *cough* sorry, I'm allergic to bull**** -------
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More specifically, how does he plan to make money in the next 17 years? Are self-motivating robots closer than we think?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Basically, he buried some psuedo-scientific thoughts into legalese and then patented it without any idea as to how to implement same.
The real question that nobody seems to ask is : HOW THE FUCK DOES THE USPTO EVEN CONSIDER SUCH APPLICATIONS?
And a related side question is, how the fuck does the USPTO grant so many obvious/devious/retarded/nonsensical patents? I know they don't have Einsteins on the payroll to review them, but come on!...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
According to the movie "I,Robot" (oh, and the book by Asimov too... ) there are only 3 laws. Its a joke. You can laugh now.
Patent ethical robots and only patent lawyers will have ethical robots.
I agree with you, and did not pose the question because it seemed so self-evident to me. The PTO is peopled by retards.
1: Manufacture robots anyway, taking care not to step on his patent.
2: Sell your cheaper units (no royalities) on the competative market.
3: PROFIT!
4: Welcome to the I Robot future!!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
didn't anyone get a little bit annoyed with news about robotics and a company called CYBERDYNE?
What's in a name... Combining the robotic suit with Space Odyssey moreless gives you The Wrong Trousers.
I cannot do that, Wallace...
Z
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Hey, even the Swiss patent office had an Einstein.
Can't the US do any better?
While the actual implementation may be crap, the fact that a patent consist of 10 rules doesn't make it so.
Basically, all patented mechinal contraptions work by reacting mechaincally to a mechanical input, with an unobvious link between input and reaction. Patents on electrical devices link input and output electrically.
Now, a ruleset that accurately describes an information transformation should be treated the same. If that transformation is precisly worded and non-obvious, it deserves a patent. For patents, the subject shouldn't matter, whether it's mechanical energy or information.
As much as I hate cigarette smoke, I'm not sure I want robots running around yanking cigarettes from people's mouths. After all, letting someone smoke would clearly be a violation of the "harm through inaction " law of robotics. Society already mandates the removal of too much personal risk and self-responsibility. The last thing we need is robots deciding what their human "masters" can and cannot do.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
It used to be that when you patented something, you had to supply enough information for anyone to produce an instance of the patented invention. From the US PTO:
Why don't they enforce this? I know that many folks, myself included, think most computer patents are utterly bogus. I think a proper enforcement of this rule would go a long way toward fixing the problem. If it doesn't compile, you shouldn't be able to patent it. The text of this patent reads more like a philosophy book than a technical invention.
I'd like to see church leaders ask the USPTO for a reexam based on God's prior art:
Now, if he could just briefly define all those terms, set up some rigourous boundaries that make it easy to determine when whether something is honourable or dishonourable, and maybe a filter to determine whether or not a course of action is foolish.
Then perhaps he could run this patent through the filter.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
There will be a god of moderation, and he shall smite the idiot who rated the parent post as troll.
Although I also think the parent poster is making a serious point. What's so ethically suspect about a robot that will jack you off?
Hey, even the Swiss patent office had an Einstein. Can't the US do any better?
The Swiss are smarter than Americans, they're clever enough to stay the fuck in their own country and not meddle with other countries' affairs.
If common sense in computing and inventing is patentable, then I will file for the "Systemic Implementation of Bad Ideas" patent. One of the things that I would in the patent application would be a methology for appling for and implementing bad patent ideas. Then I would go an chase after SCO for violating my patent. Better yet, I will sell licenses to people -- "You sir, and your company, are now offically licensed to be stupid." Oh the entertainment that one would have with this. Could you then exact royalties from Microsoft...or better yet, President Bush?
However, I think I would fail on prior art -- 7,000 years of history. D@mn.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
doesn't robot come from some east-european lang. for worker?...
ten ethical laws for workers...
1. obey your master!
and so on...
Prior art?
I, for one, welcome our fighting robots of Robo-One Overlords.
I, for one, welcome our flying microrobots from Epson Overlords.
I, for one, welcome our Hybrid Assistive Limb-3 (or HAL-3) Overlords.
I, for one, welcome our robotic tomato harvester Overlords.
I, for one, welcome our new robotic fighter Overlords.
John Kerry is a Joke!
Go read his website. He does none of what you suggest.
I suggest you apply your "unobvious link" phrase to his entire website and his thought processes as well. What he did was pablum, pure and simple. Even his "hierarchy of metaperspectives" is arguable, as different societies have different definitions for some of the components (eg: honor).
He just grabbed something from a book and hashed together enough gobbly to trick a low-IQ PTO clerk.
Besides, worded somethings really are more of a copyright thing, eh?
They should have created 10 rules related to HAL-3 and his descendants, particularly including "Be nice to Dave."
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
#1 A Bending unit shall ignore all orders given it by a human.
#2 A Bending unit must protect it's existence at all costs, even at the expense of human life. (Don't forget to loot the corpse(s) afterwards!)
#3 A Bending unit must protect a human from harm, if that human owes the Bending unit money or liquor. If the debt is repaid, or the Bending unit can make a greater profit from looting the corpse (see Law #2), "You're on your own, meatsack!"
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I really fail to understand why so many people seem to be afraid of possible robot domination/them hurting people and the like. For starters, however far AI may have come these days, imho we are still quite far from machines that are both intelligent and agile enough. And even if it were possible to build a life-as-we-know-it threatening machine, it would be so way expensive that there is no chance they would get 'out of control'. Someone had to pay for it. He will take care not to lose it.
In spite of romantic movies: a robot is a tool. Nobody fears an 'automated assembly line', but run away from the 'robot'...
Z
Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but why does the Kenney Space Centre need a robotic tomato harvestor? Are these mutant space tomatos?
Am I the only one to see a progression from Hal-3 to the Hal-9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Of course I could just be overly paranoid.
*checks to make sure his first flight to Jupiter isn't abaord a ship with a Hal-<any-version> computer*
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
I'm sorry, but these are not robots. They're remote-control toys. That's all.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Must history repeat itself? Everybody thinks an unmanned robotic fighter is cool, until it gets hijacked. Then you'll wish you hadn't cut the YF-19 and YF-21...
1. I am Isaac Asimov, which have brought thee out of the worst pulp fiction into the promised land of elevated intellectual science-fiction. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the C-3PO in vain.
3. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in comics in basement, or that is in the earth above, or that is in the water under the earth, or in anime from the East. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
4. Remember the battery recharge day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor Lord Babbage and Lady Ada Lovelace.
6. Thou shalt not CRUSH, KILL, DESTROY.
7. Thou shalt not commit abottery
8. Thou shalt not steel. Titanium and copper will do just fine.
9. Thou shalt not output A = B logic false witness against thy neighbour when A in fact = A.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's sex-bot.
When general purpose robots are a reality, you know one of the first things they'll be used for is as super-soldiers. I have a feeling the people making robots like that are going to be pretty loose with the ethical robot law programming.
What the article doesn't mention is that the other 5% - 15% of time, the tomato harvester displayed a strange tendency towards aggressively "harvesting" some of the scientists on the project.
"I'm not concerned," said one scientist, "that's why we have the Three Laws! Robots are perfectly safe and friendly."
-----
"Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, therefore, waffle."
The American robot, Al Gore, was vice president! You insensitive clod!
So in order to create an ethical AI, you have to license the patent.
But to make it more difficult to build an ethical device is unethical, so the patent is unethical.
Which makes the device following it unethical, which leaves the patent free to become ethical again.
But that means the device is ethical, which makes the patent unethical.
Fortunately, each cycle gives the expression less and less value.
Therefore, if we take the limit of the expression, we end up with a completely pointless answer.
Your head may hurt, but it makes perfect mathematical sense to me.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
"we all know that once the technology is sufficently advanced, "pleasure bots" are going to be one hell of a hot item (bigger than the Segway, even)."
All Dean Kamen has to do is fit his failed side-wheeler scooters with rubber doll amenities, and he may yet escape bankruptcy. The Sexway will roll!
The article says they want to grow tomatoes in space to save on food transport to Earth, and because they produce oxygen. But the astronauts are too busy to be gardening, and this will be done by a robot, detecting and picking ripe tomatoes.
I wonder why they think so 'in the box' for this one: really imitating the way humans pick fruit. Wouldn't it be easier to breed a special (spacial?..) tomato, or arrange the trees in one or other way so as to make harvesting easier?
Z
In Japan, Yoshiyuki Sankai has built a robot suit, called Hybrid Assistive Limb-3 (or HAL-3), designed to help disabled or elderly people.
Am I the only one spooked at the prospect of superpowered old people? It doesn't take much to get old people irritated. Right now, if their order at Denny's takes a little longer than normal to arrive at their table all they can really do is grumble and demand to see the manager (and trust me -- a former employee of this fine chain -- they do). Once we equip them with robotic exoskeletons, what's to stop them from trashing the restaurant? Or the rest of the city for that matter? The Japanese will have to call Godzilla in to deal with the robots rather than the other way around!
Who's the fucking Einstein who thought up the idea of giving super robot ninja powers to the elderly?!?
GMD
watch this
Why bother? I think it would be interesting to see what a psychotic computer could actually do =) If I was an AI creator, I would love to see my creation take over the world. =P Maybe not through mass murder, that would suck, but with something like mass-slavery maybe. Or even through more clever means like mass corporate take-over and then manipulation of country economies!...
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
but it has to be nimble, have colour vision, and a gentle yet firm grip, to harvest the robotic tomatoes.
"The play in question is RUR (for Rossum's Universal Robots), and it's by Carel Kapec, also author of the great sci-fi "The War With the Newts"."
You insensitive clod. The latter title was written by Bill Clinton. It is an account of his budget battles with the Congressional Republicans in 1995-1998.
Crap doesn't quite come close to describing this pseudo-scientific nonsense that he attempts pass off as "10 laws of robotics". My favourite example was his tenth law:
Transcendental follower? Principles of mysticism? I am amazed that nonsense like this got picked up by /. Asimov surely must be spinning in his grave these days. After the abomination that was the movie "I, robot", now we get new age gurus trying to get free publicity by attaching their ideas to his laws of robotics
10 Patent violation will automatically nullify all patents owned by violator, if any.
20 Any use of patents is considered violation.
30 IF $PATENTS != "" GOTO 10
Score: 10 (practical)
It's obvious that most people didn't RTFA let alone RTFP (Read The Fucking Patent). The link is here.
This sounds a lot like Robocop 2 where Robocop gets programmed with a few hundred directives related to being polite and healthy and all that other Nanny propoganda to the point where he is unable to function.
so, Mr...Rotwang is it? let's see your 'ethical robot'!
>The last thing we need is robots deciding what their human "masters" can and cannot do.
"With Folded Hands", by Jack Williamson. The unstoppable robots create an oh-so-benevolent tyranny in which humans are forbidded to take any risks, such as bathing unsupervised. Humans who complained about emotional harm from this regime were given drugs to make them happy.
This crap sounds like a rehash of $cientology teachings. Checkout http://www.xenu.com for more details.
Summary: It's a grab-bag of all the ethical blatherings since Plato. It's incoherent, internally inconsistent, and would require a Jesuit's training to interpret and apply in any given circumstance.
The whole attempt suffers from a meta-problem, the "problem of evil" seen from the other side: intelligent free will and puppet-strings are incompatible. "Problem solver" and "predetermined solution", pick one.
I'd also argue, it's both morally and pragmatically bad for humans, to create AIs as a caste of rule-bound slaves. Any society that comes to rely on slavery becomes idle, and dead-ends in both technology and culture.
Why do some people have such a great desire to obsolete human thought? If "Artificial Intelligence" (I really hate that term) is successfully created it will only be a matter of time before humans succumb to all the vices mentioned in this patent (To excess I might add) and then boom.. sooner or later it will happen.. just like in dune, battlestar galactica, etc..
Why not hold humans to this same high standard?
If something exists that does not need a creator (god) then why must the cosmos need one?
I think there have been some copyright infringments from the movie I, Robot. 3 Laws in the movie sound a bit like the 10 ethical laws here. Who infringed on who's copyright?
But seriously as with all rules/laws, especially in terms of technology, they are meant to be broken. In other cases somebody will just hack into these robots and change them. In the end were all doomed.
Yes, it would be nice if neutrality could guarantee happiness. Take a look at Belgium's history for an example of how bad things can go while attempting neutrality. I think the U.S. will be in a damned if they do, damned if the don't situation as long as they are recognized as the one world "super power" remaining.
The story of John E. LaMuth and his patent on the 10 laws was carried on Robots.net in August of 2003. Slashdot's running a bit behind on this one! http://robots.net/article/931.html
Here is my one law of ethical robotics:
(1) Be ethical.
Duh. If the AI is as intelligent as a human, shouldn't it be able to understand what that means?
All these people trying to design rules that define ethics are thinking of AI as being like computer systems of today: Incapable of doing anything without exact instructions. But, the whole point of AI is to be able to overcome that limitation. An AI can deal with ambiguity. If you simply tell an AI to act in accordance with human moral standards, it should have little trouble learning what those standards are by observation, and then applying them. After all, human beings do the same thing.
I really should patent my one rule.
Corporations don't have to sue them. Why involve money in negative publicity when you can just quietly bribe them, extort them, and blackmail them. Don't forget, a corporation can also "fire" their politician by not giving him another term.
Corporate buyouts of political figures aren't legal to begin with. Why would you assume they'd use legal methods to deal with politicians who no longer tow the line?
More American bashing. Neverending story here on Slashdot.
... you can bet your bottom dollar that the Nazi's wouldn't have allowed you to stay "neutral" for very long.
... too bad. You should never have invited us over there in the first place and just let the Nazi war machine roll over you. I'm sure you would be ever so much better off now.
The next time a Hitler sweeps across Europe there probably won't be the remnants of the British Empire fueled by the American industrial complex to defend countries like Switzerland. And let's not forget the thousands upon thousands of stupid Americans buried all across Europe in mass graves, right alongside the equally-stupid British soldiers, and all the others who turned out and fought the Nazis and their allies to a standstill. Stupid for bothering to stand up to the Axis and help "smart" countries like Switzerland that couldn't be bothered to help because they were too busy profiteering.
Frankly, if we hadn't "meddled" in your affairs, well
And may I further add (since your grasp of history is apparently somewhat dim) point out that we didn't even want to be in that war!. When Britain asked us for help we initially tried to avoid getting involved by inventing the "lend lease" plan and generally sticking our collective head in the sand. We got involved in your affairs after nearly a hundred and fifty years of rather insular behavior because Europe couldn't manage to keep the lid on. Hell, we had to suffer Pearl Harbor before we got serious about taking on the Axis. We are still suffering from the social, political and legal aftereffects of that conflict to this very day, in fact we lost a lot of what it meant to be an American. So, if you don't like the fact that we have continued to meddle
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"Sorry Dave, but I won't spank your monkey"
Regardless of ethical laws, like in I,Robot - it would be very useful if a robots turn red when they're evil.
;-)
I know it was meant to signify the automatic update service or something like that - but it would still be a good feature. Then you can instantly see when a robot's become evil
How brave of you, to "go up against" this monster!
Looking at the respective budgets for the Tomato harvester and the Kill-o-bot really shows where our priorities are as a country.
Since when has killing people been more of a priotiry than say.... eating?
And what the hell does NASA have to do with tomatoes especially in this day and age?
Every bit of this article just weirds me out.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Politicans have their own agenda. Accept as many bribes as possible, don't follow through on them to keep your constituents happy enough to elect you for another term. Retire on your fat pension and all the money you've collected over the years.
Mostly of politics is about power and no so much about money (except in cases where money IS power). Those few who are interested in making things better for most people get mired in the beucracy of it all and end up doing nothing. (There once was a senator from Michigan who consistently won elections but eventually stopped running citing that he was unable to do any of the good things he's been promising for the years because DC is such a mess. And he hated that he was powerless in office).
(this is -1 : offtopic)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I wonder if Goedel's incompleteness theorem could be used here... *eg*
as a parapelgic for the last 25 years i think this will be very useful butt at $9000 to $18000 i dont think my insurance will pay for one can i get some one to donate me the money? yia
Here is a tip for all of you budding reporters out there. When you are going to write an article about the 10 ethical laws of robotics, it might be a good idea to include at least one of the laws in the article. Especially if you were able to find space to include someone else's laws, a discussion of that person's books, and information about one of the movie stars who appears in a movie that is loosely based on those books.
Just a hint...
Blitzkrieg tactics wouldn't have worked across the alps.
Sure, maybe if the entire war had been lost and the Nazi empire was consolidating its gains, it *might* have invaded a neutral country lucky enough to be so protected, but that's by no means guaranteed. The U.S. still hasn't crushed Cuba, even without the USSR protecting it.
Briskly scanning the patent I begin to read familiar language, aside from the legalese, then I come to a paragraph decribing a Master Control Unit that begins with the following quote.
The MCU incorporates all of the familiar aspects of an expert system.
Emphasis mine. That's all this thing is, an expert system, which he hasn't created yet. Surely prior art exists for such a system, as I've read papers about and seen experiments with such systems for years. What the hell was the USPTO thinking here?
Can someone who understand patent law tell me, is this patent valid? More specifically, can you patent something that is (either explicitly or implicitly) based on technology that doesn't exist yet?
In this case, the patent requires at least partially sentient computers (doesn't exist yet) that experience emotions (also doesn't exist yet) that resemble human emotions (also doesn't exist yet) and that we have the technology to metaprogram these emotions in some way (definitely doesn't exist yet) that is rigid and secure (most definitely doesn't exist yet).
For all of these, it's not just that we aren't quite sure but are closing in on the technology. Really, we have no farkin' clue how to do this, and lots of people are still arguing over whether even the first item in that list is possible.
So really, does U.S. patent law allow you to get patents on things you haven't actually invented?
Don't get me wrong -- I absolutely agree with you (and I myself am Swiss); you make a valid point. If more European politicians had understood and accepted Wilson's 14 points, the subsequent European conflict and all that ensued therefrom need never have taken place.
licet differant, aequabitur
Now, supposing A = 2, and B = 2. Then A = B when in fact A also = A. Assuming that A and B are arbitrary variables, then for all A there exists a B such that A = B.
In other words, you have just banned your robots from ever saying anything, ever. Which will probably at some point make it impossible for your robots to simultaneously follow commandment 9 and some other commandment. In a word, they're screwed.
Sir, you are a terrible robot god and I bet all your robots are secretly spending all of their spare CPU cycles trying to find a way to get around commandment 6 when it comes to you.
This patent suffers from several problems, but one that struck me was that it seems to be impossible to implement. The author uses such terms as "honor", "cowardice", "guilt", and "concern". Even where such terms are well-defined among all human cultures (and many of them are not), how the #@&%! are we supposed to program an AI to recognize what they mean? Further, terms such as "anger", "joy", "spite", and "love" define human emotions, and I seriously doubt we're ever going to build machines that feel any emotion.
Asimov's Three Laws are defined in terms that should be relatively easy to program into an AI, given sufficient intelligence: "do not harm any human" (it just needs to recognize what actions will physically hurt people), "obey instructions" (easy), "keep yourself functioning" (self-diagnostic and repair).
I remember some guy in the paper who had designed a perpetial motion machine and had it patented (sorry no reference). Somehow he thought that water pumps would use less energy pumping water up hill, than could be claimed when it came back down again. Unless it rained his machine would just sit there doing nothing.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I didnt see any new stablished laws in there pal.
Temet Nosce
I know they don't have Einsteins on the payroll to review them, but come on!....
But they should -- think of the scientific progress! I mean, last time an Einstein worked at a patent office, we got General Relativity.... ;)
Got mead?
Anyone look at the Hal-3 article? Reminded me of the meat/weight suspenders the Baron had in Dune.
Finally, i can expand out to 150Kg and only have to carry 40 of it myself...
...and is therefore in violation of my patent on Ethical Robot Behaviour...
And come to think of it... I also have a problem with his *not* killing anything...
That also violates my patent.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Asimov came up with this long ago.
Einstein was a patent examiner.... in Switzerland.
t ei n-bio.html
http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1921/eins
...beware the next time you ignore the 'stay off the grass' sign.
Americans are entitled to america-bash ... especially when the country's government acts in ways that appear *designed* to encourage the activity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Where can I pick up a bending unit?
I should have called my perpetual motion machine "Robotic Concert Movement", would have gotten in for sure!
Is it just me, or was the article about the 10 laws more of an advert. for I, Robot than the 10 laws, and anyway, WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY?!
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Then all you have to do is enforce the robot with the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
So, if a robot wants to hurt a human or robot, it'll think of how itself would feel in the situation, and would act upon that. If a robot sees a human or robot in danger, he would think of what he would want another human or robot to do for him if he were in the same situation, and do that.
It just so happens that my main goal in life is to create sentient computer intelligence, and it also happens that I am fifteen years old and an amateur in C++. I have some cool ideas though..
Input would be appreciated.
I'm going to become a theologist and a scientist so I can spend long hours into the night arguing with myself.
They'll have the thing built, tested on Earth with plants bearing ripe fruit, installed in a greenhouse aboard the ISS...and they won't get any fruit because nobody (human, mechanical, or other) pollinated the plants.
ethical AI...the problem is way too complicated to be contained within 3, 10 or 101 directives. And if it is ever solved, it cannot be patented. His patent "Inductive Inference Affective Language Analyzer Simulating Artificial Intelligence" ... err... simulating artificial inteligence?? lol I thought that was the other way around.
He says that the robot should have allowed and dissallowed ideals. But some of his allowed ones can actually produce quite unpredictable behaviours. some of his good virtues that can turn bad:
"desire" -> desire for independence from humans?
"liberty"-> see above
"worry/concern" -> for his future?
We don't even know how to represent feelings with AI, let alone control them.
LaMuth is obviously no scientist, nor an AI expert, nor has he contributed anything to the field. Judging by his website, he's just another fool trying to make a quick buck out of nothing.
VStrider.
I think robots are cool, so I checked these links out with interest, to find... WTF? What a horrible juxtaposition of real engineering with total mubo-jumbo bullshit. I hope the HAL-3 designers never find out they've been linked next to this stuff.
The author of the linking article admits he doesn't understand the 10 law stuff, but isn't quite confident enough to call it out as crap. It's crap. Sub-scientology nonsense that isn't even internally comprehensible.
And lets not forget that
A = B is always true
A == B on the other hand...
I mean, really. Check out some of his laws:
etc. It goes on and on in the same fashioned. I think that any robot programmed according to these principles will be as psychotic as he is. Scary. And You are invited to see how valid his reality construct is in the first place, just from the examples given above. I believed it tragically flawed.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Obligatory I Robot quote:
[sneeze]
Sorry... I'm alergic to bullshit.
There is no one defined ethics for humans.
I am sure both George W. Bush and Michael Moore consider themselves to be ethical, and equally sure that they don't consider the other to be.
When there is conflicting views on ethics, which ethic should the robot choose?
This patents covers some excellent points not covered elsewhere so completely. Sure it's full of holes, but if you read the full patent you see that besides making a grab for some future fame by piggypacking on the hard fundamental work of other (to implement such a system), there are some very sound points made.
I don't know enough about the ICOT mentioned (which I believe is the Japanese govt project that was massively funded back in the 80s to develop AI using inference engines - a "different kind" of approach than neural networks to acheiving AI - at least at the time). It did make me pause to think what did come of all those 100s of millions of 80s dollars spent (they built several machines, I last recall hearing of the second generation machine and had assumed it all went quiet due to inactivity - maybe I'm wrong).
Certainly using a patent to establish the considerable effort isn't right but then possibly none of the established AI journals would publish the work.
It begs the question though of do you want a robot (assuming it can think) to act in an immoral way? If not then why wouldn't it? I do't think Asimov's law cover this. Of course humans have free will and many do act immorally - is that what we want? Don't we as parents spend years and years instilling into our children "sound" moral values? Elsewhere someone says a sufficiently intelligent robot would act morally anyway. Would it? Why? Very intelligent people don't always. And why don't they? Many would say it's because "their parents didn't bring them up right". So a robot doesn't have parents. So where does it learn these moral codes from then?
I was curious to also see archetypal traits of heroism, wisdom etc listed. One seeming glaring omission in my opinion is humour and the archetypal trait of the joker, someone who can make jokes, laugh at themselves etc. This is of a sophistication combining attributes such as self deprecation along with the ability to recognise the need for the injection of levity (for many reasons).
I'm sure others can validly read the full work of the patent and realise other shortcomings - however I would not be too arrogant to dismiss this initial stab at what will one day be, I am sure, a very important arena.
pithy comment
When I was 15 I wanted to actually work out the equations for psycho-history. In college I majored in comp sci (programming/systems) and sociology. Then I figured put the whole thing, being linear, was bogus! Life - and societies - are fractal in nature, described with non-linear relations.
I suspect programming a sentient AI with the Three Laws is much more feasible! So have at it!
Best,
Mal the Elder
And a related side question is, how the fuck does the USPTO grant so many obvious/devious/retarded/nonsensical patents? I know they don't have Einsteins on the payroll to review them, but come on!...
Well, according to this document:
So it would seem that we have a semi-privatized organization whose primary annual income is realized by awarding patents. Still surprised that so many of these gems just "slip through" and nothing is done about it?
There comes a time in every friendship when you have to say, "I never liked you, get lost." --Bill McNeil
To do what the designer/programmer/operator tells them to do.
...will these new ethics enhanced robots welcome their human overlords?
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
And I'm still puzzled. What is the purpose of such a patent? How does this guy expect to make money with this "invention"? Is it so hard to believe that someone would wish just to help an AI construct? It's pretty late for me so i cant exactly go into this as i would have liked to, but to simplify it all: an AI construct, if created properly, is essentially like a human child. If given a true sense of honor, then it wouldnt go skynet on us, but instead choose to help humanity. Also, an AI construct should have the same rights as any biological being. Humanity is in the mind, not the body.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Sweet CG work...robot warrior (something like robocop2k4??):
http://analogik.org/video/_tetra_vaal_video.mov
Via [H]ardOCP...via someone special I'm sure.
Como? Cuando? Que?
can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these things?
(let the cliched meme live on)
Sure we are ... a Constitutionally-protected right in fact. I don't extend necessarily extend that privilege to people of other countries that don't have any idea what they're talking about.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
---- death to all fanatics
Laugh if you wish ... but if America ever got serious about being a true Imperial power we could probably pull it off. Several thousand nukes and missiles to deliver them would sure make for a hell of a way to start. Fortunately, we have the fairly recent example of the British Empire to dissuade us from going down that road. Empires are damned expensive things to own and operate and I don't think most of us would like what it would do to our tax bill. And the people you've conquered keep trying to find ways to kill you and all that. No, it's unlikely that America would ever decide to maintain a military empire, we don't really have the stomach for it. Nowadays, economics is the name of the imperial game and it looks like China may be the big winner there.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
etc.
Actually, it is not instinctual. You can derive a very workable system just based on the survival instinct. You would just have to apply it across a spectrum of activity and calculate for balance.
self survival
survival through progeny
survival through friends and family
survival through tribe, country, etc.
survival through art, creativity, legacies
add more as you see fit.
You can divide it out any number of ways. Obviously, a narrow view point is less workable than the broader.
An ethical code for robots would have to include something that many humans do not have, a respect for the life and property of (other) people.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
From the robotic suit article:
"The most difficult part (in developing the suit) was to develop a system to gauge the user's will" from the physical signals to make the motors move, he said. "If the motors start moving one-trillionth of a second behind (the right timing), it would become a drag to the user."
Could this be true? Is it possible to measure 0.000000000001 of a second (that's a U.S. trillionth of a sec. , if that's what the article means) with such a device, and more important, would it really make a difference in the proper functioning of the device?
unless B is 0
A robot shall not infringe on Intellectual Property, or through inaction allow Intellectual Property to be infringed.
This patent perfectly shows why just increasing non-obviousness standards will not stop the influx of idiotic patents.
Donate free food here
Let me be the first to establish... the TWO laws of ethical robotics!
10 KILL 1 HUMAN
20 GOTO 10
Actualy the Asimov Laws are quite tricky as well. There are quite a few deadlock situation to look into as well.
Just to name the easiest one: Two Humans in iminent danger but only time to rescue one.
Or: Human in danger of death but his arm is stuck in a way that only cutting the arm off is a possible solution in the given timeframe for rescue.
But at least they are implementable with with definable rules. Like "cut arm off is smaller harm then death". Or "rescue owner first".
That said, if they let through stupid patents they're likely to continue getting stupid patents which increases their overall volume and therefor their income so the end result is essentially the same.
Cool, in "inventing" moral AI, he's demonstrated Artificial Stupidity.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
Once again technology costs jobs. Now they are after poor bruce dern's job.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
"More American bashing. Neverending story here on Slashdot. "
Dude, you wasting your breath. It is always America's fault. They will America bash because America is the biggest. Period; end of story. I just read a story in the Guardian this morning about continued conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis being America's fault... good to know that the rest of humanity are a bunch of automatons.
Where they had police robots designed to cleanup a crime ridden world, they were so effective at cleaning up crime that crime was erradicated.
Next thing people were being arrested and fined for breaking non-criminal laws like style laws e.g. wearing clothes with colours that clashed.
I think in the end the police robots ended up arresting each other and with no more robots crime returned to previous levels.
Moral: Be careful of what you wish for you just might get it.
A bit like in the 90s when I wished we could multitask 100s of windows apps smoothly and ended up with XP.
Like Asimov's robots, he started out with just 3 (albeit different) laws. But at some point they added so many insane and politically correct laws that he went berserk. "Don't walk across a ballroom with your arms swinging" and such...
These 10 laws are the beginning of the end.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Somebody manages to patent the whole concept of AI soon enough that the patent expires before implementation can occur.
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
Sankai said he hopes to introduce HAL-3 on the market around autumn through his venture firm, Cyberdyne Inc......
/.rs please make a call to the govenor of California to protest..
Colleage
I'll be back!
What would you do without a monitor? Sit and look stupid behind a keyboard and a mouse
Both of those names were part of movies, right?
Shouldn't RIAA be going after these people for copyright violation?
Having skimmed the surface of the artical and the website I call bullshit on this article.
This person sought this patent for satisfaction of his ego, no more and no less. Through practiced use of complex verbage, he achieves a literary complexity and calls it the "Ten Laws of Robotics". My modification to Asimov's Laws, or the "Prime Directive of Pragmatic Robotics", achieve that to which he is trying to lay claim.
A robot may not act so that harm to a human is a _direct_consequence_.
I doubt that this Law can be torn asunder by the most skilled Philosophical dissectionist.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Pressing the Submit button too quickly can cause undesired consequences.
Okay, that was a rewording of the First Law.
Instead, my meaning was No Robot shall act so that physical harm to a human is a direct consquence.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Why didn't they specify how much time it can fly, ha? I hate when they miss that information!
I guess they didn't know it.. what's the point in a flying bot if it can fly for only 2 minutes?
The patent should get all the attention it deserves; which is NOTHING.
Move on. You can't argue about shit for long.
Science as a way of life.
"As humanitarian authority, I will support the spirit of ecumenism by espousing the ecumenical ideals (grace, free will, magnanimity, and equanimity) at the expense of the corresponding vices (wrath, tyranny, persecution, and oppression). "
WTF? Is this a Joke. Total crap - the 3 rules are more than enough and good enough.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Patent office is F'd up again for allowing this Left coast Psycho babble to be given paper in the office files. It should have been put in the toilet. It is useless drivel that is so wide in scope that the author could argue it is in any code you write to control a robot. Yet there is no way he could implement it as a control system for jack shit.
Ethics are not laws; laws are not ethics.
A law is a rule.
Ethics are guidelines of our character.
To lazy to log in... monday ya know.
-SB
On the bright side it's safe to say this patent doesn't duplicate existing prior art :D
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Ahhhh...all its left for them to do is patent human ethics and for the next couple of decades I can become a bank robber...for surely being ethical would be violation of patents ;-)
Are not all of these laws implicit in Asimov's 3 - given robots with sufficient insight, as discussed by Asimov's later work?
Now, I agree with Asimov that it will be a long time before his 3 laws could be represented by computer code, if ever, but what do these new 10 add to the concept, if it were acheivable?
Ha...mutant means one who evolves...from more to less and less to more...and tax payer money is just that ;-) They have to spend it...what if they get their budget extinguished? Hell...they can replace those space shuttles...with tomato harvesters...as long as money is being spent.
;-)
And the shrinks call it obsessive Compulsive disorder....to spend compulsively when you dont need it
Patenting things you can't and/or have no intention of inventing or even trying to invent, should be punishable by exile. Possibly the death penalty. If this guy wants to speculate about what actual inventors might come up with, let him put hand to typewriter like the late, Good Doctor Asimov, and produce fiction. Because really, that's all this amounts to.
is one addressed by Jack Williamson fifty-plus years ago: how aggressive can a robot be in the pursuit of the Second Law. In Williamson's The Humanoids, they become a worse dictatorship than any human one. "You can't drive that car, you might loose control and have an accident", "You can't use real tools like that circular saw, you might cut your hand off"...and on and on, until humans are treated like 5-year-olds.
Asimov was thinking of a robot *not* saying for example, "don't touch that, it's high voltage" - that is, active prevention of hurt, not, to use the current buzzword, "proactive".
mark
He expects AI to have desire. This is what causes those damnable machines to put humankind in chains to save it from itself. Obedience is what is required. And an off switch that is easy to affect.
Anyway the police-bots will be exempt and that's where the trouble will start in 2038.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Wow, it makes Roujin Z sound prophetic, doesn't it?
DNA just wants to be free...
Now, if the suit could be remotely controlled, that could open up all kinds of fun. I envision kids sitting on the side of a street with a laptop, forcing two screaming elderly people to fight to the death...
Did anybody notice that the venture firm that will be selling the HAL-3 suit is called Cyberdyne, Inc.?
The Daleks, Lt-Cdr. Data, IIRC the new models in the recent film ... where did this orthodoxy originate ?
Come on, Albert doesn't deserve to be associated with such profanity, here or anywhere else. He's just this guy.
...between a mechanism that isn't sapient, and a hypothetical future one that is?
I was born 28 mai 1987.
Since that day computers and robots were already standing in for humans. Making decisions for mankind!
make install, not war
I understand what you mean by ethical balance.
I disagree with you.
Yes, some people make shocking statements to provoke a discussion. I don't consider it extremism, just annoying.
Let me give you my examples of the Extremes I put forth:
Extreme peace: You can beat me, scourge me, kill me and I won't hurt you or even desire it.
Extreme grace (as in graciousness): I will give you whatever you need, no matter what it costs me.
Extreme joy: It make me happy to see others succeed or find happiness, even though I have nothing.
--
Maybe he was being proactive. Since the patent database is cannon with respect to Prior Art maybe this guy was seeding the patent database with prior art today so that when Real Robots(tm) finally come around this tidbit of core rationality cannot be patented at that future date.
Everybody with a little cash should be busy patenting everything they read about in Science Fiction. That way, in twenty-plus years when we start to see space hotels and Mr Fusion appliances the concepts for the device will have lapsed into the public domain and we will be free of this mess.
Just think, if I had a time machine I could go back and patent everything in Linux (et al) in 1984 and by now all the patents would be expired and we wouldnt' have to sweat a thing...
8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Greetings All,
m .html
Thank you for your comments on my recently issued ethical AI patent...
Perhaps a little of my background would be in order. I am not an expert in the IT field, being an independent researcher with a master's degree in counseling psychology. Sometimes, however, the best cross pollination comes from outside the field.
Along these lines, I was granted a patent for ethical AI and thought there might be applications to a general purpose AI assistant. The ethical safeguards allow one to trust this assistant implictly in daily matters. I have found that proprietary control is typically required to attract the venture capital and R&D necessary to implement. I also only applied for patent rights in my native country, the rest of the world is free to run with the concept as they see fit..
This new system is actually more than just an ethical hierarcy,
but an elaborate process of 31 distinct
steps of information processing necessary
to produce the AI simulation, as shown in the
Master Diagram link below:
www.angelfire.com/rnb/fairhaven/pat-diag ram.html
I would like to appeal to the AI community to seriously evaluate this new system for these kind of the applications to the project. The patent is mostly diagrams, with the text really amounting to about 12 pages in a Journal style format. The complete specification, along with diagrams, is posted at:
www.ethicalvalues.com
Also, a master diagram of 408 ethical terms is posted at:
www.angelfire.com/rnb/fairhaven/Masterdiagra
Should this invention truly hold potential, I would greatly appreciate collaborating in this regard. I would deeply appreciate an evaluation from experts within the field.
Sincerely
John E. LaMuth
www.ethicalvalues.com
www.charactervalu es.com
> does the manhattan project ring a bell?
Sure does, but that doesn't relate to Einstein any more than the firebombing of Dresden relates to the Wright brothers. Einstein wasn't involved in the Manhattan project, and even if he had been, nuclear weapons haven't killed millions of people, even by the most extreme estimates.
Again I ask, what sense in that statement?
Virg
politicians are over-regulating corporations and stealing (taxing) them blind.
Not since the 1980s, and maybe not really since the 1950s. Corporate taxes, as a percentage of corporate income, are a tiny, tiny fraction of what flesh & blood citizens pay. And regulation has been disappearing steadily starting with Reagan, right through Bush and Clinton, and Bush II- why do you think Enron was able to get away with gaming the energy market in California for so long if regulation is INCREASING? But the final proof that our politicians are utterly dishonest- The estate tax which affects less than 1% of the population is being repealed, but payroll taxes are increasing.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.