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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
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.
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
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?
Patent ethical robots and only patent lawyers will have ethical robots.
Hmm, that could be good: logically, robots belonging to lawyers would sooner or later obey their ethical programming and self-destruct as close as possible to their master.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
What's in a name... Combining the robotic suit with Space Odyssey moreless gives you The Wrong Trousers.
I cannot do that, Wallace...
Z
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.
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
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.
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!
No, robot is a slavic word used to define mechanical beings in the story ROR. The word means thrall or slave, not worker.
#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!"
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but why does the Kenney Space Centre need a robotic tomato harvestor? Are these mutant space tomatos?
I'm sorry, but these are not robots. They're remote-control toys. That's all.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
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.
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)
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
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
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.
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?
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
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...
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).
The Joint Unmanned Combat Aerial System (J-UCAS) has nothing to do with air-to-air and cruise missile targeting. It also is not aimed at air-to-air combat of any form. It is designed to do suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and in the Navy's case, certain low level strike missions as well. Both the Air Force-derived X-45 series (built by Boeing) and the Navy's X-47 series (Northrop Grumman) have flown as part of this program. Check out the DARPA site for more details.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
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.
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"
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
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"
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.
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.