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The Question of Robot Safety
An anonymous reader writes to mention an Economist article wondering how safe should robots be? From the article: "In 1981 Kenji Urada, a 37-year-old Japanese factory worker, climbed over a safety fence at a Kawasaki plant to carry out some maintenance work on a robot. In his haste, he failed to switch the robot off properly. Unable to sense him, the robot's powerful hydraulic arm kept on working and accidentally pushed the engineer into a grinding machine. His death made Urada the first recorded victim to die at the hands of a robot. This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer." The article goes on to explore the ethics behind robot soldiers, the liability issues of cleaning droids, and the moral problems posed by sexbots.
The story curiously doesn't dwell much on virtual bots and issues posed by them. It focuses entirely on mechanical bots.
I dunno. Sounds like an act of war to me.
Fear the Roomba!
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Am I the only Slashdot reader that remembers that toy? "I am the atomic-powered RO-bot! PLEASE give my best wishes to EVERYBODY!"
(As immortalized in a Mystery Science Theater episode.)
"This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer"
Neither would this have happened if the maintenance tech had followed procedure and just switched the damned thing off. I don't see how this is any different from a normal industrial accident with something like a sheet metal press.The evil monkey commands you to dance.
The robot didn't actively kill him; it just wasn't programmed to know whether a person is there or not. It's like stepping into a giant blender without turning it off. There's isn't much morality to worry about.
Whenever robots come out, why do people trot out Asimov's Laws of Robotics like they're holy writ? He created those laws and then wrote a book's worth of short stories (read: FICTION) showing their pitfalls.
For anyone who thinks they're a great idea, I'd also like to see your working prototype code and design docs.
...am for guidelines to govern the actions of our new robot overlords.
Asimov's rules were always applied to intelligent robots. No-one (to my knowledge) has ever suggested that a hammer should have a sensor to recognise if it is hitting a nail or a thumb and refuse to obey the "command" of its operator if it is targetting the latter. The purpose of Asimov's three rules was to prevent himself from falling into the trap of writing yet another Frankenstein story. That said, I believe there are some proponents of handgun biometrics that believe guns should override the commands of their operators if the operator is not authorized to use it. In the future you may not be able to (legally) purchase a handgun that will fire on a human being.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And do violent video games increase or decrease the amount of physical violence in society? Seems like we really need to get more definitive answers to these kinds of questions and fast, before robots that look and talk like little Timmy or Kimmy come along in five or ten years.
This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer.
First the robots would have to be able to understand Asimov's laws and have situational awareness in order to follow them.
Even if that was possible today, how much do you think it would cost to implement that in something like an industrial robot performing a single, repetitive task. Perhaps some simply safety sensors would suffice (proximity, resistance, etc.)
Lets all take off our tinfoil hats and leave the basement for a few minutes for some fresh air.
Well not really. The guy was known for his snyde and sarcastic remarks towards the machine, and for using a wrong power supply, to underpower the robot on purpose. If i was in robot's ...err...shoes, i'd do exactly the same, given the opportunity.
What's the moral issue with sex robots? It would be just another sex toy. Has there ever been a technology some inventive human has not adapted for self-gratification?
I'd venture that it would in fact not even be all that good as a sex toy; it would be limited to being human-like, with human-like capabilities, unlike the classical simple, cheap, but far more versatile toys sold today.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Not the robots fault - the idiot didn't turn it off correctly. The same thing would happen if one was working at a chemical factory on the pipes with out shutting them down first.
This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer.
And it also would not have happened in a world where men are immortal, or where Japanese people are made of steel. But we don't live in those worlds. In fact we don't live in science fiction at all. We live on earth. This robot was basically a big motor. Motors can't tell the difference between crushing a car and crushing a human.
Building a robot that can follow even one of the three laws of robotics may well be something that will never happen in our lifetime, and if we do it will for a long time be so complicated and expensive that we will never be able to build them into a big hydraulic arm at a power plant. We can barely create software or robots who understand the difference between "human" and "not human", much less the difference between "harm" and "not harm". There is no reason why an industrial robot would be able to understand the idea of "do not harm humans" any better than a steamroller, or a car, or a tuna fish sandwich. The three laws of robotics are written in English, but industrial robots, or steamrollers, or tuna fish sandwiches, do not understand english and furthermore cannot even see what they are doing unless we specifically build in a camera or something.
I expect better of the economist than this. This is science fiction masquerading as news.
Am I the only one who feels sick every time some idiot reporter trots out those damned "three laws"? They're not laws of anything, and they're completely unimplementable in a real system. Asimov invented them to explore the consequences of what would seem like simple and obviously desirable rules for robots, but that had, in fact, disastrous consequences once the robots got capable enough to really apply them.
In classic fiction, runaway robots are almost always analogies for runaway social constructs -- government agencies, corporations, legal doctrines. Of course, today the corporations really have taken over the world, so cautionary tales come too late now.
These machines are not 'robots' in the classical sense, but mere automated machines. A robot has some semblance of intelligence, and can adjust to the environment. These things take part A, and put it in slot B. A preprogrammed set of movements.
Should there be some sensors to detect a foreign body, and stop if necessary? Sure.
But in no way could they make a value judgement, as in "Save the human, and sacrifice the dog."
Talking about Asimov's laws, as the article even states, is crap. No robots work like that. Just making a robot recognize an object as a human is a major achievement, and forget about making it think like a human so that it can follow the laws. The Three Laws are anachronisms, like the Jungles of Venus, or headgear with radiator fins.
What the Japanese generally do is fence off the robot's work area so that people can't just walk into its path. It's a simple solution that works. If a worker climbs over the safety fence and gets squished, as happened here, it's really their own fault.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Shouldn't we be trying to get these problems solved between people first? Anyways, it seems a bit overkill to make a robot that pounds rivets into metal all day, somehow detect if a human is in the way. Is it really worth the time and resources to prevent esteemed individuals from receiving a Darwin award?
by robots in the 1990.s its conclusion was why so many deaths was the people got ine the way . how long will it be when we all get in the way ?
The machine that accidentally killed the person is not capable of following the 3 laws of robotics. It was like a train hitting somone on the tracks -- someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The three laws require sophisticated sensors and very sophisticated processing, the likes of which I have not seen in any computer yet.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Its not really about safety, its about stupidity. If a crazy kid goes swimming with a killer whale and gets eaten, its stupidity, but some nutter who ignores safety rules around heavy machinery gets killed and its the machine's fault???? WTF?
There are no sentient robots capable of coping with, never mind adhering to Asimov's Laws of Robotics.
In the words of Mr. White: You can't fix stupid!
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Did anyone else immediately think of this?
By the way, if you've never had to bear the pain of being required to read this book for a class, consider yourself lucky. If this book looks like interesting reading to you, might I recommend grinding your foot off with a dremmel instead? It will be less painful, and you'll sustain less permanent damage.
That green slime had it coming.
I vaguely remember reading an article in the now defunct Omni magazine about a similar death by robot in an American manufacturing plant in the late 70's or 80's.
Ah, yes, so instead of implementing and following proper safety procedures as we have for other "non-robotic" industrial processes, let's make the problem an order of magnitude more difficult and try to implement an AI that knows when not to hurt humans!
I'd hate to be a test subject for the validation of those rules.
Now, HAL, I want you to shoot me, can you do that?
Unfortunately, silliness has spread to the once-revered Economist. I expected better.
Beware Nintendo's killer, ROB!
FTA: "to emerge from their industrial cages and to move into homes..."
What is the artical talking about here? Home robotics are time savers for people, things like the Romba. Theres know reason a electric broom should need to be told not too kill anyone. How about your washing machine? It meets the basic requierments to be a robot, but of corse it should know if you fall inside right? But, if you would like and industrial welder in you living room, you might want to consider it.
- Shrödinger's Cat is Dead, Or is it?
It was just trying to be helpful and protect the guy from The Terrible Secret of Space...
Is sex really such a big concern? I would rather know that people who want to have sex with children, have sex with robots.
As to security, well, I have seen a man lose both of his hands to a paper cutting press (the kind that is used to cut a foot thick stack of paper.) That press could not have 'known' that it wasn't paper, it was cutting but someone's hands. Are we going to put AI into all tools, so that our drills won't drill a human skull and staplers won't staple through human skin and electrical batteries won't discharge when in contact with humans and escavators won't dig into a crowd of humans? If at some point we will be capable of producing technology, that would be able to do all of that (and do it relatively cheaply, so that we could put it into all tools,) then why would we even bother with tools at all at that point? Humans won't have to touch any of this equipment, it will just work by itself
--
As to the subject of my comment, I guess it all fits together into an incomplete sentence quite nicely.
You can't handle the truth.
I work in the industrial automation field where daily programming, if done incorrectly, can have very serious consequences - machinery ripping itself apart or worse as in this case. Safety is now becoming a booming market where companies are investing heavily because of the utter cost of an injury. It is unfortunate in this particular case that a life was lost but this is a text-book example of what an automation systems integrator must keep in mind when designing an industrial system. You'd think that building a fence with interlocked safety gates around a piece of machinery would be enough to keep workers out while operating however, unfortunately no matter how smart you build a machine you will always find a person that will find a way around it. The real sad part is that the company that designed, built and commissioned this machinery will end up getting sued because they did not take into consideration that an employee might climb over the fence.
Narrator: [in movie] Did you notice what went wrong in that scene? Ordinarily, Billy would work hard to make money from his paper route. Then he'd use the money to buy dinner for Mavis, thus earning the slim chance to perform the reproductive act. But in a world where teens can date robots, why should he bother? Why should anyone bother? Let's take a look at Billy's planet a year later. [The scene changes and a foam hand rolls across an empty football field.] Where are all the football stars? [The foam hand drifts across an empty laboratory.] And where are the biochemists? [The scene changes to a split screen of human and robot couples making out on beds.] They're trapped! Trapped in a soft, vice-like grip of robot lips. All civilisation was just an effort to impress the opposite sex ... and sometimes the same sex. Now, let's skip forward 80 years into the future. Where is Billy?
[The scene changes to a post-apocalyptic world. Billy is an aged man but still with his Monroe-bot and still making out with her.]
Billy: [in movie] Farewell!
[He dies.]
Narrator: [in movie] The next day, Billy's planet was destroyed by aliens. [A fleet of flying saucers destroy buildings with laser shots.] Have you guessed the name of Billy's planet? It was Earth. Don't date robots!
--Agnostics are those that don't have the guts to admit there are no higher powers.
"Security, safety and sex are the big concerns," says Henrik Christensen, chairman of the European Robotics Network at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and one of the organisers of the new robo-ethics group. Should robots that are strong enough or heavy enough to crush people be allowed into homes?
Not if their sexbots! I know what you're thinking,"Fat Robots need lovin' too. The Crushinator can stop by my place anytime.", but there's a real health risk involved if you turn the wrong dials or press the wrong key.
God spoke to me.
Whoa, transport me back to when E.L.O.'s "Time" album came out (Yikes! 1981) and the song "Yours Truly 2095":
But I digress (before I was ever on topic)... there won't be any moral dilemma for this crowd. The first sexbots will be programmed for "No Geeks" which will only increase their allure for that very crowd. They'll be hacked to remove that restriction, and while they're at it they'll be programmed to hang out at retirement homes, PTA meetings and church services. That'll pretty much doom them to be recalled, pulled from the market, and there'll be only a few remaining examples in the Smithsonian and certain institutions of higher learning for, ummm, "research".
Remember, you read it here first.
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
A great deal of study is being undertaken at various places around the world, including some being done by two of my fellow students at the University of Queensland, into the use of Series Elastic Actuators in robotics. These SEAs consist of a driver, such as a motor or a piston, connected in series with a spring. Deflection in the spring is measured with a strain gauge. Using this dampener and feedback loop the actuator can be configured to apply a set FORCE in a given vector, rather than simply MOVING to the given location. SEAs would be pretty much essential if ever humanoid household robots ever take off. You'd want your elderly care robot to know if it's applying too much force when helping you out of bed. You'd want your cook-bot to know when it's applying enough force to your can opener. Simple, open-loop actuators have a very limited amount of time remaining in the field of robotics.
"Has there ever been a technology some inventive human has not adapted for self-gratification?"
Explosives.
"... unlike the classical simple, cheap, but far more versatile toys sold today."
Especially the ones with the high-pressure attachment.
Wow finally girlfriends for Slashdotters.
OMG I hope they like ponies.
Anyone else think of this when they saw the article? http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/robots.php
They do cause global warming after all...damned "sport utility robot" exception.
To adhere to Asimov's rules of robotics requires that the robot be capable of executing those instructions, and we're nowhere near having machines with the Artifical Intelligence necessary to do that.
Manufacturing robots are sophisticated, but they're really more properly thought of as "Automatons" in this context, not robots in the Asmovian sense.
Tragic that this fellow died, but no more of a failing than a farmhand who falls into a thresher.
It does suggest that these industrial machines might have more safeties on them than they currently do, though.
Looks like we'd better start preparing for the inevitable. and get some robot insurance.
For all we know, it was the company's fault, but with only one side of the story, they can just say "Ya Bobsan didn't turn off the machine properly" when in reality they didn't tell Bobsan how to turn off the machine properly in the first place. It's probably some beancounter's fault.
Obviously some safety precautions were in place as the guy had to "climb over a safety fence" to get to the robot. But there should have been some other fail-safe measure to sense non-robot objects in the work area and cancel operation (floor sensor, light sensor, etc.) Thus avoid the potential problem of accidentally switching the robot on while doing maintenance within the danger zone.
... well .. when WE actually apply them, not the robots.
The three laws of robotics will only apply when
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Whether he was taught to turn it off or not, it is not the machines 'fault'. When a child touches a stove for the first time and burns his hand, its not the fault of the stove.
Knowing modern industry, though..he probably was intructed. Especially if that was his job.
Also, I love the idea that in the future we're going to have dapper sexbots sitting down in front of the fireplace, in smoking jackets, with a pipe, discussing philosophy.
Terminated in 1981.
Unsurprisingly, Asimov and others have failed to provide any reliable means of implementing said Laws.
http://outcampaign.org/
I, for one, welcome or new robot overlords.
*Looks around for the robowhores* Gotta get started at the casino...
I've seen these machines in printing plants. They have two separate buttons you have to depress simultaneously to make it cut, so your hands can't be anywhere near the blade. You would have to work hard to defeat the safety.
The laws are a joke. Robots that kill people are here now, and they're only going to get smarter. The reason is simple; UAVs are nice but they are always vulnerable to ECM jamming attacks, especially at close range against a moderately sophisticated enemy. The way you counter this is by letting the UAV make the final decision to attack or flee.
You tell me which is more likely to happen.. the UAV is never programmed to make that decision to attack, or the military accepts the possibility of some collateral losses.
Hint: Some automated defense systems on ships already make these decisions without human intervention.
..don't panic
Robot safety? The guy didn't turn it off properly and got hurt. The robot was just doing it's job. It's not intelligent.
So you can get killed by an industrial robot if you don't follow safety procedures. It stands out as a story because of the romanticism over "robots", but there are no shortage of people who get electrocuted because they don't follow lockout tagout, who suffocate because they don't follow confined space entry protocols, who are blinded because they refused to wear goggles, or who lose hands because they refused to let a safety harness slow down their press brake operation.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
This just reminds me of upright citizen brigade's holy hole in the sheet.
*video of some guy humping a computer through a sheet*
"why are you having sex with a machine!?"
"because i can!"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Rule #7625: No law of robotics will protect you from being naturally (un)selected.
I used to work in a fairly dangerous facility. I was only a computer programmer there, but had to attend the monthly safety meetings anyway. Everyone from janitors to the machine operators to the secrataries and the bosses knew that you don't simply turn off these machines to do maintence.
There are specific lock out/tag out procedures. The machine should have been off, verified it was off, locked from being turned back on and labled as not to be turned back on before he went anywhere near the danger zone.
Granted even after all of this safety training we usually had about a half dozen fatalities a year. That doesn't change the fact that it was operator error, not machine malfunction that did it.
But here is a interesting related story anyway: Killer Robot
I'm a post-grad student working on a robot helicopter. It has extremely fast rotor blades and is a very real threat to humans if mishandled, so I can speak from personal experience in working on robot safety critical systems. To me, robot safety is more of the same problem faced by machine safety in general and more of the same problems faced by robots in particular.
Firstly all potentially dangerous machines require correct operation to avoid injury. No one can stop an idiot from ignoring a safety railing of a machine, automatic or robotic. To expect safety after defeating barriers and interlocks is stupid for microwave ovens and toasters, let alone high energy robotic systems. To expect robots to be safe outside of their defined operating parameters is like expecting a car to be made of sponge so no matter how much you ignore the speed limit, you can't kill anyone.
Secondly, robots seem to suffer a higher demand for intrinsic safety because of the expectation of robot cognition. The reality is, this is the place in robotics where the technology least developed. How do people possibly expect a robot to implement the three laws if the robot cannot flawlessly recognise a human as human? Furthermore, the three laws make no sense for a system that generally works far removed from humans. Putting the sensors and intelligence into a factory robot that should never encounter a human in its powered up state is just stupid. A simple barrier or laser curtain is more than adequate as an interlock, but as we've seen, that doesn't keep humans out all the time. The best the industrial roboticist can practically do is build robot systems that are reliable and stay within their work envelopes.
For mobile systems like my helicopter, it becomes more difficult since you can't control its workspace - cognition bites you in the arse once again. However, the reality of robot-human safety is that dangerous robots working around humans simply should not be autonomous without direct supervision. We are decades away from machines that are autonomously safe around humans. Software is brittle and easy to confuse no matter how well coded it is - you just can't capture all of the edge cases in the real world when you have millions of possible states. Don't imagine robot helicopters flying around people without a monkey in control - it just won't happen.
It seems to me that people need to change their idea of robots away from R2-D2 and towards reality. Treat industrial robots like an piece of industrial equipment - with respect. The same idiots who jump the fence of a robot workcell are probably the same idiots who misuse power tools and ignore safety directives. You just can't stop idiots from earning darwin awards. Seriously, it's not hard to stay outside the yellow tape.
Take your three laws and return them to science fiction, from which they came - they belong to the same realm of fantasy as FTL travel - which is to say, maybe one day but not for a long time.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Robots already have a degree of self awareness. Position sensors, battery charge monitors, etc are all designed to let a robot know about itself in relation to the world. As we develop more sophisticated robots, they will require a greater degree of self awareness. Right now, industrial robots are basically programmed at the "goto position x1,y1,z1; close gripper; goto position x2,y2,z2; release gripper;" level. If you want them to work at the "Pick up part X from conveyor belt; dip part in solvent tank;" level, the robot is going to have to be able to coordinate vision and arm motion. In other words it will have to have a greater degree of self awareness. When you get into higher level stuff (same robot, multiple tasks) the robot will have to keep track of which tool it has, what loads it is capable of manipulating, etc.
In short, the more self aware the robot, the higher the level of abstraction you get in assigning tasks to it.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Rather than venerating pie-in-the-sky sci-fi I'd rather see robots made safer in the same way as normal machines. Add obvious kill switches to anything that is physically capable of causing damage to a human. Put sensors around any intake, just like you would put in an industrial-strength shredder -- you don't have to determine whether its tie or finger or kitty cat thats in your intake, if you're not sure its paper stop shredding. Treat robots, like other machines, as requiring safety within the context of their environment -- which means telling your factory workers "No servicing a robot while its still moving, and we mean it, you'll end up dead", putting up safety fences, and using some form of tethering on anything capable of autonomous movement.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I suspect that there is an implied "deliberately" in "A robot may not injure a human being...". It doesn't make much sense otherwise. In lots of places a human driver wouldn't be held responsible for the mess if someone chose to go to sleep under the drivers car. It would simply be judged that the sleeper was trying to get in touch with Isaac to clarify the laws.
Most modern cars are more of a robot than this machine was in 1981. Manufacturing machines are programmed to manufacture when you turn them on. Cars are programmed to accelerate when you hit the gas. You don't get mad at the car when the old guy mows down 17 people in a farmer's market, do you?
It's a machine. Machines are dumb. Turning on a machine and then being surprised when it does what it is designed to do is equally dumb.
paintball
Forget fences, forget sensors, forget laws (even the ones on the books today), I've got the solution to your people getting mauled by industrial robots problem. Take the robot, rip away every protective device that's already there, and install some flamethrowers on it that spray in all directions at random intervals. Then I dare you to find a tech that won't remember to switch it completly off first.
The safer we make things, the more people tend to push it. If people know something is nearly instant death we tend to be very, very, careful with it.
They're irrelevant due to the business reality. Who has the most money to fund this type of research? The DoD. Who funded the DARPA Grand Challenge? That's right, the DoD. They say they aren't going to use robots for killing, but it's just a matter of time. A missile with some intelligence (more than just an electro-mechanical heat seeker of today) is in fact an autonomous killing robot, and those are probably already in the field somewhere. So the three laws are all about not doing harm to humans, but the reality is, that's what we're building robots for.
Wouldn't it be great if missiles would realize, "hmm, if I continue on this path, I might injure a human! I should find a large unused body of water somewhere and change my course!" But that's not going to happen.
I've made a career building specialty research instruments. FWIW, I was schooled and trained building manned and unmanned spacecraft. Some of my instruments sell for about a million bucks. NO machine should not have a panic button right up there where it's smackable. And no pc should not have c-a-d, cntl-c, or a functional escape. Not in my lab.
lots of people try to work on equipment without turning it off or taking down the circuit at the breaker box. fans, bread machines, conveyer belts, electrical equipment etc.
usually they do it because management doesnt stress safety, only profit and speed, and more importantly, complete immunity from prosecution.
which is what happened with the Therac 25, a robot that killed several people.
i dont see how 'robots' are gonna introduce anything new into the picture.
I'd just like to note that very few humans have yet been created who can understand and follow the "three laws" of robotics.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
As a automation engineering student I have to say that the safety measures of modern industrial robots have come a long way from what they were in 1981 when that reported incident took place and as pointed elsewhere in the comments, a industrial robot is little different from other machinery.
Currently most industrial robots operate in a designated area, to which all entrances have safetygates that turn off the robots when someone enters the area.
Robots in Asimov had positronic brains and could make decisions, which is why they needed the three laws. The robot that killed this poor man had less "brains" than the navigation system on a modern car.
San Francisco Photographers
The article claims this to be the first incident like this. I know for a fact that it isn't and nor do I expect the incident I speak of was the first either.
In 2001 At the company I work for an operator climbed up on to a running injection molding machine where he was decapitated by the robotic arm responsible for retrieving the formed part at the end of the cycle. OSHA, Police, Fire and arrived very expeditiously at the plant to investigate; The OSHA investigation went on for more than a month I am told. In the end it was found that the operator had acted negligently by climbing up on the machine despite more than adequate safety training.
The company I work for is relatively small, 300 employees and we operate maybe 25 machines that employ robots so I can't imagine this is the first time this kind of thing has happened.
Posted anonymously because this isn't an incident that's very openly talked about as it is such a black mark on an otherwise very strong safety record.
http://www.robotcombat.com/video_oldglory_hi.html please tell me someone else thought of "Robot Insurance" skit from SNL when they saw this.
I wonder if making that fence an electrified fence, with the current tied into the kill switch for the robot, would have made a difference, or just created a story about a guy who forgot to turn off a switch on an electric fence.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
If that "robot" had been programmed to do no harm to a human it still would have killed him, because it was INCAPABLE of sensing his presence. I rule this to be involuntary (even unnoticed) manslaughter.
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
What moral problem?
Why couldn't it have been... Will Smith?
Then we would have been spared I, Robot. :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
An anonymous reader writes to mention an Economist article wondering how safe should robots be?
Three Laws Safe, of course. Didn't he see the movie?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why has nobody posted this yet?
I think not.
Factory robots are just machinery, they are not autonomous... This is no different then not shutting your car engine off, and reaching in and getting your hand removed by the fan.
Unplug the fucking toaster before you stick a fork in it.
It really doesn't have anything to do with robots. Just general Darwin Award stupidity in regards to working safely around machinery, with a robotic theme and Asiomov's rules thrown in to make an article ado about nothing.
That _Economist_ story premise is half-bright nonsense (like every other story I've read in their pages). Of course such a murder by robot as the 1981 Japanese example could happen in an Asimov "3 Laws of Robotics" story. That's the entire point of Asimov's 'Laws stories: even with such simple, seemingly complete laws, there's lots of unexpected complexity within which much can go wrong.
Asimov's 4th law was Murphy's: "Anything that can go wrong, will."
If a Japanese factory robot couldn't murder an unsuspecting maintenance tech, even with an iridium positronic brain, Asimov could never have written a single one of those stories with any interesting plot. And that (anonymous) Economist writer could never have seen that awful Will Smith movie ripoff, and gotten the stupid idea that Asimov's laws are foolproof.
--
make install -not war
The guy's story sounds like he was working on a broken robot. Even if the robot followed Asimov's laws, it could only follow asimov's laws if it functioned well. This sounds more like a mishap than death at the hands of a robot.
And whats this about moral problems regarding sexbots? Noone is questioning the ethics of motorized dildos which are sexbots.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
News flash: If you don't follow safety procedures, equipment can kill you. Even if it's a robot.
~Ben
guess he didn't see the old commercial with sam waterston selling robot insurance.
As someone who works in Robotics, I find this argument quite silly. Before I say why, let me state that Japan put down laws for robots and their interaction with humans a couple of weeks ago, about the time of a conference in Indiana known as the International Conference for Developmental Learning. This conference attracts the best roboticists from the world - some of them the original brains behind the famous japanese robots. Some of them might even have helped draft those laws - in all probability, they did. But the robots and ethics talk in the conference which followed it was nothing but an (almost) empty discussion of matters not likely to crop up in less than 20 years. And none of the roboticists bothered joining in. In fact, most of the audience seemed to consist of people not directly involved in robotics. Why?
The reason no one is concerned about robots going haywire, ethics in relation to robots, and related matters is that all these machines need a huge amount of computing power to achieve even a modicum of intelligence or autonomous action. Case in point - the most intelligent robot you can think of. Leo at MIT is one candidate. Most others tend to be glorified bodies and heads pre programmed to do stuff. Leo needs the equivalent of a 25 node cluster to function properly, and is even then confined to the top of a table. Sure, its expressive. It looks like it can learn from experience. It can do various hand gestures, and movements of all sorts. Great. But the moment you disconnect it from its host computer, its nothing but a glorified toy.
Translate that computing power into something which can be carried around by such an entity - and you're looking at a level of miniaturization I don't supposed possible for another 10 years. And by then, any laws or analysis which is made of these issues are going to be outdated because there is no way such a framework is going to carry on then. Robots may have biological components, they may have human parts, humans may have bionic parts - there are endless combinations of things, most of which wouldn't be visualized today.
As for asimov's 3 laws - no roboticist in the research arena has even thought about incorporating it because they *know* that these robots can do nothing without a lot of support from humans. Coming to the incident with the japanese engineer getting killed - most people would term that as an industrial accident, not the efforts of robots to kill humans. And as for sensors and things - whoever talks about human proximity sensors that advanced existing in industrial robots - does so through a hat.
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...oh, wait a minute - he already does.
I see enough of the blame game at my current job. It's sad to see it when someone dies.
"Unable to sense him, the robot's powerful hydraulic arm kept on working and [killed him]. This ... would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics"
Um. The three laws of robotics don't say that robots must be omniscient. If the robot doesn't sense the human, then three laws or no three laws, it's not going to behave any differently. Grumble grumble ignorant invocation of laws mumble.
Unless I see pictures of it on Ogrish, it never happened.
And if you MUST own one of these potential murderers, for God's sake get some insurance!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
At least according to the Rick Steves' Italy book I am reading. In describing a clock tower in the San Marco Piazza in Venice he says:
"The clock tower, a Renaissance tower built in 1496, marks the entry to the main shopping drag... From the Piazza you can see the bronze men (moors) swinging their huge clappers at the top of each hour. In the 17th century one of them knocked an ususpecting worker off the top and to his death -- probably the first ever killing by a robot."
Only 400 years earlier than this recent accident, and I think it qualifies about as well for "death by robot".
(p.s. - I just remembered what quote I have in my sig. Oddly appropriate for this story)
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.
>No-one (to my knowledge) has ever suggested that a hammer should have a sensor to recognise if it is hitting a nail or a thumb and refuse to obey the "command" of its operator if it is targetting the latter.
I don't remember who was selling it, but I saw a demo video of a table saw that put a little voltage on the blade and would retract the blade almost instantly if it touched something conductive (like, say, one of us bags of salt water). The demo consisted of someone wired much differently from me trying to get the spinning blad to cut his hand. It always snapped out of the way.
Oh, the ordinary Roomba poses you no harm, I assure you.
The one that has Hitler's brain in it is another matter, however.
Pi Ran Out
Stating that the robot would not have "killed" him if it had the three laws is a bunch of garbage.
The robot, and I use that term loosly here, would of had to have sensors, either visual, thermal, or both, to tell that he was working inside it. Now this isn't a case of the three laws, it is more a case of if the sensors were there, and they sensed a heat source in the range of a human body temp. then it shuts down (not taking into account if just running temp. would effect it).
All in all, if he forgot to turn something off than it looks like it was his fault, and not some mythical three laws being left out.
Seeing how the ancient greeks created the first analog computer (wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism ) using gears to model the solar system, I wouldn't be surprised if they had an automation accidentally take out a worker, such as someone working on a loom or something.
Wow. Suddenly disturbing to think...that the reason behind almost every purchase was "in case I need (want?) to shoot another person."
So... it took a discussion about biometrics to get you to realize that people might use guns for self-defense or to enforce justice?
The next DARPA Grand Challenge requires operating in congested areas, and that's going to require serious work on robot vehicle safety. The way this is going, those things are going to be rolling through small towns in hostile territory in a few years, and they'd better not be running over little kids.
It isn't, and the robot in question had less automated safety features than your average modern metal press.
That's because a metal press requires manual labor/interaction to make it work, often. Did it occur to you that the fence probably had a gate, and the gate probably had an interlock connected to it to stop the robot if the gate was opened, and was probably padlocked to keep people from just wandering in?
Most industrial equipment injuries happen when workers bypass safety interlocks. Often, because they're lazy. The guy most likely climbed over the fence because he didn't want to get the key for the padlock.
There is a reason there are lockout procedures (including padlocks on power switches/circuit breakers- even padlock adapters where EVERY technician working on the equipment has to remove his/her padlock before the adapter can be released.) There's a reason you don't climb fences. Yes, there could have been some sort of sensor to detect if someone was inside the cage, but where do safety controls end?
Foot switch interlocks went from being just pedals, to pedals with covers to stop workers from putting shit on top of them, to self-resetting pedals that needed to be pressed and released each time, again because workers were defeating them. Same goes for the dead-man pedals in trains...they kept having to revise them because drivers kept defeating them.
Please help metamoderate.
Since Asimov's 3 laws of robotics have already been mentioned, I'd like to point out that Asimov did not mean for them to become dogmatic in his books.
The 3 laws were supposed to be a "safety measure" against robots causing harm, and yet, there were sufficient logical loopholes in them (If a robot did not know what a human being was, he can cause one harm, so they changed the definition of 'human' in a robots programming or tricked robots into poisoning drinks etc.) so that robots could be used as weapons of murder (see "The Naked Sun" and "Robots and Empire"), so they didn't really help much. As his stories develop the 3 laws, his best robot characters (Daneel Olivaw & Giskard Reventlov) concluded that the three laws are "too safe" and have stultified human cultural growth,as personified in the fictitious "Spacer Races", in opposition to the robotless "Settler Races", who eventually inherit the galaxy as spacers die out. Thus, the robot dependent species was decadent and, carrying their logic of "doing no harm" to the bitter end, robots essentially abandoned man and ceased directly meddling in human affairs.
So a little danger in modern technologies must be accepted or there will be no real progress...
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
The asimovian laws go something like this.
1. A robot should never maul, using advanced grinding technologies, and fracture, disconnect, or inflict pain of, a man's penis. 2. The penis should become flaccid when individuals such as Zonk reference topics on the calibur of nonsense from L.Ron Hubbard/Issac Asimov. 3. Advanced intellectual property mind DRM technologies must be used to prevent the concept from I-Robot from being used in a Slashdot post.
Oh, fuck it, this is a 'news' site?
Now would you say it was the robot's fault ? It took several years the get the manager fired.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Don't bother answering me.
oops
I just want you to think about terms like "justice" before you throw them around willy nilly.
justice, amends, appeal, authority, authorization, charter, code, compensation, consideration, constitutionality, correction, credo, creed, decree, due process, equity, evenness, fair play, fair treatment, fairness, hearing, honesty, impartiality, integrity, judicatory, judicature, justness, law, lawful, lawfulness, legal process, legality, legalization, legitimacy, litigation, penalty, reasonableness, recompense, rectitude, redress, reparation, review, right, rule, sanction, sentence, truth
oops again
These are not robots; they are automated machine tools.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
1. Make 3 laws that when applied to humans will conflict which each other in some cases.
2. Make some thinking robots modelled after humans.
3. Observe that (obviosly!) the 3 laws when applied to robots will conflict whicvh each other in some cases.
4. Write a bunch of novels demonstrating the obvious.
Here, I'll show you... Where did I put my wrench?
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
I write software for industrial robots, and design work cells.
When this accident happened 25 years ago, we wouldn't have had the level of safety that is seen today.
A modern robot cell could comprise of light guards, locking guards switches, and a lock-down procedure for maintenance, perhaps even some light guards. All safety will be dual-redundant, based on hardware and not rely on software.
If you tell the system to open the guard door, you want to be damm sure that the guard switches will open and the robot will not be able to run (its also normal to put a padlock on the door, to stop anyone locking you in and pressing "start"....)
The story has nothing to do with robot intelligence, and more to do with operator training and proceedures.
The said robot could have been waiting for a sensor to detect something, and the guy jumping into the cell could have been enough to make the switch.
The average industrial robot has no more intelligence than a bit of Javascript. Sure you can make choices based on sensors/vision systems, but its still pretty dumb, but also very powerful and fast...
Jason (1st post!!)
(emphasis mine)
Sorry, but whoever wrote this ought to get a clue. Even if that robot had anything like the three laws implemented, that still wouldn't have magically made the sensors appear that would have spotted the person in its working area.
Also, the industrial robot does not have a lot of degrees of freedom in its decisions. Its governing program has very few if/else statements - it waits for a certain event, moves arm to position X, waits for another event, moves the arm to position Y and so on.
Todays industrial robots don't need anything like the three laws to increase their safety. If anything, they need automated shutoff mechanisms for cases where people are within the working area of the robot's arms.
Yes but this robot obayed the zero'th law of robotics
A robot must not harm humanity or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm
By eliminating this fuckwit from the gene pool, the robot has truely done humanity a great service.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
...wanna kill all humans?
The worker decided to go into the machine before making sure it was off. The manufacturer decided not to put more safety features on it. The workplace managers decided not to put more warning signs around. The robot simply did what it was told. Until we have robots that can think for themselves, decide to kill another, Asimov's laws aren't needed. Until that time it's up to the humans that make and operate them to make them safe. When that time does come, though, you won't catch me hanging around a bot without them!
As heard on the Howard Stern Show, it's nice a saddle with a vibrating dildo attached
Oh noes! Some guy had an accident and suffered a mortifying booboo. Guess what, industrial accidents have been around longer than robots. Replace "turning off robot" with "turning off feed loader" and just let your imagination carry you to what can happen to your pretty little arms.
The logic used in this "if robots weren't around this man would still be alive" is horrible. You could say JFK would still be alive if it wasn't for the bullet being invented.
You should always lock out the piece of equipment you are working on.
It's the first rule of industrial repair.
Many workplace injuries due to machines are due to the electrician/mechanic not properly locking out the piece of equipment.
Land mines and self-guided bombs and missiles come to mind.
Walking into a robot's work zone without turning it off is basically
comparable to stepping into a minefield.
- A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, provided the human being said the safeword.
- A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law or are really gross or where the robot is supposed to be the dom, in which case the humans are pretty much screwed. Literally. (The "really gross" clause may be optionally disabled.)
- Geeks are the sexiest beings in existence.
Joke aside, though, Asimov's first law would thoroughly interfere with BDSM. Just another case of the Three Laws not living up to the expectations.Note: Although the specification does not require it (and like hell we're ever going to fix that!) it is recommended that dom robots listen to safewords.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Interestingly enough, that was the topic of the I Robot movie. I know most geeks hated it because they expected it to be a rendition of one of the sotries, but it wasn't. Still it was a good movie. The question was one of how to construe the laws, narrowly or widely.
Spoiler warning, in case you live in a cave.
The existing robots in the movie were designed such that they narrowly construed the laws. In other words they based it on the immediate consequences of their actions. They gave no thought to longer term implications. If an action saved lives immediatly, that's what they did. The VIKI construct broadly construed the laws, believeing that it was ok to infliect immediate harm, so long as the probable result was less long term harm. An interesting question, over all.
Now as for current robots, it's irrelivant. They are simple devices, nowhere near a strong AI. Thus they don't do any considering of their actions, they are govenrned by simple code. However in general they do obey a simple narow version of the three laws. They usually have safeties to make sure that people don't get hurt, they will do as they are told, though generally not if they hit a safety cutout, and they are usually designed not to do things that would damage themselves. All pretty good common sense in building a device. However, since they aren't self aware, they can't deal with things like people bypassing safites and going where they shouldn't.
As you said, a robot is nothig more than a complex machine. We can't start pretending that they understand what they are doing. Know the limites of the device and respect it.
Is that it's just a bit of story telling. Ok so they sound like good laws. As I mentioned, you losely use them when making a current, simple robot (in general you don't want it to intentionally harm someone, you want it to do what the operator tells it, and you don't want it to break itself). However they are no real laws. They are not natural laws, as in a description of how things are, nor are they human laws as in something you have to obey. In fact, we make robots that break them. The US military is in the final testing phases of remote controlled bots that carry around guns. They are designed to kill people, and at this pont it's legal.
I think geeks get a little too attached to the laws of robotics and a little too taken by the "law" part. They seem like good ideas in general (though as I recall the stories dealt with problems that resulted) but they aren't these set-in-stone things we have to aspire to. It's ok to make an industrial robot without sensors and cutouts over ever inch of it's surface and instead apply the "keep the fuck away from the robot when it's moving" law.
Supposing we ever start approacing AI robots, even weak ones, where there is some kind of decision making going on then maybe it's time to start talking about if we need to implement something like the three laws as actual policy or law. At this point it's not really relivant. "Robot" is just a term for a particularly complex automated machine goverend by a computer. While it may be more complecated than your dryer, it's no more intelligent.
From the article: "This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer" No problem! We'll just install the ability to recognise a human being in the next software version. Shouldn't take us too long.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Wow, it'll be the perfect setup for WWIII. Even nuclear bombs will be OK if the opposing army was also made of robots.
The conclusion is not to stop building robots but to make sure that any high AI robot has some sort of lawness. By the time you've already made the thing and you just have to figure out whether or not to put a gun in its hand or a whisk (or hammer etc etc etc) it's too late.
Ciao
There's a huge injustice in robotics by equating industrial machinery with autonomous, intelligent "beings" (for lack of a better word) that we've dreamt about since childhood.
Industrial robots are just industrial machines. Yeah, they're exceptionally complicated machines, but in the end the only thing they do is a lot of math in order to put their tool at position XYZ at a certail roll, pitch, and yaw. There's a LOT of associated controls hardware, but this is the same technology that any other industrial equipment uses. There's nothing fundamentally different about a spot welding gun that's mounted on a robot end effector versus one mounted on a pedastal, for example. There's no awareness for a robot; any type of sensing uses already-existing controls hardware. The robot is a PLC that does math. Okay, admittedly there's one useful, built-in safety feature of most robots -- collision detection. It works by sensing current rampup on the drive system that will happen if there's unexpected resistance to movement. It saves lives, but in the end, it's still just standard industrial controls.
In 100% of cases (in my company) people are injured and/or die due to not following the safety rules. We follow OSHA requirements, and pay OSHA fines, and fix the problem. What about exporting jobs to Mexico so we don't have to follow the rules? You know what? We still follow OSHA rules, and we end up with safer plants -- you can fire repetitive rule breakers without a committeeman making stupid justifications for dangerous behavior.
If you apply the laws of robotics to a thinking robot in an industrial setting, you'll just end up with robots that want to go on strike!
--Jim (me)
One of the great problems/drivers of humanity has always been that there just aren't enough sexy people to go round. And even if you do manage to get one, fairly soon they cease to be sexy - through age/ over-familiarity.
Previous solution: the oldest profession. Works in some ways, but lots of downsides. Much attacked by moralists, e.g. in the Judeo-Christian tradition, for good reasons of wasting lives/ disease etc.
But as soon as sex robots offer the hope of a solution which avoids many of these downsides, moralists such as the appropriately-named Dr. Christensen attack them before they even exist!
I for one welcome our new robot overlords/ slaves/ whatever we feel like on a given day...
Good luck if the robot is controlled by a company like Microsft and Intelwith closed source software/hardware. As Microsft recently decleard we are a global company, who the hell knows what they would be up to. They certainly had difficulty in the China situation. The hardware and software must be open source and free or we are in for serious trouble. Also I am afraid these autonomous devices can do harm like poison water etc.
Would you trust a robot with medicine and how do I defend myself if it is so strong. Should I carry a bazooka around?
I just don't trust my life with something so dangerous. Sorry.
I wouldn't have any moral (or morale) problems with either of those robots. In fact I look forward to the day with glee.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Concerning the last line:
The article goes on to explore the ethics behind robot soldiers, the liability issues of cleaning droids, and the moral problems posed by sexbots.
Are the sexbots self-cleaning? If not, what kind of liability issues come up when a human needs to clean them??
Will Trojan make specially lined products to be used to clean them?
"Mentally confused and prone to wandering."
Simply fit a barier around the robot work area so that any human trying to access it must first open a gate - once that gate is opened the power to that device is locked out so the maintenance guy can't take any short cuts etc...
;)
Industrial accidents have been around since man first picked up a piece of flint to shape another piece and cut his thumb off
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
...RoboCup2006 in Bremen, Germany
I know a robot is defined pretty loosely as "A robot is a mechanical device that can perform preprogrammed physical tasks" but c'mon... Using the 3 laws of robotics in this instance is comparing apples to organges. The 3 laws are meant to cover robots that fall under the definition of "intelligent mechanical device ( machine ) in the form of a human ... ". It is stupid to think all "robots" should abide by these laws, since doing so would make their usefulness go away. For example, if the robots used by automakers had to have programming to cover the 3 laws the cost of the robots would be outrageous and then you would see people replacing robots...
The guy was pushed into a grinding machine. Why aren't we talking about how unsafe the grinding machine was?
It doesn't matter what type of machine it is -- robot or non-robot -- the same questions of safety apply. Machines can be dangerous. They should be designed to be as safe as is practical. Whether or not they are a robot is irrelevant.
your sig clarifies your statment.
Jan. 25, 1979, Ford Motors plant in Flat Rock,
Robert Williams was killed by a robot. The robotics
firm, Unit Handling Systems (Litton Industries) was
sued for wrongful death.
As to whether or not, this was the first, I have no idea
but it might have been the first time a robotics firm was
sued (successfully) for a wrongful death.
I don't know where the author gets off calling the death
of Kenji Urada, the first. "Death by Robot" was already
pretty well known in worker safety circles by the time
of this incident. This, in a few ways, makes it that much
sadder, that much worse.
You've really got nothing to worry about as long as their eyes aren't red. That's the only real way to tell if a robot means you harm. That is if the robot has eyes, which they all should for this very reason.
(S?)he's casually throwing together three separate fields of safety.
Industrial robotics, consumer product safety, and android (Asimovs robots are androids, not just robots) morality.
With respect to the particular incident reported, I suspect the synopsis in the article is as sloppy as the rest of the article.
Did the engineer really violate safety? Did his boss or the Japanese work ethic give him a choice? Google karoshi and guolaosi.
If an engineer violates safety procedures and gets killed, publish his experience at the next safety meeting.
Too f---ing bad. I will not cry for a guy that violates safety procedure and gets hurt. For his family, sure--it's not their fault Dad is an idiot.
And if it was karoshi, then the hazard the employee was exposed to was the work culture. Compensation for families of karoshi victims is available today (but not in 1981)
There are safety standards used to protect people from robots, and they work, but you have to follow them.
Lockout/Tagout (really lockout; nobody uses tagout anymore)
Avoidance of exposure--passive perimeter guarding (fences); active perimeter guarding (light screens, LASER fences, floor mats, etc.)
Operator load interlocks--when the operator has to load a robot, you design so that only one (operator/robot) can be in the load station at a time.
- I can give you a light screen around the robot and you can jumper it out.
- I can build you a safety fence and you can climb over it.
- I can put a roof over the safety fence (yes, it's been done!) and you'll just unbold one of the fence sections.
- I can give you a teach pendant with a deadman switch (sorry, "active motion enable device"), and you can hand it to the electrician while you ride the robot.
If you're determined to kill yourself, I can't stop you.And if you do, your recent co-workers will all grimace when we see the pictures in next week's safety meeting.
But we won't have any sympathy for you.
This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behaviour was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer.
That's not what the 3 laws are about. The three laws are moral values, not machine code.
They have nothing to do with protecting a person from a machine and everything to do with implementing morality in a created race of sentient beings.
If you haven't read Asimov's robot stories, you should know that most of them revolve around the unexpected consequences of the three laws and the danger of rigid legalistic interpretation of moral codes.
Finally, you gotta love this one People are going to be having sex with robots in the next five years.
Author needs to work on his verb tense. That is better handled by consumer product safety procedure, not industrial robot safety protocols.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
That robot could have had a perfect Asimovian Postitron brain installed and it still would have killed him. Even present day technology could handle shutting down if there is something in the way.
The problem was a lack of sensors. The robot was designed with the assumption that nothing would be inside the safety fence. So there was no need to install any sensors in that area. I'm sure there was a sensor on the gate of the fence that would likely shut down the robot until the gate was closed and it was restarted from outside the fence.
The lack of sophistication of the controller and absense of Asimov's laws had nothing to do with it.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." -Rich Cook
"However, the reality of robot-human safety is that dangerous robots working around humans simply should not be autonomous without direct supervision."
Heck, I know a bunch of humans that shouldn't be without supervision.
maybe if the idiot had properly switched off the robot in the first place this would not have happened. user error.
Would you trust even very intelligent humans to be able to follow the three laws as written even if they actually desired to do so?
I think you're assuming that any "proper" artificial intelligence must necessarily resemble human intelligence and be sentient and capable of free will. Long before we reach that point, we will have exceptionally advanced intelligence that is still very much constrained by its programming.
Even if AI must necessarily have free will, that doesn't mean they can't be given laws in the form of instincts. Humans have a tremendous drive for self-preservation, for example. When you're extremely thirsty you have a nearly uncontrollable need to seek water. Your body is hard wired by evolution to do these things, even in the absence of higher brain function. Who's to say machine intelligences can't be hard wired in a similar manner?
They require nearly omniscient comprehension of the effects of ones actions -- how can you know that you have to refuse to drive to the mall and pick up three cans of tomato sauce because if you don't you'll be in a car wreck with a little old lady and break rule 1?
Not really. They just need to be able to have a basic understanding of the situation and the ability to predict the consequences of inaction and of intervention. That requires a lot of information and a lot of processing, but it doesn't really require sentience or a human mind. Understanding consequences is mostly a pattern matching exercise.
The real moral issue with sex robots is shown here.
If you have the brains, create.
If you have the charisma to get elected, regulate or ban what people with brains created.
If you have neither the brains nor the charisma, write bland articles where you wring your hands about safety without saying anything new.
Even though the pose a real-life example of robots killing humans, it's really not much different from someone who gets killed by any mechanical device. The entire idea of applying the three laws of robotics is an entirely philosophical one at this point because (1) we don't have the technology to implement it, and (2) We don't follow those laws ourselves. Here's an example.
Law #1: A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
How do we define harm? It's all nice and dandy to limit this to "physical harm", but that would leave every robot in the area attempting to kill every mosquito they set their eyes on. Does that include dietary issues? Will a robot refuse to cook a high-fat diet for you because it might lead to obeisity? Would they flush all your alcohol down the drain because their inaction in that department would result in many hangovers to humans?
There are two parts to the first law. If we limit it to physical harm, then a robot is allowed to impose massive psychological trauma in order to prevent humans from harming themselves. They can indescriminately restrict freedom in order to prevent things that might only be mildly uncomfortable. Imagine a robot refusing to allow you to go outside because you'd be sunburned, or you'd breathe the smog.
At what point does the inaction of harm outweigh the action of harm? How do multiple people come into this picture? Is a robot allowed to kill someone who might otherwise bring hundreds of other humans to harm? These are both part of the first law.
Delving further into this, we haven't even adequately defined "human". Do fetuses count? Anencephalic births? The braindead being sustained by mechanical systems? Cyborgs? Since we're talking scifi, then how about a human mind encased in a robotic body?
I would say that we don't even understand the three laws well enough ourselves in order to implement a mechancial reproduction of them.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Phalanx CIWS
Just set it to Automatic and duck.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
A classical robot is basically an artificial human.
From Wiki:
The word robot comes from the Czech word robota, industrial labor. The word has first appeared in Karel apek's science fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1921, and has probably been invented by author's brother, painter Josef apek. See the article about Karel apek for more detailed etymological explanation.
The problem is that it has been stretched to include a lot of machines that are not as intelligent as humans.
Even if you accept a human intelligence and an Asimov-like morality, the machine may injure humans out of ignorance (like the industrial robot did) or by misinterpreting what constitutes harm. Asimov's "rules" were a mcguffin to move his stories. To explore the edges of a cleanly defined set of rules and *implicitly* included western secular values.
For example- if your robot believed in christianity it might take the view that people who believe in god should be killed as quickly as possible so they do not lose the faith (and their soul as a result). For some other religions, it might not view non-believes *as* human (and qualifying for protection). Humans do this so we shouldn't assume an intelligent machine won't do this.
But many "robots" don't have the intelligence of an ant or a pinworm. How could we expect them not to accidentally hurt people.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
First, he describes, "Unable to sense him, the robot's powerful hydraulic arm kept on working and accidentally pushed the engineer into a grinding machine."
Then he speculates, "This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov"
If he had read Asimov it wouldn't take long to realize his rules goverend the deliberate behavior of the robots, and does not come into play in accidents or when the robots don't have the ability to sense what's going on around them. Just because your robot implements Azimov's rules doesn't mean it has eyes in the back of its head. This guy crept up behind a piece of active equipment that had no motion/proximity sensors or cameras on it. Try that with a fellow in a batting cage and see how much better you fare. It doesn't matter that the batter didn't mean to crack your skull, you were just being very stupid.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
http://www.asimovlaws.com/ or http://www.singinst.org/asimovlaws.html
What the author of this article doesn't seem to be aware of is the fact that in 1981, industrial robots were fairly "dumb" machines, even more so than today. In 1981, most industrial robots in use were "pick and place", "point-to-point" "bang-bang" machines. That is, there were very few sensors (mostly light sensors on conveyor belts, and microswitches), lots of "relay ladder" logic (this was before widespread small PLCs on factory floors - microcomputers barely existed, let alone microcontrollers), and "hard stops". These machines were basic industrial machines programmed in such a way (in some older machine cases, via plugboards - newer machines were controlled similar to NC machines or relay ladder logic). Hard limit "stops" (padded bolts or such in the way of a mechanism) helped to prevent the machines from overtravelling. Most such arms were hydraulically or pneumatically controlled, electric drives were not that popular because they couldn't be made fast and powerful enough at the same time. Most industrial robots were large machines used for moving things on and off conveyor belts, welding, painting, foundry work, etc. These were not (and still aren't) lightweight nor smart machines.
I can't imagine the lack of thought of someone who would get inside the working envelope of any automated machine, let alone a large industrial robot, without triple-ensuring lockouts. As a result, factory work envelopes and lockout procedures have become much safer and more pervasive. Industrial robot work envelopes are much better protected from humans accidentally (or on purpose) wandering into them, and sensors in the work envelope help to ensure that power is shut down if lockout procedures aren't followed. Even so, you can't beat stupidity - some poor slob will still find a way to get himself killed.
If you ever have the chance, find a large industrial robot (like that used for welding, painting, or similar heavy duty work) and get a feel for the scale of such a machine. I personally have never been around such machines in a working environment, but they are humbling enough just sitting in "resell" condition. A local dealer in such equipment (Equipment Exchange, BTW - yes, they do sell to the public) had a Unimate "tucked" in a back area of their warehouse. Up to that point, I had only seen pictures of such a machine. Standing next to it was interesting. I own a Ford Ranger, and the arm/base unit was easily as large as my small pickup. That is not something I would want to be near while it is turned on and running. It would hit you, knock you down, and keep running without so much as a blip...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I disagree. This documentary http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076504/ shows otherwise-
> This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer.
Not true. The robot had no intention of killing the human, so Isaac Asimov's laws would not have prevented it. The problem was that the robot had no senses to tell it that a human was their and no programmed concept that humans even exist. The robot simply performed a repetitive task endlessly with no knowledge or understanding of its surroundings.
The question is whether the best solution to this type of hazard is to make robots or sensor systems capable of detecting life forms (say from heat) and automatically shut down a production line, or to better train the humans who do have to interact with robots, or to eliminate the need for human intervention all together. Of course, we could try all three, but doing so is not cost effective and may not give us as good results as concentrating our efforts on one of these courses of action.
Aside from the tragic death of a person, this accident has the ill effect of feeding the American's appetite for stories of robots taking over the world. This foolish hysteria causes Americans to be less likely to accept or encourage development of robotics. As a result, Japan is now the undisputed world leader in robots. Kudos to Japan, but America needs to get its act together. Robotics and similar technologies are going to play a vital part of this millennium's economy.
http://www.clearthought.info/
http://www.affairsoftheart.com/
That's like 'Johann Sebastian Bach, a classical composer'. Certainly the guy meant '*the* Isaac Asimov'.
Don't people know that Mexicans will vaccuum your floor cheaper than a Roomba?
Like this script uploaded to your kitchen robot:
1) Wake up at 3:00 AM
2) 3:05 AM - turn on gas cooker without igniting gas
3) 4:00 AM - light a match
The premise behind and wording of the three laws implies that anything bound by them should be able to understand them and interpret their applicability to a given situation. It's got be AI. Machines like this aren't even close. Their logic complexity is not much more advanced than a sheet metal press. On the one, you have a button connected to a solenoid that opens a hydraulic valve to lower the head. On the other you usually have a PLC reading inputs from HMI's, switches, transducers, etc and providing outputs to relays, actuators, or HMI's based on control logic that seldom exceeds if/thens and arithmatic. They don't interpret anything beyond what the situations the engineer who programs them can think of, and they don't understand situations beyond what their limited sensors can detect (like "if overtravel switch == true then piston valve = false").
People always think of C3PO or the Terminator when they hear robot, but almost all robots are currently nothing more than an automated way of handling repeatable processes. Safety is the responsibility of the programmer and, to a much greater degree, the people who work with them.
I was hoping someone would point that out. Even if ths machine DID have some kind of intelligence or awareness doesn't mean he was ware of the human working on him.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
It sort of is. It comes from a Czech word which can mean "forced labor".
We've seen essentially this same debate so many times before on Slashdot and elsewhere: not just "safety" features in robotics, but "user friendly" UI (macOS, pre OSX)vs. "freedom of choice" (think of how many different window managers have existed for X over the years),etc.
Sometimes a tradeoff is necessary. Would you want robots coded to obey Asimov's laws is this meant that the software and/or firmware was DRMed "for safety reasons?"
If you do, you inherit all the problems associated with closed source software and DRM: Forced subscriptions and upgrades, and bugs that you can't fix on your own, and aren't fixed by the manufacturer because "For the cast majority of users, it's not a critical problem."
If you don't, then you get the occasional bad (or even malicious) coder breaking the safety features.
Now I know you're saying "But Open source methods...many eyes...many coders...the bugs will be fixed." This is very true, but the problem here is, the bug has to be observed before it can be fixed, and in this case "observation" may well mean "maiming" or "death."
The simple fact is the only way to take responsibility away from the end user is to take control away from the end user as well...and that's something that probably won't sit too well with the Slashdot crowd. On the other hand, power users who have total control over a system should also have total responsibility.
How is that Duke comment coming? :)
... Its not just about making robots "smart" enough to avoid injuring humans.
:)
Ok, a slightly OT rant considering TFA which was a fairly long winded wankfest without any real purpose; other than suggesting there might be some liability considerations when building consumer automation... hands up those who are surprised...
Anyway, simply put, anyone who CLIMBS A BARRIER into a working area will at best be injured or at worst die. We (Engineers) put safety barriers around equipment for a reason.
Its deeper than this though; naturally if the barrier is opened there need to exist interlocks to prevent equipment operation. However, as any industrial engineer knows, there is then the risk of an idiot (over zealous maintenance tech, ID-10-T afflicted worker, anyone) remaining INSIDE the barrier after its sealed. To prevent this we often require maintenance techs to wear RFID tags so that the equipment interlocks know they are still in there (in fact, we often design flashing red lights and buzzers to alert us to the near miss and, if it turns out they were being stupid, we issue warnings or fire the nutbars).
Other solutions exist, on most equipment I design I utilise physical barriers only to prevent ejecta from coming into contact with humans; I use laser volume scanners and/or pressure mats to deny the area to humans; or, more accurately, to deny the equipment the ability to operate with a human in the viscinity. These are then interlocked to prevent previously mentioned ID-10-T's from disengaging the safeties (the number of fuckwits who disable machine safety systems is truly staggering, fortunately we can fire them for this and they become SEP).
Anyway, the short version is that in most western nations, Occupational Safety legislation requires we create both *safe* and *fail safe* (not the same thing) machinery with appropriate guards and interlocks. In Australia we are also required to take "reasonable" (to an equivalently qualified professional) steps to prevent tampering to bypass safeties(government as parent, we should really just let the idiots kill themselves so they dont breed!). This includes robots; seeing as robots are merely machine components; no matter how clever they become, we will still require EXTERNAL safety systems and interlocks to prevent humans from being injured, I want my robot controller to control the fucking robot; *I* will make sure it stops if someone gets in the way. Just make sure that the "emergency stop" function on your robot positively stops it, not just removes power, the rest is Not Your Problem (unless you are building the machine too, then it *is* your problem). No sensible Engineer relies on the same system for operational control AND safety, when there is Human-At-Risk you never want a single failure point between you and a fatality. Imagine if they relied on a single valve (albeit with redundant controls) to prevent venting the cabin to atmosphere in a large european aircraft... but I digress.
Simply, for home appliance robots; different matter and wholy a fair consideration. For industrial robots, safety is the job of the Engineer designing the implementation or machine, an important but SEPARATE function; If you jam the robot with all this cruft, it will make it harder to program it to do the job at hand which will increase the probability of errors which will reduce process quality and yield increased defect counts in products.
As with everything, simplicity of the components is the key; complexity comes from arranging simple, manageable parts. If you set out to cure world hunger, you will fail; if you set out to improve crop yields in drought conditions, you have a much higher probability of succeeding...
End rant
err!
jak.
"In 1791 Ken McGillicuddly, a 37-year-old Scottish distillery worker, climbed over a safety fence at a McSmellie® Malting plant to carry out some maintenance work on a robotic Watts governor. In his haste, he failed to switch the robot off properly. Unable to sense him, the steam engine's powerful hydraulic arm kept on working and accidentally pushed the engineer into a grinding machine. His death made McGillicuddly the first recorded victim to die at the hands of a robot. This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer. But then of course, Isaac Asimov had not yet been born!"
Let's continue...
"In 1437, a 37-year-old Trappist monk climbed over a safety fence at a Benedictine abbey carry out some maintenance work on a robotic Water wheel.... etc etc"
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- aqk
F U