Slashdot Mirror
How Asimov's Three Laws Ran Out of Steam
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like AI-powered weapons systems could soon be outlawed before they're even built. While discussing whether robots should be allowed to kill might like an obscure debate, robots (and artificial intelligence) are playing ever-larger roles in society and we are figuring out piecemeal what is acceptable and what isn't. If killer robots are immoral, then what about the other uses we've got planned for androids? Asimov's three laws don't seem to cut it, as this story explains: 'As we consider the ethical implications of having robots in our society, it becomes obvious that robots themselves are not where responsibility lies.'"
Asimov's stories were all about how the three laws were not sufficient for the real world. The article recognises this, even if the summary doesn't.
It is kind of sad that people spend so much time thinking about the moral and ethical ways to wage war and kill other people, whether robots are involved or not. Maybe a step back to think about the impossibility of moral or ethical war and killing is where we should be focusing. Then the question of whether robots can be trusted to kill morally doesn't come up.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
There is a 0:th law...
Ah, yes. Good old "A robot shall take no action, nor allow other robots to take action, that may result in the parent company being sued."
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
The correct term is "amoral": Robots have no moral sense whatsoever. "immoral" would imply they had moral sense but were actively engaging in the behavior that is against that morality.
I am officially gone from
Robots aren't the problem. Robots are the latest extension of humanity's will via technology. The fact that in some cases they're somewhat anthropomorphic (or animalpomorphic) is irrelevant. We don't have now nor will we have a human vs robot problem; we have a human nature problem.
Excepting disease and natural catastrophes and of course human ignorance- which taken together are historically the worst inflictors of mass human suffering- the problems we've had throughout history can be laid at the feet of human nature and our own behavior to one another.
We are creatures, like all other creatures, which evolved brains to perform some very basic social and survival functions. Sure, it's not ALL we are, but this list basically accounts for most of the "bad parts" of human history and when I say history I mean to include future history.
At the most basic brains function to ensure the individual does well at the expense of other individuals, then secondly that the individual's family does well at the expense of other families and thirdly that the individual's group does well at the expense of other groups and finally that the individual does well relative to members of his own group.
The consequences for not winning in any of the above circumstance are pain suffering and, in a worst case scenario, genetic lineage death- you have no copulatory opportunities and / or your offspring are all killed. (cure basement-dwelling jokes)
All of us who have been left standing at the end of this evolutionary process, we all are putative winners in a million year old repeated game. There are few, or more likely zero, representatives of the tribe who didn't want to play, because to not play is to lose and to lose is to be extinguished for all time.
What this means is, we are just not very nice to each other and that niceness falls away with exponential rapidity as we travel away from any conceptual "us" ; Supporting and caring about each other is just not the first priority in our lives and more bluntly any trace of the egalitarian impulse is totally absent from a large part of the population. OTOH we're , en masse, genocidal at the drop of a hat. This is just the tale both history and our own personal experience tells.
Sure, some billionaires give their money away after there's no where else for them to go in terms of the "I'm important, and better than you, genuflect (or at least do a double take) when I light up a room" type esteem they crave from other members of the tribe. Many more people under that level of wealth and comfort just continue to try to amass more and more for themselves and then take huge pains to passed it on to their kin.
The problem is, we are no longer suited, we are no longer a fit, to the environment we find ourselves in, the environment we are creating.
We have two choices. We can try to limit, stop, contain, corral, monitor and otherwise control our fellow human beings so they can't pick up the fruits of this technology and kill a lot or even the rest of us one fine day. The problem here is as technology advances, the control we need to exert will become near absolute. In fact, we are seeing this dynamic at play already with the NSA spying scandal. It's not an aberration and it's not going to go away, it's only going to get worse.
The other choice is to face up to what we are as a species (I'm sure all my fellow /. ers are noble exceptions to these evolutionary pressures) and change what we are using our technology, at least somewhat, so that, say, flying plane loads of people into skyscrapers doesn't seem like the thing to do to anyone and nor does it seem like a good idea to treat each other as ruinously as we can get away with in order to advantage ourselves.
This would be using technology to better that part of the world we call ourselves and recreating ourselves in our own better image. In fact, some argue, that's the real utility of maintaining that better image - which we rarely live up-
Stop saying that. That isnt it at all and you failed to grasp his points, even as he himself spelled out his thinking in his essays on the topic.
Asimov never thought the rules he created were "not at all valid". On the contrary.
Asimov saw robots, seen at the time as monsters, as an engineering problem to be solved. he quite correctly saw that we would program them with limits (in the process creating the concept of computer science).
he then went about writing stories around robots that never failed to obey their programming, but as effectively sentient thinking beings, would interpret their programming in ways the society around them couldn't anticipate because they saw the robots as mere tools, not thinking machines. and thus he created his lens (like all good scifi writers) for writing about society and technology.
he NEVER said the laws were not valid or were insufficient.
that was NEVER the point.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.