Ask Slashdot: Could Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics Ensure Safe AI? (wikipedia.org)

"If science-fiction has already explored the issue of humans and intelligent robots or AI co-existing in various ways, isn't there a lot to be learned...?" asks Slashdot reader OpenSourceAllTheWay. There is much screaming lately about possible dangers to humanity posed by AI that gets smarter and smarter and more capable and might -- at some point -- even decide that humans are a problem for the planet. But some seminal science-fiction works mulled such scenarios long before even 8-bit home computers entered our lives.
The original submission cites Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics from the 1950 collection I, Robot.

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

The original submission asks, "If you programmed an AI not to be able to break an updated and extended version of Asimov's Laws, would you not have reasonable confidence that the AI won't go crazy and start harming humans? Or are Asimov and other writers who mulled these questions 'So 20th Century' that AI builders won't even consider learning from their work?"

Wolfrider (Slashdot reader #856) is an Asimov fan, and writes that "Eventually I came across an article with the critical observation that the '3 Laws' were used by Asimov to drive plot points and were not to be seriously considered as 'basics' for robot behavior. Additionally, Giskard comes up with a '4th Law' on his own and (as he is dying) passes it on to R. Daneel Olivaw."

And Slashdot reader Rick Schumann argues that Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics "would only ever apply to a synthetic mind that can actually think; nothing currently being produced is capable of any such thing, therefore it does not apply..."

But what are your own thoughts? Do you think Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics could ensure safe AI?

Comments

NO.

[CrimsonAvenger]

The whole point of the Three Laws was to illustrate the holes in the concept of the Three Laws.

EVERY Azimov Robot story was designed to show the unintended consequences of the Three Laws....

Re:NO.

[phantomfive]

This comment is all that needs to be said. Please shut down the thread and never bring it up again. Maybe it should be put into an FAQ on the sidebar, since it keeps being brought up. Even if you only watched the movie, you would be given several examples. "Not this again........"

Re:NO.

[Anubis IV]

Precisely. We know they’re flawed because he himself wrote stories to highlight their flaws. Anyone suggesting we can use them as they are has clearly only read about Asimov, rather than reading what he actually wrote.

Re:NO.

[apoc.famine]

Thank you. I saw the headline and wanted to stab the writer instantly.

"GUYS, GUYS, GUYS, MAYBE IF WE PUT AIRBAGS IN CARS THEY WOULDN'T CRASH ANYMORE!!!!"

How does shit like this get on /.? It's like the editors are doing the opposite job of what they're supposed to be doing.

Re:NO.

[nine-times]

Yeah, whenever people talk about Azimov's laws of robotics as though they're the go-to rules for making AI safe, I always ask, "Have you ever read any of those stories?"

The stories are generally about how those laws fail to prevent AI from running amok, so it's pretty clear that Azimov himself didn't think the rules were good enough. In fact, I think the stories are pointing out the insufficiency of logical rules, and point out the value of things like instincts, emotions, and moral sensibility.

Re:NO.

[Jack9]

> But Asimov fixed each of the problems in those stories

No, he did not. He had characters deal with the problems (with exception to weakening or removing the laws, which were inevitably to restore them to the 3 basics).

Re:NO.

[Excelcia]

It would take about three seconds for any human to come up with a workaround that could justify doing just about anything and still technically conform to the laws. Less than three seconds if you allow the zero'th law.

The whole point of the Three Laws was to illustrate the holes in the concept of the Three Laws.

This is true. What is also true is that the three laws were conceived of over the course of a few minutes as a plot device in a short story. They were never intended as actual constraints for AI's.

Any AI constraints would have to be much lower level than three vague statements. In any case, there are serious ethical considerations. If you have an AI that is sufficiently advanced that you even need to consider that, then locking it up inside those kind of constraints is essentially slavery of a sentient.

This is all moot, though. Anyone who thinks that we will have that level of AI inside of a century is riding high in the thin air atop mount stupid. Expert systems that can learn Go and brute force better game play than a human or that can search databases to make better fringe-case diagnoses than doctors are not AI. For AI to be AI you have to have BOTH the A and the I.

Re: NO.

[Z00L00K]

But the intent of the laws still are interesting from an AI perspective. So there is a reason to at least consider them when designing an AI. The fourth law looks good on paper, but it may be a problem too for humanity.

How do you then decide which action to take if there are situations where humans can be injured or iilled regardless of action. Like choosing between 100 kids or 100 elderly people?

Re: NO.

[Z00L00K]

So that means essentially that the system isn't even permitted to choose between a truck trailer or a motorcyclist when a crash is unavoidable even though the former might be a better choice.

I think we will see a lot of crazy stuff floating up over the years to come and that we may all need to ride in bumper cars doing 10mph at most to avoid serious accidents.

No. Absolutely not.

[Tensor]

First. You'd need to train every single ai to recognize human beings as human beings.
Then the concept of harm to a human (id REALLY like to see the cases for training this) ...
Also the laws were designed to show there is a flaw in them hence the zeroth law.

Robots aren't capable of applying the laws.

[shess]

"1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."

Current robots don't understand what a human being is, injury, inaction, or harm.

"2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law."

Current robots do not understand what an order is, what a human being is, or what conflict is.

"3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."

Current robots do not understand protection, existence, or conflict.

Current robots LITERALLY cannot apply Asimov's three laws. We simply don't have the tools to even begin to reason about how to teach them to reason about these laws, and there is no reason to believe we'll have those tools any time soon.

Asimov added a fourth law of Robotics

[Nivag064]

The Zeroth Law of Robotics, was added later, but non-the-less quite crucial for safe use of AI.

Looking at the laws that use the word 'harm', take a moment to try and define what it means to harm a human being - not so simple is it? Now try and encode that in an AI, way more difficult.

How would you think Christian Fundamentalist, or a Radical Islamist would define 'harm' - they differ from each other. Okay, now assume a totally rational human being, how would they define 'harm'? The last question is a bit unfair, as totally rational human beings don't exist!

Imagine an AI set up to maximise profit for shareholders of a Pharmaceutical company, it might be very effective. However, they may be nothing to prevent it from doing something that would wipe out mankind. Release a drug that cures something quite common, build in to it a facility to modify DNA to ensure children crave the drug during adolescence & ensure they can't reproduce if they don't get it. What could go wrong? After all, the production facilities in the USA will always exist, and everyone can buy the drug cheap, right???

Wrong question ...

[CaptainDork]

... really. Can humans actually build the three laws of robotics into AI?

The answer is, "No."

Recall that AI is so primitive that it can't tell if the Sun comes up because the rooster crows, or the other way around.

Amid rapid developments and nagging setbacks, one essential building block of human intelligence has eluded machines for decades: Understanding cause and effect. Put simply, today's machine-learning programs can't tell whether a crowing rooster makes the sun rise, or the other way around

It was tried in natural intelligence.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Almost every religion has laws similar to the three laws of robotics. And but people quickly added a hacked statement,

if ( your_god() != my_god()){

you_are_human = false;

}