| Books-Commentary - Isaac Asimov |
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The 3 Laws of Robotics
The Three Laws of Robotics
A pervasive theme throughout Isaac Asimov's robot books is that all robots are made with the three laws of robotics, which basically state:
1) Robots may not harm people
2) Robots must obey the orders of people, except where it conflicts with Rule #1
3) Robots must preserve themselves, except where it conflicts with Rule #2.
Unfortunately, Isaac Asimov found this rather limiting over time, so he created the "Zeroth" law, which essentially stated that robots could float the three laws and do whatever they liked as long as it was for the greater good. This was a very controversial law because it gave the robots (who gained the ability to use mind control in the later robot books) the ability to write their own ticket and do whatever they wanted. What do you think about such powerful robots having only the most general guidelines to justify doing what they wanted?
Another question I had concerned the fact that the three laws are built into the robot hardware, and that it's nearly impossible to change. Why? Why does a robot CPU need these laws to function? Do you think Isaac Asimov made a strong case for it?
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The commentator io
posts on 2/17/2006 10:09:57 PM
You know what's one of the several problems about a half human and half robot society? It's just the fact that robots would come to replace human beings in their jobs and that would mean a lot of disemployment for people. I know that Asimov mentioned this problem in Caves of steel, but I think he just didn't give an answer to that problem, almost considering it a quibble, in my opinion. As a matter of fact, I guess that would be a very big issue for everybody because that's something really hard to sort out once you start having robots working in a factory (since that would probably be one of their main jobs) or in an office instead of a human being. It's already hard now to find a job sometimes (just about the richest countries in the world, let's not even get into the poorest countries' subject because that would be even worse): I mean, just think of a time like the Great Depression and how it could have turned out for people if they had robots instead of human beings to hire for jobs and make the whole economy recover. In short, I think that robots would just lead to a lot of economical problems for people and, in such a situation, riots would just spread out all over the countries, probably leading to a sort of communist-like proletarian revolution.
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A. Fillingim
posts on 1/21/2006 9:44:23 PM
A robot is not a person, no matter how much you program into it. Rights does not apply to tools and machines and equipment no matter how intelligent in my opinion. Creating rules that allow AIs to develop their own rights is just inviting Big problems in the long run.
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mm
posts on 11/19/2005 7:18:18 PM
At one time, if you saw a robot in an SF story, you could make a good bet that the robot would turn evil and start killing people. See Frankenstein's monster, for example. Asimov didn't much care for this trend, so he made up the 3 laws of robotics for his stories. He then set out to write stories about robots that were more than insane killing machines.
Of course, the three laws are not required for real robots. Observe the history of robotic weapons, from the German V-1 used to bomb London (the first cruise missile) to the US Predator (which carries weapons of its own and has killed people).
In fact, we do not currently have the technology to implement the three laws in real robots because they require too much intelligence. How does the robot recognize a human, for example? Just machine vision is a very hard problem.
To get back to Asimov's fictional universe, note that there are some stories where the robots are constructed with special modifications to the three laws. One story (I forget the name) deals with trying to identify one such robot hiding in a batch of other robots. Also, the robots figure out some loopholes in "That thou art mindful of him" where they realize that the limitations of the first law are dependent on what you decide a human is. The robots conclude that "humans like themselves" may have priority over "humans like men". As far as I know, Asimov never went any further with this idea, but I would think the robots might eventually decide that products of US Robots are "human" and intelligent animals are not.
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The commentator io
posts on 9/14/2005 3:51:31 PM
The zeroth law is actually intended to allow robots to make decisions not only for the sake of a single human being (that's the case of the first law), but for the sake of the whole humanity. The problem with this law is that "the whole humanity" is made up of billions of people and each of these people has his/her own interests and needs: this make quite impossible for a robot to make decisions for the sake of everyone, since we all got our own interests, different from others'. This explains all the difficulty encountered by Daneel in accomplishing his task of looking after humanity, but this problem with the zeroth law is sorted out at the end of Foundation and Earth (I'm not going to get into that not to spoil the surpise for those who've not read this book)
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Eric Voorhies
posts on 8/11/2005 4:47:55 AM
"I, Robot" was a collection of short stories Asimov had written earlier in his career. I think he wrote one or two specially for that collection, but I'm not sure. Susan Calvin's interview is a literary device, intended to make the stories fit together into a narrative of the evolution of robots from clanking hulks and static supercomputers into sophisticated, intuitive artificial intelligences. Read as a novel, it isn't very good. It's much better as an anthology, with the Susan Calvin interview treated as preface/conclusion to the actual stories. I think this how he intended it to be read- certainly Asimov liked to do anthologies.
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The commentator io
posts on 5/27/2005 8:17:36 PM
I think the only reason why robots need the three laws is because these laws are the only thing that made robots safe and useful for human beings: the first law make them safe because they can't harm a human being, while the second and the third law deal with their usefulness. Just think if there were no such laws: those robots would be a menace to humankind (robots-as-menace, as Asimov himself called that kind of robots).
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The commentator io
posts on 4/15/2005 8:47:58 PM
I want to answer literature student's comment about I, robot. First, one can't say this book is illogical since it's really well-structured: it got a frame, which is the interview Susan Calvin is having and thanks to which every single story got a reason to exist in the book, and it got the series of stories (probably told in a chronological order) that are meant to be just some interesting examples of what the very first robots could do (i admit that some stories tend to be a little too incredible and unreal, but how can you expect to see reality in science fiction? And consider they're also Asimov's first robot stories). Anyway this book is intended to show the most important steps in the career of Susan Calvin, the woman who's become the symbol of the origin of robotics: if you think about it in terms of plot, neither the robot series nor the foundation series could exist or at least have an explanation behind them. And one more thing, Will Smith starred in this movie entitled I, robot, but it has got nothing to do with the original book, unless the three laws of robotics and some characters here and there.
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The commentator io
posts on 4/10/2005 9:49:19 PM
i think Asimov's robots tend to be out of control because of the three laws plus the zeroth law i mean those laws are supposed to be a rational guide to the comprehension of a robot's "mind" but they got so many implications due to the fact that these laws are really genearal and can be applied on whatsoever case you can think of and so it seems that human beings cant control a robot completely its like they started producin robots just to help out human beings on the most hardest and tiresome works but then they went beyond their original intentions and lost touch of what they made thats why im happy those robots are just schi-fi characters
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Literature student
posts on 3/27/2005 4:49:48 AM
What a drag! Personally I have found this book to be one of the most illogical, boring books I have ever had the displeasure of reading. The chapters didn't even tie in with each other to combine and form 1 whole novel, instead it was a few pieces from all over the place sloppily put together. Although I think Asimov is a verytalented writer I feel this book was not up to scratch and I am left thoughtless of why will Smith would consider doing a movie based on it.
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the posters.
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