Dec 15

One overused cliche I see in discussions about “ethical AI” is the idea of making autonomous systems, robots, etc, “three laws compliant”.

While it is obviously a credit to the imagination of Asimov, I find it to be a very clear sign that the people who say that robots need to follow these laws IRL haven’t actually read his novels. You only need to read the first few stories that Asimov wrote to understand “oh, huh, these Three Laws don’t work”.

The Three Laws are a literary device, not a scientific one. Asimov only invented them to explore the conflict between the three laws and to explore the conflict between artificial intelligences and human intelligence. They are deliberately vague and loose to be the vehicle of which Asimov explores his stories through.

They are, in essence, a thought experiment.

Most crucially and most importantly: you can’t apply them to real robots/AI, because unlike Asmiov’s fictional creations, no autonomous system that exists today actually has the ability of foresight or reason in a way that would allow them to come to a conclusion over whether they are following The Three Laws.

Show threadBlake C. Stacey

@yassie_j Asimov wrote the First Law the way he did because he read 19th-century poetry. It was inspired by Arthur Hugh Clough's "The Latest Decalogue".

Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would be at the expense of two?
No graven images may be
Worshipp'd, except the currency:
Swear not at all; for, for thy curse
Thine enemy is none the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will serve to keep the world thy friend:
Honour thy parents; that is, all
From whom advancement may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Do not adultery commit;
Advantage rarely comes of it:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When it's so lucrative to cheat:
Bear not false witness; let the lie
Have time on its own wings to fly:
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.

Dec 15 at 10:19pmWeb