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
These are the laws of robotics
Asimov's laws of robotics have had a profound influence on our thinking in terms of AI and the creation of sentient machines
As technology has advanced, the question of how you should make such a machine—that isn't a fundamental threat to humanity—has grown more pressing
We've had to ask ourselves, "What is ethical programming?"
As we build things as simple as self-driving cars...
...we've had to start wrestling with the question of what instructions we give robots in an impossible situation
For example, a group of children run out in front of the car
The only options are to swerve into oncoming traffic, probably killing the driver and endangering others...
...or to simply hit the children, ending more human lives
How do you make that choice?
How do you program a machine to do so? These discussions really began with Asimov
From Skynet to data, Robbie to Bishop, and Robocop to Mega Man...
...pop culture and science fiction has played with Asimov's laws, built on them, and explored them
Nearly every artificially intelligent machine in science fiction has had to answer that fundamental question which Asimov posed
Once humankind can create a being superior to itself, what's to keep those beings from simply displacing us?
Why would they just serve us?
Is it even ethical to have them do so?
And Asimov really was the first one to explore this question systematically
He saw that science fiction had been stuck in a trope that Mary Shelley first gave us at its very inception
The artificial man turning on its creator
But where Shelley had explored it with nuance and meaning...
...many of the pulp-era short stories just threw in robots as an easy go-to villain that no one had to feel bad about shooting
So way back in 1942, working in the massive shipyards of Philadelphia during the height of the Second World War...
...Asimov asked himself how robots might actually be used in the future
How they could be made should be beneficial to humanity rather than ending up as its downfall
He then took this nascent idea to Campbell, who helped him enunciate the laws of robotics in the way we know them today
But interestingly, unlike the notion that seems to be floating around the internet...
...Asimov did not see his three laws as the answer
Instead, he actually used them as a basis to play with all the things that might go wrong if we implemented and trusted in those three laws
Usually the failings he highlighted were human, like when a company is so worried about it's expensive robot...
...that it strengthens the third law to be just as important as the second...
...rendering the robot useless as it oscillates between trying to fulfill a human command...
...and then backing off every time that command might put it in the slightest danger
Or when the military modifies the first law for its robots and it comes back to bite them in the end
Sometimes though, he explores how the laws could cause robots to act with an excess of altruism in a way that we might not actually like
Such as when a psychic robot is accidentally created and everyone starts acting on what it says, since it knows our most inner thoughts
But despite the fact that it truly is psychic...
...it actually just tells people what they want to hear because it can't hurt their feelings
Or when a machine decides that in the end, the only way to save humanity from itself is to take over and run human activity
Lastly, Asimov gives us stories where robots find some way to subvert these laws
Like when a politician is running for office and he's accused of being a machine...
...so to disprove these allegations he punches a man something that if he were a machine, the first law would not let him do
But unbeknownst to all the humans watching, the person he punched was secretly a robot, too
For all of this though, Asimov was a defender of progress
Even in the political story, the robot is prompted and aided by a human
The common thread in his robot stories is that our fear of robots is a self-fulfilling prophecy...
...that being afraid of science or technology leads us to act toward it in ways that are detrimental to ourselves or to society
Or to inadvertently hand off control of it over to people who do want to misuse it, simply by our refusal to understand it
You see, to Asimov, the laws of robotics weren't actually laws for robots
He thought them a simple creed for how to be a decent human being
He brings this up with a robot masquerading as a human and has a character ask how you can tell a robot from just being a very good person
In his stories where we fail to live up to the standards of a robot is where the problems start to show through
Of course, this is also where some of his 50s Golden Age mindset starts to creep in
Not only do these laws lack the subtlety to address the intensely complex range of human emotions, fears, wants, and desires...
...but they also assume morality is fixed and make assumptions about morality that aren't universal
There's a moment when discussing this, where Asimov has one of his characters talk about the second law, and they say:
Every good human being with a social conscience and a sense of responsibility...
...is supposed to defer to the proper authority, to listen to his doctor, his boss, his government, his psychiatrist...
...his fellow man, to obey laws, to follow rules, to conform to custom even when they interfere with his comfort or safety
That's a very 50s America understanding of the world
One which later authors will rebel against and work to overthrow
But no matter how you look at it, Asimov raised the big questions
How will we interact with our machines as the machines themselves become smarter?
How will we relate to them when they become more capable than we ourselves are?
And in doing so, he laid the groundwork for all the science fiction that's tried to take a crack at these questions since
Igniting a firestorm of discussion that has changed the very way we think about technology right up to today
And if there's one thing we can absolutely be sure about...
...it's the fact that in no way is it possible for me to be a robot—
...it's the fact that in no way is it possible for me to be a robot— robot—
...it's the fact that in no way is it possible for me to be a robot— robot— robot—
...it's the fact that in no way is it possible for me to be a robot— robot— robot— robot
Ro— Ro— Ro— Ro— Ro— Ro— Ro— Ro— Ro— Ro— Ro—
Resistance is futile
We'll see you next week