In 1942 Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer, wrote a short story about robots and developed what would be regarded as the definitive approach to a “law” of robotics.

It was this:

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

At the time that Asimov wrote the above robots were a thing of the imagination. Now they are real. And the problem is that the laws laid out by Asimov have been broken already.

The so-called “drones” that are used to deliver ordnance – or in common parlance, to bomb – places in Pakistan and Afghanistan are nothing less than robots. And they are designed to kill.

These “robots” are presumably controlled by someone back at a remote location sitting in front of a screen with a joystick guiding the drone. The next generation of robots will presumably be programmed to respond to outside stimuli and to make decisions in a nano-second, faster than humans can respond.

Shouldn't we feel some concern about this?

Particularly when we all know how computers can be hacked, can have back doors built into them, and can generally go on the fritz. Remember that old adage: “There are two kinds of computers – those that have crashed, and those that will crash.” The fact that robots are being designed right now to break the simple first law of robotics may seem like it is of little consequence at present, but we are planting the seeds of our children's future every day…

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Posted in Main Page by Chris Gilbey No Comments Yet