From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Jul 02 1998 - 09:44:41 MDT
Brent Allsop <allsop@swttools.fc.hp.com> writes:
> Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> commented about Anders reference to
> Asimov's laws for robots:
>
> > So, what if a robot has this choice:
> >
> > Kill someone, and allow 100 others to live, or
> > not kill, and allow the 100 others to die.
> >
> > This would probably immobilize the robot, which is the worst choice,
> > so the Zero'th Law is:
>
> I would think that robots simply be subject to the same laws
> (or law) that we all try to adhear to. And that is simply to do the
> best possible. Part of that law is, to rationally reason and figure
> out what that best possible is as best as is possible.
But what is best? You have to supply the robot with valuations in
order to have this kind of reasoning. Asimov's laws have the advantage
of being clear what a robot may and may not do, and do not require
open ended reasoning ("... but if I save him, what if he is a killer?
But if he is a killer...").
> I think a
> robot could logically calculate that a person living is better than a
> person dieing and by induction that 100 people living and only one
> dieing is better than one person living and 100 dieing.
This kind of reasoning was most likely too unconstrained for Asimov or
his contemporaries - or anybody building a robot today. Imagine the
litigation if your robot does something that leads to the death of
somebody, and it is not possible to show that this was a clear logical
results of the laws of robotics. People would feel much more at home
with a robot that simply couldn't harm them due to the first law, than
a robot that just *might* harm them because it had deduced that it was
for the best due to some obscure twist of logic.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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