1. The Laws Of Robotics Have Yet To Be Implemented
If youve read Issac Asimovs I, Robot anthology, or any of his other robot novels, youve heard of the Three Laws. In most of the stories, they were the unifying theme that guided not only the robots, but also the humans they worked for. They were a safety feature, built into the positronic brain of every robot. Violation of any of the Laws resulted in irreversible damage to the robot. The Laws read as follows: First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Current robots are not advanced enough to have the capacity to recognize when the Three Laws might apply. A mail delivery robot used in a large office wont be able to apologize for running over your foot. Nor will it protect you from an armed co-worker who might carry a grudge about being laid off, unless you can successfully hide behind it. Military funding is one of the biggest drivers of technological innovation. Since the job of autonomous robotic soldiers would be to go into enemy territory and engage in combat, an ethical override preventing the robot from killing the enemy is a useless function and would not be implemented. Even if the Three Laws were successfully integrated into any future robotic servants, there would always be someone who would be paranoid enough to foresee a situation where they might need to override them. We've seen a variation of that in the original Robocop, where OCP executive Dick Jones built in a fourth directive into the robotic version of Alex Murphy to prevent him from arresting any officer of the company. Are there any apocalyptic scenarios we missed? Let us know in the comments.
