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Asimov’s Three Laws Helped Shape A.I. and Robotics. We Need Four More.

Eric Allen Been
OneZero
Published in
11 min readNov 17, 2020

Image: Hiroshi Watanabe/Getty Images

Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics are probably the most famous and influential science fictional lines of tech policy ever written. The renowned writer speculated that as machines took on greater autonomy and a greater role in human life, we would need staunch regulations to ensure they could not put us in harm’s way. And those proposed laws hark back to 1942, when the first of Asimov’s Robot stories were published. Now, with A.I., software automation, and factory robotics ascendant, the dangers posed by machines and their makers are even more complex and urgent.

In Frank Pasquale’s provoking and well-wrought book, New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI, the Brooklyn Law School professor proposes adding four new principles to Asimov’s original three. Which, for those unfamiliar, are as follows:

  1. A robot must not harm humans, or, via inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
  2. Robots must obey orders given to them by humans, unless an order would violate the first law.
  3. Finally, a robot must protect its own existence, as…

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OneZero
OneZero

Published in OneZero

OneZero is a former publication from Medium about the impact of technology on people and the future. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Eric Allen Been
Eric Allen Been

Written by Eric Allen Been

A writer. Not based in Brooklyn. Recent bylines with Vox, Vanity Fair, Harvard Magazine, MIT’s Undark, VICE and Playboy.

Responses (16)

Speaking as a transhuman myself, I do not hammer nails in with my fists. I use a technological prosthetic known as a "hammer". Acknowledging limitations and then finding the tools to overcome them is very human.
As for how bots will evolve, its going…

The title itself is just wrong.
"Asimov’s Three Laws Helped Shape A.I. and Robotics." Absolutely not. The Three Laws of Robotics are not expressed in any AI or robotics system at all. We are nowhere close to systems that can understand such abstract concepts.

#2 & #4. Agreed. Robots/AI should be transparent about their existence and provenance. But what happens when robots create new robots based on the designs of multiple other robots, or when an AI invents new algorithms?
#1 & #3. Nope. The goal of…