3 Laws

Issac Asimov originated the Three Laws of Robotics.  They are the basic marching orders built into sophisticated, humanoid/android robots, a moral safety net if you will.  They provide robots with priorities in dealing with humans and other robots.  The laws:

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 the 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 first, I thought they were brilliant, thought they concisely covered all the bases.  But they don’t.  There are many potential conflicts.  For example, how does one define ‘human’?  Cyborgs are humans with non-biological enhancements.  Is there a tipping point, some definable boundary where adding one more piece of hardware changes it from cyborg to robot?  My ruling would be if it started out human, it’ll always be human, and vice versa.

Another problem: can a robot possibly know every action or inaction that might cause harm to a human?  I don’t think so, too many possibilities and scenarios.  Several authors have referenced, analyzed, tested and modified the laws, and some have added complementary laws that deal with the conflicts. 

The imagination and creativity of some sci fi authors boggles my mind, especially when they delve into the moral, legal, social and philosophical issues that arise with artificial intelligence (AI) and alien species.  AI is real.  It’s being developed rapidly and some experts predict that it will replace nearly 50% of the current work force within a decade or so.  Scary!

Are aliens real?  Depends on your definition.  Given the billions of planets in the universe, I have to believe there’s life out there.  Is there sentient life, some kinda critter that ‘thinks’ - as we humans define the term?  Probably.  I doubt that aliens have visited earth, though.  Space is too vast, too many light years between us and our ‘neighbors’.  I can’t imagine any device, technology or power source capable of traveling several light years to distant planets.  But, I couldn’t imagine microwave ovens, cell phones or the internet either.