The Mistake of Giving Legal Value To Asimov Robotics’ Laws

In 1950, Isaac Asimov published Runaround, a short story where the famous Three Laws of Robotics were featured for the first time.
Today, Asimov’s Laws have become the rhetoric trick used by “artificial intelligence” and “intelligent robotics” experts.

Asimov’s Law are a brilliant literary invention but, from a legal standpoint, are flawed by a wrong assumption, i.e. the fact that robots are sentient being with autonomous will.

To understand where the misinterpretation lies, just have a look at Asimov’s Laws:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws

The misinterpretation is all in the (non)subject of Asimov’s Laws: a robot.

A robot is not alive, doesn’t own a will and it is not a robot that harms people.

Actually, then, its builders, those who designed the hardware and the software, should carry the legal burden of their choices.

Therefore, to immediately enforce Asimov’Laws an amendment should be made like the following:

Robot’s designer and software programmer should make so that the machine doesn’t harm people either with an action or an omission.

Robot’s designer and software programmer should make so that the machine execute the commands imparted by a user, except in the case these commands conflict with the first law.

Robot’s designer and software programmer should make so that the machine doesn’t break, except in case the break prevention conflicts with the first or the second law.

Of course, such mistake is not an Asimov’s fault. The scientist didn’t want to write a piece of legislation. He just needed a literary invention to be used in the tales of his extraordinary universe.

Unfortunately, as in the case of another literary invention – Willian Gibson’s Cyverspace – Asimov’s Laws have been exploited by way of either bad faith or ignorance, concurring to broaden the cultural mess whose outcome are wrong legislations aimed at regulating Science Fiction, rather then life.

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