Should real robots obey Asimov's Laws?

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

To recap, Val's points are:

1) Do robots count as self-aware, and/or as living?
2) Do we have the right to control what they think?

As of now:

1) No.
2) Yes...well, sort of. Control HOW they think, control HOW MUCH they can think, that sort of thing.

Thank's for the recap, II.

Though to add my final point:

Do we even have the right to create such things?

And would you care to elaborate on your answers?

[Nate the Great]

Again I reinterate: Please no II! II is Roman for two! I'm not a two! If you can't say "Nate," use "NTG."

1) Well, robots today don't count as self-aware OR living because I'd define those two terms as:
Self-aware: Posessing the knowledge of who and what you are, what you can and can't do (in general), and knowing what is required to stay functional.
Living: Experiencing a life. "Life" being defined as a state of experience and growth, influencing other lives.
2) Well, to use a human analogy (and what else do we have, really?), we already influence how each other thinks. Media, hackneyed saying, fivers, etc. are all used in an attempt to make each other "wear our shoes," for lack of a better term. If there really are computers that satisfy 1), then we have the right to influence their thoughts, and they'd have the right to influence ours.
3) Okay, put on your explorer hats and prepare to dash out of the Temple of Doom, dudes and dudettes! Uh, who would take away our "right" to create thinking robots? After all, if we can create machines capable of genuine thought, that'd be the final nail in the coffin of evolution. God would be superfluous. Souls wouldn't exist. After all, if mechanical machines can think, then so can organic machines, and we're just the result of millions of years of trial and error by random forces trying to slap a thinking machine together.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Again I reinterate: Please no II! II is Roman for two! I'm not a two! If you can't say "Nate," use "NTG."

Then don't call me Val

'Val' is short for 'Valentine', which is neither my real name nor the name I go by anywhere on the web.

'Valium'/'CV', or if you prefer formality, 'Chancellor' will do nicely.

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

1) Well, robots today don't count as self-aware OR living because I'd define those two terms as:
Self-aware: Posessing the knowledge of who and what you are, what you can and can't do (in general), and knowing what is required to stay functional.
Living: Experiencing a life. "Life" being defined as a state of experience and growth, influencing other lives.

I thought that this thread was rather more forward-looking than just the present...?

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

2) Well, to use a human analogy (and what else do we have, really?), we already influence how each other thinks. Media, hackneyed saying, fivers, etc. are all used in an attempt to make each other "wear our shoes," for lack of a better term. If there really are computers that satisfy 1), then we have the right to influence their thoughts, and they'd have the right to influence ours.

Yeah, it's all a method of control, man!

Seriously, do we have the right to PROGRAMME GUIDELINES into a thinking brain.

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

3) Okay, put on your explorer hats and prepare to dash out of the Temple of Doom, dudes and dudettes! Uh, who would take away our "right" to create thinking robots? After all, if we can create machines capable of genuine thought, that'd be the final nail in the coffin of evolution. God would be superfluous. Souls wouldn't exist. After all, if mechanical machines can think, then so can organic machines, and we're just the result of millions of years of trial and error by random forces trying to slap a thinking machine together.

Nope. Assuming there is a God, what right do we have to create life? Surely it would be His divine right, and His alone? Obviously I can't prove this, but neither can you disprove it. And call me Pascal, but I'd rather not risk it.

There's also the question of whether we can create life itself, and also, why do we *need* androids and sentient robots?

Re: the second part of part three: Prove Godless evolution to me without reference to the phenomenal (see also: Kant).

[Gatac]

Originally Posted by Chancellor Valium

Then don't call me Val

Seriously, do we have the right to PROGRAMME GUIDELINES into a thinking brain.

Well, we teach our kids not to kill their playground buddies to get their toys. Laugh all you want, but what reason would a blank slate AI have to think that it's bad to kill others?

Then again, there's a difference between having Asimov-esque laws hardcoded into your brain or being taught morality.

Nope. Assuming there is a God, what right do we have to create life? Surely it would be His divine right, and His alone? Obviously I can't prove this, but neither can you disprove it. And call me Pascal, but I'd rather not risk it.

Forgive me if this sounds silly, but by the same token, I could live in mortal fear of ever cracking an emu egg because I believe the space cats will eat me if I do. I don't know if there's a God; what I do know is that He hasn't really left us any concrete guidelines on the topic. (And that's under the assumption that we believe the Bible to be His word - bring other religions into it and you'll be lucky if you can agree on why the sun shines.)

There's also the question of whether we can create life itself, and also, why do we *need* androids and sentient robots?

Ask a medieval Samurai what you can do with an autoloading rifle, or the IBM guys in the 50s what the hell a microchip is good for. If there's one pattern in technology, it's that a lot of what we know came from cocking about and doing things because we could. In a lot of cases, we had the invention first and then found out about the neat things we could do with it.

Re: the second part of part three: Prove Godless evolution to me without reference to the phenomenal (see also: Kant).

Evolution is easy to show, it's abiogenesis that's hard.

Gatac

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Gatac

Well, we teach our kids not to kill their playground buddies to get their toys. Laugh all you want, but what reason would a blank slate AI have to think that it's bad to kill others?

Then again, there's a difference between having Asimov-esque laws hardcoded into your brain or being taught morality.

Exactly the difference I was referring to

Originally Posted by Gatac

Forgive me if this sounds silly, but by the same token, I could live in mortal fear of ever cracking an emu egg because I believe the space cats will eat me if I do.

Better watch those space cats - when riled they're pretty dangerous. And they have *big* claws...

Seriously, difference is, space cats didn't create, if we follow the assumption that there is a God implicit in this particular end of the discussion, the emu egg in the first place.

Originally Posted by Gatac

I don't know if there's a God; what I do know is that He hasn't really left us any concrete guidelines on the topic. (And that's under the assumption that we believe the Bible to be His word

I'd say the teaching of Jesus was pretty damn clear, myself...

Originally Posted by Gatac

- bring other religions into it and you'll be lucky if you can agree on why the sun shines.)

I think the question would more be who put the sun there, who pushes it around, why it does, why it's not in any other shape or form, where it goes, and who slept with whom in order to create it...

Originally Posted by Gatac

Ask a medieval Samurai what you can do with an autoloading rifle,

Not the best advert for the advancement of technology, it must be said. But fundamentally, do we *need* an autoloading rifle? A musket will do just as well in the end.

Originally Posted by Gatac

or the IBM guys in the 50s what the hell a microchip is good for. If there's one pattern in technology, it's that a lot of what we know came from cocking about and doing things because we could. In a lot of cases, we had the invention first and then found out about the neat things we could do with it.

True, but when the M or the E word come into the question, suddenly you aren't just cocking about with the neat things you could do if you tweak this or that -the implications grow uncomfortably.

Originally Posted by Gatac

Evolution is easy to show, it's abiogenesis that's hard.

Without reference to the phenomenal?

[Nate the Great]

We have the right to teach our children, how are robots any different?

I don't think we need thinking robots, either.

Could we close the door on the whole creationism/evolutionism thing, please?

[Gatac]

Okay, point by point...

- Point taken.
- Who says the space cats didn't create the emu egg? Their ways are wise and terrible. In a wider point, why does being the creator matter? For the sake of the argument, we assume that the space cats have some sort of interested in unbroken emu eggs and have the power to punish you if you go against their wishes. The scenario does not require that they actually created anything.
- While I don't claim to be a biblical scholar, I must admit that I don't recall any part of the bible that says "Thou shalt not create an artificially intelligent machine". Everything more metaphorical than that is, I would argue, subject to the interpretation of the reader. (A notorious problem of text in general.)
- There's a couple things even I don't want to know about the sun.
- Okay, Samurai were a bit luddite-ish, but I don't think they were stupid. If they'd had the tech to build reliable autoloaders and the infrastructure to support them, they'd have done so. Autoloading rifles, by the way, are an integral part of modern military tactics. In a wider context (considering the idea of an autoloading machine gun, as it was originally constructed by Hiram Maxim), it forms the basis of what we today consider an effective infantry fighting force. Even if there'd been no autoloaders, we wouldn't have stopped at muskets. Consider that Germany spent much of WW2 fielding bolt-action rifles, which - while nowhere near as impressive as autoloaders - would totally devastate an army dependant on single-shot breech loaders. Don't even start on muzzle-loading muskets - helpless case, especially when we assume muskets use the (much inferior) black powder rather than the smokeless powders used from the 19th Century on.
- Dude, microchips are directly at fault for affordable personal computing, the internet and the rise of IT. I don't see Evolution getting much better at making your head spin with implications.
- Considering that my understanding of Kant's "phenomenon" is that we can't perceive things as they actually are, I see no way anything can ever be explained without resorting to your observations of the world rather than some mystical knowledge of the true nature of reality. Everything we know, we perceived first. The challenge seems meaningless to me.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

Okay, color me lost. Moving on...

[Chancellor Valium]

@Nate: Any particular shade?

Originally Posted by Gatac

Okay, point by point...

- Point taken.
- Who says the space cats didn't create the emu egg? Their ways are wise and terrible. In a wider point, why does being the creator matter? For the sake of the argument, we assume that the space cats have some sort of interested in unbroken emu eggs and have the power to punish you if you go against their wishes. The scenario does not require that they actually created anything.

You mean aside from their total lack of relevant technology or indeed plain old conventional wisdom? Or the fact that their sublight craft would take 45bn years to get to Sirius, let alone our system. Finally, they're cats. Why do the hard work when someone else can, and then you can simply steal it off them at minimal effort?

Originally Posted by Gatac

- While I don't claim to be a biblical scholar, I must admit that I don't recall any part of the bible that says "Thou shalt not create an artificially intelligent machine". Everything more metaphorical than that is, I would argue, subject to the interpretation of the reader. (A notorious problem of text in general.)

Provided you don't understand the context and background to the text, yes. Factor those in, however, and the choices of meaning narrow a lot. Fact is, there's a lot of people you would upset over this, either for being unnatural or unnecessary, or too expensive for the bother, or simply opening too many uncomfortable parallels with fiction, or because of the ethical implications.

Originally Posted by Gatac

- There's a couple things even I don't want to know about the sun.

Having (not) gone for a look, I can tell you with complete (lack of) authority that it is in fact (not) pushed about by a Scarab beetle.

Originally Posted by Gatac

- Okay, Samurai were a bit luddite-ish, but I don't think they were stupid. If they'd had the tech to build reliable autoloaders and the infrastructure to support them, they'd have done so. Autoloading rifles, by the way, are an integral part of modern military tactics. In a wider context (considering the idea of an autoloading machine gun, as it was originally constructed by Hiram Maxim), it forms the basis of what we today consider an effective infantry fighting force. Even if there'd been no autoloaders, we wouldn't have stopped at muskets. Consider that Germany spent much of WW2 fielding bolt-action rifles, which - while nowhere near as impressive as autoloaders - would totally devastate an army dependant on single-shot breech loaders. Don't even start on muzzle-loading muskets - helpless case, especially when we assume muskets use the (much inferior) black powder rather than the smokeless powders used from the 19th Century on.

Still, what benefit did all these developments in weaponry from the time of Napoleon onwards give us that was positive? There is an argument that weapon development is a direct cause of the horrors of WWI...

Originally Posted by Gatac

- Dude, microchips are directly at fault for affordable personal computing, the internet and the rise of IT. I don't see Evolution getting much better at making your head spin with implications.

Well, in broad terms, yes, but I was referring more specifically to ethically and morally...

Originally Posted by Gatac

- Considering that my understanding of Kant's "phenomenon" is that we can't perceive things as they actually are, I see no way anything can ever be explained without resorting to your observations of the world rather than some mystical knowledge of the true nature of reality. Everything we know, we perceived first. The challenge seems meaningless to me.

Exactly. So are our perceptions right? How can we tell? The point was that we are far from omnipotent...