Pages

▼

Monday, 25 January 2010

Robot homicide anniversary


On this day in 1979, the first incident occurred where a robot killed a human being.

In order to prevent this sort of thing, Isaac Asimov posed his First Law of Robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Or as Terry Pratchett more sensibly completed it:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm–unless ordered to do so by duly constituted authority.
As Lord Vetinari put it,
A hammer can hardly refuse to hit the nail on the head, nor a saw to make moral judgments about the nature of the timber.
Far more sensible.
at

1 comment:

  1. jayessellMonday, 25 January 2010 at 11:24:00 GMT-8

    I thought the 1st DBR was in Japan.

    One of the one armed robots failed, and the technician entered the fenced in area defined by its reach.

    When he disconnected a hydrolic line the arm lowered crushing him.

    ReplyDelete

Rules for submitting comments:

1. No profanity. I maintain the pretense that this is a family-friendly site.

2. Stay on topic. A bit of straying and off-hand commenting is okay, but hijacking the discussion is right out.

3. No ad hominem attacks. Attack the subject, not the other person on the thread and keep the discussion civil.

4. No spamming or commercial endorsements. These get deleted immediately.

Tip: Beware of putting hyperlinks in your comments–especially at the end. For some reason, Blogger interprets these as spam.

Note: Due to the recent spate of anonymous spamming, registration for comments is now required.