Laws of robotics are any set of laws, rules, or principles, which are intended as a fundamental framework to underpin the behavior of robots designed to have a degree of autonomy. Robots of this degree of complexity do not yet exist, but they have been widely anticipated in science fiction, films and are a topic of active research and development in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence.
The best known set of laws are those written by Isaac Asimov in the 1940s, or based upon them, but other sets of laws have been proposed by researchers in the decades since then.
See main article: Three Laws of Robotics. The best known set of laws are Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics". These were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. The Three Laws are:
In "The Evitable Conflict" the machines generalize the First Law to mean:
This was refined in the end of Foundation and Earth, a zeroth law was introduced, with the original three suitably rewritten as subordinate to it:
Adaptations and extensions exist based upon this framework. they remain a "fictional device".[2]
Authors other than Asimov have often created extra laws.
The 1974 Lyuben Dilov novel, Icarus's Way (a.k.a., The Trip of Icarus) introduced a Fourth Law of robotics: "A robot must establish its identity as a robot in all cases." Dilov gives reasons for the fourth safeguard in this way: "The last Law has put an end to the expensive aberrations of designers to give psychorobots as humanlike a form as possible. And to the resulting misunderstandings..."[3]
A fifth law was introduced by Nikola Kesarovski in his short story "The Fifth Law of Robotics". This fifth law says: "A robot must know it is a robot." The plot revolves around a murder where the forensic investigation discovers that the victim was killed by a hug from a humaniform robot that did not establish for itself that it was a robot.[4] The story was reviewed by Valentin D. Ivanov in SFF review webzine The Portal.[5]
For the 1986 tribute anthology, Foundation's Friends, Harry Harrison wrote a story entitled, "The Fourth Law of Robotics". This Fourth Law states: "A robot must reproduce. As long as such reproduction does not interfere with the First or Second or Third Law."
In 2013 Hutan Ashrafian proposed an additional law that considered the role of artificial intelligence-on-artificial intelligence or the relationship between robots themselves – the so-called AIonAI law.[6] This sixth law states: "All robots endowed with comparable human reason and conscience should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
In 2011, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of United Kingdom jointly published a set of five ethical "principles for designers, builders and users of robots" in the real world, along with seven "high-level messages" intended to be conveyed, based on a September 2010 research workshop:[7] [8]
The messages intended to be conveyed were:
The EPSRC principles are broadly recognised as a useful starting point. In 2016 Tony Prescott organised a workshop to revise these principles, e.g. to differentiate ethical from legal principles.[9]
Another comprehensive terminological codification for the legal assessment of the technological developments in the robotics industry has already begun mainly in Asian countries.[10] This progress represents a contemporary reinterpretation of the law (and ethics) in the field of robotics, an interpretation that assumes a rethinking of traditional legal constellations. These include primarily legal liability issues in civil and criminal law.
In June 2016, Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft Corporation, had an interview with the Slate magazine and reflected on what kinds of principles and goals should be considered by industry and society when discussing artificial intelligences:[11] [12]
Mark W. Tilden is a robotics physicist who was a pioneer in developing simple robotics.[13] His three guiding principles/rules for robots are:[13] [14] [15]
What is notable in these three rules is that these are basically rules for "wild" life, so in essence what Tilden stated is that what he wanted was "proctoring a silicon species into sentience, but with full control over the specs. Not plant. Not animal. Something else."[16]