Three Laws of Robotics and how they fail.

munky99999

So lets see these 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 orders given 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.

There is a sheer assumption here that the robot is omniscience of sorts. The robot can easily be unknowingly be injuring a human in an unknown way to itself. The real laws are as follows.

1. A robot may not knowingly injure a human being or, knowingly through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given 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.

Now that the first law has been corrected... it's clearly easy to see how a robot could be used for harm as long as the robot does not knowingly or does not understand to the fact. Such as placing 2 liquids of unnamed makeup on a chair. The robot unknowingly and doesn't understand that he is mixing a binary high explosive. Soon as the person sits down it blows up and kills the person.

The fix of this would be to add a new law.
4. A robot must do nothing which may theoretically lead to a conflict of the First, Second, or Third laws.

You obviously see the issue here. As pretty much any action can eventually lead to a violation of the previous laws. So the Robot would be essentially forced into inaction.

Discuss.
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Moloth · Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:50 pm Post subject:

"Later, Asimov added the Zeroth Law: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"; the rest of the laws are modified sequentially to acknowledge this."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_robotics

Fourth Law of robotics: A robot must establish its identity as a robot in all cases

The Fifth Law: A robot must know it is a robot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_robotics#Loopholes_in_the_laws
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Last edited by Moloth on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total

monkeybyte · Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:06 pm Post subject:

Why make laws for robots when you can just make them lack the capacity to break those 'laws'?

Fuck this shit, skinbags.

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misterwigggles · Visitor Joined: 20 May 2008 Posts: 5 Local time: 12:28 AM

I think from adding the 'corrections' to the first law, it creates more problems then it solves.

Asimov didnt imply robot were all knowing, he made an assumption that robot had superior knowledge.

The ambiguity of the laws, is it strength. It allow for judgement calls.

The robot would not hug in a damaging manner, as it knows the tensile strength of the body, compared to its own mass, force it can produce.

Although the unknown chemicals; is a none issue. The fact, that the Robot has superior knowledge, would not mix unknown chemicals for safety reason. The reason why a chemist wouldnt do it. The robot knows enough that this could be dangerous, and would go about to see if it is dangerous.

Moloth · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 10:08 am Post subject:

Bardolph86

eximius

Moloth · Last edited by Moloth on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total

eximius

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