From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e178ac8b8225bcb9 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) Subject: Re: Ethics & Isaac Asimov Date: 1999/01/20 Message-ID: <36a57131.34731351@news.pacbell.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 434735475 References: <36A56985.1B891566@interact.net.au> X-Complaints-To: abuse@pacbell.net X-Trace: typhoon-sf.pbi.net 916812656 207.214.211.40 (Tue, 19 Jan 1999 22:10:56 PDT) Organization: SBC Internet Services NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 22:10:56 PDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-01-20T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: If a thrown stone is allowed as a (particularly dumb) robot, then it surely may violate the first law, and the laws of physics may cause it to violate the human's *intent* in the second law (though we in computers have lots of experience with the difference between following a human's orders literally vs doing what he wanted). The stone generally tries, to the best of its ability, not to violate the second law. The same applies of course to other things (General Patton's car caused his death). As to software, I suppose a copy of Pagemaker used to make a recruiting poster might eventually cause harm to a human, so, being very generous about interpreting words like "cause", software also can violate the first law. Same as above re the second law, and software usually tries even less hard to obey the third law. Perhaps Asimov's laws need a little work. ;)