Why Asimov's Laws of Robotics Don't Work - Computerphile

I didn't realize that people took Asimov's Three Laws seriously, considering that nearly every work they're featured in involves them going wrong.

Asimov: you can't control robots with three simple laws everyone : yes,we will use three simple laws, got it.

"You are an AI developer. You did not sign up for this". Brilliant quote!!!

"Optimized for story writing." I can't express how much I love that sentiment.

the laws exist to create a paradox around which to construct a narrative.

"if Goingtoturnevil don't"

The problem with Asimov's laws is probably that they're just obscure enough that people don't think they're well known, but they're also not well known enough for people to remember the context they appeared in and how they always failed.

He mostly focused on the difficulty of defining "Human", but I think it's much much more difficult to define "Harm", the other word he mentioned. Some of the edge cases of what can be considered human could be tricky, but what constitutes harm? If I smoke too much, is that harmful? Will an AI be obligated to restrain me from smoking? Or, driving? By driving, I increase the probability that I or others will die by my action. Is that harm? What about poor workplace conditions? What about insults, does psychological harm count as harm? I think the difficulties of defining "Harm" are even more illustrative of the problem that he's getting at.

I kinda wish this video just kept going.

Yes, that was Asimov's intention all along. The whole point of the laws of robotics in the books is that they are incomplete and cause logical and ethical contradictions. All the stories revolve around this. This is worth emphasizing, as most people seem to think Asimov proposed them as serious safeguards. The comments in the beginning of the video illustrate this misconception well. Thanks for bringing this up, Rob!

So the problem of ensuring that technology only acts in humanity's best interests isn't between human and technology, but between human and self. We cannot properly articulate what kind of world we actually want to live in in a way that everyone agrees with. So no one can write a computer program that gets us there automatically.

"[The laws are] optimized for story writing" spoken like a true programmer

This brings to mind the Bertrand Russell quote in Nick Bostroms's book. "Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise."

In fact, Asimov's whole point in writing I, Robot was to show the problem with these laws (and therefore the futility in creating one-size-fits-all rules to apply in all cases).

This was sort of Asimov's point in the first place if you actually go back and read his original stories instead of the modern remakes that mistakenly think the rules were meant to be "perfect." He always designed them as flawed in the first place, and the stories were commentary on how you can't have a "perfect law of robotics" or anything, as well as pondering the nature of existence/what it means to be sentient/why should that new "life" have any less value than biological life/etc.

A story about robot necromancy sounds kind of cool though. 🤔🤖☠️

"I didn't sign up for this" - made my day

Does psychological harm count as harm? If so, by destroying someone's house, or just slightly altering it, you would harm them.

The book "I Robot" was full of stories about how the "laws" don't work and yet dummies keep parroting them like they are a blueprint for AI

Gets the definition of "death" slightly wrong - "I've made necromancer robots by mistake"