Brent Allsop <allsop@swttools.fc.hp.com> writes:
> Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> commented about Anders reference to
> Asimov's laws for robots:
>
> > So, what if a robot has this choice:
> >
> > Kill someone, and allow 100 others to live, or
> > not kill, and allow the 100 others to die.
> >
> > This would probably immobilize the robot, which is the worst choice,
> > so the Zero'th Law is:
>
> I would think that robots simply be subject to the same laws
> (or law) that we all try to adhear to. And that is simply to do the
> best possible. Part of that law is, to rationally reason and figure
> out what that best possible is as best as is possible.
> I think a
This kind of reasoning was most likely too unconstrained for Asimov or
his contemporaries - or anybody building a robot today. Imagine the
litigation if your robot does something that leads to the death of
somebody, and it is not possible to show that this was a clear logical
results of the laws of robotics. People would feel much more at home
with a robot that simply couldn't harm them due to the first law, than
a robot that just *might* harm them because it had deduced that it was
for the best due to some obscure twist of logic.
> robot could logically calculate that a person living is better than a
> person dieing and by induction that 100 people living and only one
> dieing is better than one person living and 100 dieing.
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