Asimov's robot laws need updating

Humans need to be responsible for our plastic pals who are (not quite yet) fun to be with.

Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics need a makeover, according to a couple of AI scientists.

Asimov's first law of robotics prohibits robots from injuring humans or allowing humans to come to harm due to inaction. The second law requires robots to obey human orders except those that conflict with the first law. The third law requires robots to protect their own existence, except when to do so conflicts with either of the first two laws.

Space magazine quotes David Woods, a systems engineer at Ohio State University, as calling for a makeover of these laws to recognize the current limitations of robots.

He argues that the problem is not the robots but the people behind them. Woods said that real dangers can arise when humans push robots beyond their current decision-making capabilities.

Woods and fellow researcher Robin Murphy, a roboticist at Texas A&M University, have proposed revising Asimov's Three Laws to emphasize human responsibility over robots. They said that the laws of robotics need to recognise that humans are the intelligent, responsible adults in the robot-human relationship.

Their first law says that humans may not deploy robots without a work system that meets the highest human legal and professional standards of safety and ethics.

The second law requires robots to be designed to respond to humans as appropriate for their roles, and recognises that robots can only respond to certain orders from a limited number of humans.

The third law suggests that robots should have enough autonomy to protect their own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first two laws and enables smooth transfers of control between human and robot decision-making.

Although this might lead to a skynet, it also means that a robot car will not drive over a cliff or overtake on a dangerous bend.

Many of the more dangerious expectations about robots come from the roboticist software developers' mentality, he said. Software developers who get into robotics often have no idea about the dangers of manufacturing and often do not want to accept liability if their robot behaves like those in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

As in, when "it breaks down, or starts to annoy, or grinds when it moves and gives you no joy 'cos it's eaten your hat, or had sex with your cat, bled oil on your floor or ripped off your door and you get to the point, you can't stand any more".