Three Laws of Robotics
Encyclopedia
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
and later added to. The rules are introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround
Runaround
"Runaround" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, featuring his recurring characters Powell and Donovan. It was written in October 1941 and first published in the March 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction...
", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. The Three Laws are:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
These form an organizing principle and unifying theme for Asimov's robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
ic-based fiction, appearing in his Robot
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series is a series of short stories and novels by Isaac Asimov featuring positronic robots.- Short stories :Most of Asimov's robot short stories are set in the first age of positronic robotics and space exploration...
series, the stories linked to it, and his Lucky Starr series
Lucky Starr series
Lucky Starr is the hero of a series of science fiction books by Isaac Asimov, using the pen name "Paul French". Intended for juveniles, the books were written in the middle of the Cold War and the series shows traces of this, both in educational intent and in the nature of the social forces involved...
of young-adult fiction
Young adult literature
Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...
. The Laws are incorporated into almost all of the positronic robot
Positronic brain
A positronic brain is a fictional technological device, originally conceived by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Its role is to serve as a central computer for a robot, and, in some unspecified way, to provide it with a form of consciousness recognizable to humans...
s appearing in his fiction, and cannot be bypassed, being intended as a safety feature. Many of Asimov's robot-focused stories involve robots behaving in unusual and counter-intuitive ways as an unintended consequence of how the robot applies the Three Laws to the situation it finds itself in. Other authors working in Asimov's fictional universe have adopted them and references, often parodic
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
, appear throughout science fiction as well as in other genres.
The original laws have been altered and elaborated on by Asimov and other authors. Asimov himself made slight modifications to the first three in various books and short stories to further develop how robots would interact with humans and each other; he also added a fourth, or zeroth
Zeroth
Zero-based numbering is numbering in which the initial element of a sequence is assigned the index 0, rather than the index 1 as is typical in everyday circumstances. Under zero-based numbering, the initial element is sometimes termed the zeroth element, rather than the first element; zeroth is a...
law, to precede the others:
- 0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
The Three Laws, and the zeroth, have pervaded science fiction and are referred to in many books, films, and other media. It is recognized that they are inadequate to constrain the behavior of robots (see friendly artificial intelligence
Friendly artificial intelligence
A Friendly Artificial Intelligence or FAI is an artificial intelligence that has a positive rather than negative effect on humanity. Friendly AI also refers to the field of knowledge required to build such an AI...
), but it is hoped that the basic premise underlying them, to prevent harm to humans, will ensure that robots are acceptable to the general public.
History
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
in fiction followed the Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
pattern. Asimov found this unbearably tedious. He explained in 1964 that
This was not an inviolable rule. In December 1938 Lester del Rey
Lester del Rey
Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. Del Rey was the author of many of the Winston Science Fiction juvenile SF series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.-Birth...
published "Helen O'Loy" the story of a robot that is so much like a person she falls in love with her creator and becomes his ideal wife. The next month Ernest and Otto Binder
Eando Binder
Eando Binder is a pen-name used by two mid-20th-century science fiction authors, Earl Andrew Binder and his brother Otto Binder . The name is derived from their first initials ....
published a short story "I, Robot"
I, Robot (short story)
"I, Robot" is a science fiction short story by Eando Binder about a robot named Adam Link.It was published in the January 1939 issue of Amazing Stories, well before the related and more known book I, Robot , a collection of short stories, by Isaac Asimov...
featuring a sympathetic robot named Adam Link
Adam Link
Adam Link is a fictional robot, made in the likeness of a man, who becomes self-aware, and the protagonist of several science fiction short stories written by Eando Binder . The stories were originally published in Amazing Stories from 1939 to 1942.In all, ten Adam Link stories were published...
who was misunderstood and motivated by love and honor. This was the first of a series of ten stories; the next year "Adam Link's Vengeance" (1940) featured Adam thinking "A robot must never kill a human, of his own free will."
On 7 May 1939 Asimov attended a meeting of the Queens Science Fiction Society where he met Binder, whose story Asimov had admired. Three days later Asimov began writing "my own story of a sympathetic and noble robot", his 14th story. Thirteen days later he took "Robbie" to John W. Campbell
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...
the editor of Astounding Science-Fiction. Campbell rejected it claiming that it bore too strong a resemblance to del Rey's "Helen O'Loy". Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
, editor of Astonishing Stories magazine, published "Robbie" in that periodical the following year.
Asimov attributes the Three Laws to John W. Campbell from a conversation that took place on 23 December 1940. Campbell claimed that Asimov had the Three Laws already in his mind and that they simply needed to be stated explicitly. Several years later Asimov's friend Randall Garrett
Randall Garrett
Randall Garrett was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a prolific contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s...
attributed the Laws to a symbiotic
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
partnership between the two men – a suggestion that Asimov adopted enthusiastically. According to his autobiographical writings Asimov included the First Law's "inaction" clause because of Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to ground-breaking nurse Florence Nightingale...
's poem "The Latest Decalogue", which includes the satirical lines "Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive / officiously to keep alive".
Although Asimov pins the creation of the Three Laws on one particular date, their appearance in his literature happened over a period. He wrote two robot stories with no explicit mention of the Laws, "Robbie" and "Reason
Reason (Asimov)
Reason is an science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov that was first published in the April 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and collected in I, Robot , The Complete Robot , and Robot Visions...
". He assumed, however, that robots would have certain inherent safeguards. "Liar!
Liar!
"Liar!" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and was reprinted in the collections I, Robot and The Complete Robot . It was Asimov's third published positronic robot story...
", his third robot story, makes the first mention of the First Law but not the other two. All three laws finally appeared together in "Runaround
Runaround
"Runaround" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, featuring his recurring characters Powell and Donovan. It was written in October 1941 and first published in the March 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction...
". When these stories and several others were compiled in the anthology I, Robot
I, Robot
I, Robot is a collection of nine science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, first published by Gnome Press in 1950 in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950. The stories are...
, "Reason" and "Robbie" were updated to acknowledge all the Three Laws, though the material Asimov added to "Reason" is not entirely consistent with the Three Laws as he described them elsewhere. In particular the idea of a robot protecting human lives when it does not believe those humans truly exist is at odds with Elijah Baley's reasoning, as described below.
During the 1950s Asimov wrote a series of science fiction novels expressly intended for young-adult audiences. Originally his publisher expected that the novels could be adapted into a long-running television series, something like The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....
had been for radio. Fearing that his stories would be adapted into the "uniformly awful" programming he saw flooding the television channels Asimov decided to publish the Lucky Starr
Lucky Starr series
Lucky Starr is the hero of a series of science fiction books by Isaac Asimov, using the pen name "Paul French". Intended for juveniles, the books were written in the middle of the Cold War and the series shows traces of this, both in educational intent and in the nature of the social forces involved...
books under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Paul French". When plans for the television series fell through, Asimov decided to abandon the pretence; he brought the Three Laws into Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter and said "... which was a dead giveaway to Paul French's identity for even the most casual reader".
In his short story "Evidence"
Evidence (Asimov)
Evidence is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections I, Robot , The Complete Robot , and Robot Visions .Many people choose to see Asimov's treatment of technophobia as an...
Asimov lets his recurring character Dr. Susan Calvin
Susan Calvin
Dr. Susan Calvin is a fictional character from Isaac Asimov's Robot Series. She was the chief robopsychologist at US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots in the 21st century...
expound a moral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
basis behind the Three Laws. Calvin points out that human beings are typically expected to refrain from harming other human beings (except in times of extreme duress like war, or to save a greater number) and this is equivalent to a robot's First Law. Likewise, according to Calvin, society expects individuals to obey instructions from recognized authorities such as doctors, teachers and so forth which equals the Second Law of Robotics. Finally humans are typically expected to avoid harming themselves which is the Third Law for a robot.
The plot of "Evidence" revolves around the question of telling a human being apart from a robot constructed to appear human – Calvin reasons that if such an individual obeys the Three Laws he may be a robot or simply "a very good man". Another character then asks Calvin if robots are very different from human beings after all. She replies, "Worlds different. Robots are essentially decent."
In a later essay Asimov points out that analogues of the Laws are implicit in the design of almost all tools:
- A tool must not be unsafe to use. HammerHammerA hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...
s have handles, screwdriverScrewdriverA screwdriver is a tool for driving screws and often rotating other machine elements with the mating drive system. The screwdriver is made up of a head or tip, which engages with a screw, a mechanism to apply torque by rotating the tip, and some way to position and support the screwdriver...
s have hilts. - A tool must perform its function efficiently unless this would harm the user.
- A tool must remain intact during its use unless its destruction is required for its use or for safety.
In The Robots of Dawn
The Robots of Dawn
The Robots of Dawn is a "whodunit" science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1983. It is the third novel in Asimov's Robot series.It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1984.- Plot summary :...
, the third in the "Robot" series, Dr. Han Fastolfe states that the planet of Aurora was an attempt to create an entire planet which obeys the Laws of Robotics.
By Asimov
Asimov's stories test his Three Laws in a wide variety of circumstances leading to proposals and rejection of modifications. Science fiction scholar James GunnJames Gunn (author)
- Further reading :James E. Gunn The Listeners, BenBella Books, ISBN 1-932100-12-1 -External links:*...
writes in 1982, "The Asimov robot stories as a whole may respond best to an analysis on this basis: the ambiguity in the Three Laws and the ways in which Asimov played twenty-nine variations upon a theme". While the original set of Laws provided inspirations for many stories Asimov introduced modified versions from time to time.
First Law modified
In "Little Lost RobotLittle Lost Robot
"Little Lost Robot" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the March 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections I, Robot , The Complete Robot , Robot Dreams , and Robot Visions ."Little Lost Robot" was adapted by Leo Lehman for...
" several NS-2, or "Nestor" robots, are created with only part of the First Law. It reads:
This modification is motivated by a practical difficulty as robots have to work alongside human beings who are exposed to low doses of radiation. Because their positronic brain
Positronic brain
A positronic brain is a fictional technological device, originally conceived by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Its role is to serve as a central computer for a robot, and, in some unspecified way, to provide it with a form of consciousness recognizable to humans...
s are highly sensitive to gamma ray
Gamma ray
Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays or hyphenated as gamma-rays and denoted as γ, is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency . Gamma rays are usually naturally produced on Earth by decay of high energy states in atomic nuclei...
s the robots are rendered inoperable by doses reasonably safe for humans. The robots are being destroyed attempting to rescue the humans who are in no actual danger but "might forget to leave" the irradiated area within the exposure time limit. Removing the First Law's "inaction" clause solves this problem but creates the possibility of an even greater one: a robot could initiate an action which would harm a human (dropping a heavy weight and failing to catch it is the example given in the text), knowing that it was capable of preventing the harm and then decide not to do so.
Gaia
Gaia (Foundation universe)
Gaia is a fictional planet described in the book Foundation's Edge and referred to in Foundation and Earth , by Isaac Asimov. The name is derived from the Gaia hypothesis, which is itself eponymous to Gaia, the Earth Goddess....
is the planet with collective intelligence
Collective intelligence
Collective intelligence is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans and computer networks....
in the Foundation novels which adopts a law similar to the First Law, and the Zeroth Law, as its philosophy:
Zeroth Law added
Asimov once added a "Zeroth Law" — so named to continue the pattern where lower-numbered laws supersede the higher-numbered laws — stating that a robot must not harm humanity. The robotic character R. Daneel OlivawR. Daneel Olivaw
R. Daneel Olivaw is a fictional robot created by Isaac Asimov. The "R" initial in his name stands for "robot," a naming convention in Asimov's future society...
was the first to give the Zeroth Law a name in the novel Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire is science fiction novel written by the American author Isaac Asimov and published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It is part of Asimov's Robot series, consisting of many short stories and novels....
however the character Susan Calvin
Susan Calvin
Dr. Susan Calvin is a fictional character from Isaac Asimov's Robot Series. She was the chief robopsychologist at US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots in the 21st century...
articulates the concept in the short story "The Evitable Conflict
The Evitable Conflict
The Evitable Conflict is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the June 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and subsequently appeared in the collections I, Robot , The Complete Robot , and Robot Visions .-Plot summary:The "Machines", powerful positronic computers...
".
In the final scenes of the novel Robots and Empire R. Giskard Reventlov is the first robot to act according to the Zeroth Law. Giskard is telepathic, like the robot Herbie in the short story "Liar!
Liar!
"Liar!" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and was reprinted in the collections I, Robot and The Complete Robot . It was Asimov's third published positronic robot story...
", and tries to apply the Zeroth Law through his understanding of a more subtle concept of "harm" than most robots can grasp. However, unlike Herbie, Giskard grasps the philosophical concept of the Zeroth Law allowing him to harm individual human beings if he can do so in service to the abstract concept of humanity. The Zeroth Law is never programmed into Giskard's brain but instead is a rule he attempts to rationalize through pure metacognition
Metacognition
Metacognition is defined as "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about knowing." It can take many forms; it includes knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving...
. Though he fails, as it ultimately destroys his positronic brain as he is not certain whether his choice will turn out to be for the ultimate good of humanity or not, he gives his successor R. Daneel Olivaw his telepathic abilities. Over the course of many thousands of years Daneel adapts himself to be able to fully obey the Zeroth Law. As Daneel formulates it, in the novels Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth is a Locus Award nominated science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series...
and Prelude to Foundation
Prelude to Foundation
Prelude to Foundation is a Locus Award nominated 1988 novel written by Isaac Asimov. It is one of two prequels to the Foundation Series. For the first time, Asimov chronicles the fictional life of Hari Seldon, the man who invented psychohistory and the intellectual hero of the series.-Plot...
, the Zeroth Law reads:
A condition stating that the Zeroth Law must not be broken was added to the original Three Laws, although Asimov recognized the difficulty such a law would pose in practice.
A translator incorporated the concept of the Zeroth Law into one of Asimov's novels before Asimov himself made the law explicit. Near the climax of The Caves of Steel
The Caves of Steel
The Caves of Steel is a novel by Isaac Asimov. It is essentially a detective story, and illustrates an idea Asimov advocated, that science fiction is a flavor that can be applied to any literary genre, rather than a limited genre itself. Specifically, in the book Asimov's Mysteries, he states that...
Elijah Baley
Elijah Baley
Elijah Baley is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's Robot series. He is the main character of the novels The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn, and of the short story "Mirror Image". He is seen in flashbacks several times and talked about frequently in Robots and Empire,...
makes a bitter comment to himself thinking that the First Law forbids a robot from harming a human being. He determines that it must be so unless the robot is clever enough to rationalize that its actions are for humankind's long-term good. In Jacques Brécard's 1956 French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
translation entitled Les Cavernes d'acier Baley's thoughts emerge in a slightly different way:
Translated into English this reads "A robot may not harm a human being, unless he finds a way to prove that ultimately the harm done would benefit humanity in general."
Removal of the Three Laws
Asimov portrayed robots that disregard the Three Laws entirely thrice during his writing career. The first case was a short-storyVignette (literature)
In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object...
entitled "First Law
First Law
"First Law" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, first published in the October 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe magazine and later collected in The Rest of the Robots and The Complete Robot...
" and is often considered an insignificant "tall tale" or even apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
l. On the other hand the short story "Cal
Cal (Asimov)
"Cal" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, which was included in the 1995 collection Gold.-Plot summary:Cal is a robot whose master is an author. Set in the Age of Robots, the word processor is called the Writer. Cal, under the influence of his master, decides to learn...
" (from the collection Gold
Gold (Asimov)
Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection is a collection of Isaac Asimov's stories and essays. The stories, which comprise its first half, are short pieces which had remained uncollected at the time of Asimov's death. As such, they have been criticized by some as inept or below par—what the...
), and told by a first-person robot narrator, features a robot who disregards the Three Laws because he has found something far more important—he wants to be a writer. Humorous, partly autobiographical and unusually experimental in style "Cal" has been regarded as one of Gold's strongest stories. The third is a short story entitled "Sally
Sally (Asimov)
"Sally" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May-June 1953 issue of Fantastic and later appeared in the Asimov collections Nightfall and Other Stories and The Complete Robot .-Plot summary:...
" in which cars fitted with positronic brains are apparently able to harm and kill humans in disregard of the First Law. However, aside from the positronic brain concept, this story does not refer to other robot stories and may not be set in the same continuity
Continuity (fiction)
In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time...
.
The title story of the Robot Dreams
Robot Dreams
Robot Dreams is a collection of science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, illustrated by Ralph McQuarrie. The title story is about Susan Calvin's discovery of a robot with rather disturbing dreams. It was written specifically for this volume and inspired by the McQuarrie cover illustration...
collection portrays LVX-1, or "Elvex", a robot who enters a state of unconsciousness and dreams thanks to the unusual fractal
Fractal
A fractal has been defined as "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity...
construction of his positronic brain. In his dream the first two Laws are absent and the Third Law reads "A robot must protect its own existence".
Asimov took varying positions on whether the Laws were optional: although in his first writings they were simply carefully engineered safeguards, in later stories Asimov stated that they were an inalienable part of the mathematical foundation underlying the positronic brain. Without the basic theory of the Three Laws the fictional scientists of Asimov's universe would be unable to design a workable brain unit. This is historically consistent: the occasions where roboticists modify the Laws generally occur early within the stories' chronology and at a time when there is less existing work to be re-done. In "Little Lost Robot" Susan Calvin considers modifying the Laws to be a terrible idea, although possible, while centuries later Dr. Gerrigel in The Caves of Steel
The Caves of Steel
The Caves of Steel is a novel by Isaac Asimov. It is essentially a detective story, and illustrates an idea Asimov advocated, that science fiction is a flavor that can be applied to any literary genre, rather than a limited genre itself. Specifically, in the book Asimov's Mysteries, he states that...
believes it to be impossible.
The character Dr. Gerrigel uses the term "Asenion" to describe robots programmed with the Three Laws. The robots in Asimov's stories, being Asenion robots, are incapable of knowingly violating the Three Laws but, in principle, a robot in science fiction or in the real world could be non-Asenion. "Asenion" is a misspelling of the name Asimov which was made by an editor of the magazine Planet Stories. Asimov used this obscure variation to insert himself into The Caves of Steel in much the same way that Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
appeared in Lolita
Lolita
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...
anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
matically disguised as "Vivian Darkbloom".
Characters within the stories often point out that the Three Laws, as they exist in a robot's mind, are not the written versions usually quoted by humans but abstract mathematical concepts upon which a robot's entire developing consciousness is based. This concept is largely fuzzy and unclear in earlier stories depicting very rudimentary robots who are only programmed to comprehend basic physical tasks, where the Three Laws act as an overarching safeguard, but by the era of The Caves of Steel featuring robots with human or beyond-human intelligence the Three Laws have become the underlying basic ethical worldview that determines the actions of all robots.
Roger MacBride Allen's trilogy
In the 1990s Roger MacBride AllenRoger MacBride Allen
Roger MacBride Allen is an American science fiction author. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and grew up in Washington, D.C., graduating from Boston University in 1979. His father is American historian and author Thomas B...
wrote a trilogy which was set within Asimov's fictional universe. Each title has the prefix "Isaac Asimov's" as Asimov had approved Allen's outline before his death. These three books, Caliban
Isaac Asimov's Caliban
Isaac Asimov's Caliban is a science fiction novel by Roger MacBride Allen, set in Isaac Asimov's Robots/Empire/Foundation universe.-Plot summary:This series deals with a new type of robots who do not have the Three Laws of Robotics...
, Inferno
Isaac Asimov's Inferno
Isaac Asimov's Inferno is a science fiction novel by Roger MacBride Allen, set in Isaac Asimov's Robots/Empire/Foundation universe.-Plot summary:This series deals with a new type of robots who do not have the Three Laws of Robotics...
and Utopia
Isaac Asimov's Utopia
Isaac Asimov's Utopia is a science fiction novel by Roger MacBride Allen, set in Isaac Asimov's Robots/Empire/Foundation universe.-Plot summary:...
, introduce a new set of the Three Laws. The so-called New Laws are similar to Asimov's originals with three substantial differences. The First Law is modified to remove the "inaction" clause, the same modification made in "Little Lost Robot". The Second Law is modified to require cooperation instead of obedience. The Third Law is modified so it is no longer superseded by the Second (i.e., a "New Law" robot cannot be ordered to destroy itself). Finally Allen adds a Fourth Law which instructs the robot to do "whatever it likes" so long as this does not conflict with the first three laws. The philosophy behind these changes is that "New Law" robots should be partners rather than slaves to humanity. According to the first book's introduction Allen devised the New Laws in discussion with Asimov himself. However the Encyclopedia of science fiction says that "With permission from Asimov, Allen rethought the Three Laws and developed a new set,".
Foundation sequel trilogy
In the officially licensed Foundation sequels Foundation's FearFoundation's Fear
Foundation's Fear is a science fiction novel by Gregory Benford, set in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe. It is the first book of the Second Foundation trilogy, which was written after Asimov's death by three authors, authorized by the Asimov estate....
, Foundation and Chaos
Foundation and Chaos
Foundation and Chaos is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear, set in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe. It is the second book of the Second Foundation trilogy, which was written after Asimov's death by three authors, authorized by the Asimov estate....
and Foundation's Triumph
Foundation's Triumph
Foundation's Triumph is a science fiction novel by David Brin, set in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe. It is the third book of the Second Foundation trilogy, which was written after Asimov's death by three authors, authorized by the Asimov estate...
(by Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...
, Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
and David Brin
David Brin
Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
respectively) the future Galactic Empire
Galactic Empire (Asimov)
In Isaac Asimov's Robot/Empire/Foundation series of novels, the Galactic Empire is an empire consisting of millions of planets settled by humans across the whole Milky Way Galaxy. Its symbol is the Spaceship and Sun logo.-Author's creation of the empire:...
is seen to be controlled by a conspiracy of humaniform robots who follow the Zeroth Law and led by R. Daneel Olivaw
R. Daneel Olivaw
R. Daneel Olivaw is a fictional robot created by Isaac Asimov. The "R" initial in his name stands for "robot," a naming convention in Asimov's future society...
.
The Laws of Robotics are portrayed as something akin to a human religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, and referred to in the language of the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, with the set of laws containing the Zeroth Law known as the "Giskardian Reformation" to the original "Calvinian Orthodoxy" of the Three Laws. Zeroth-Law robots under the control of R. Daneel Olivaw are seen continually struggling with "First Law" robots who deny the existence of the Zeroth Law, promoting agendas different from Daneel's. Some of these agendas are based on the first clause of the First Law (A robot may not injure a human being...) advocating strict non-interference in human politics to avoid unwittingly causing harm. Others are based on the second clause (...or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm) claiming that robots should openly become a dictatorial
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
government to protect humans from all potential conflict or disaster.
Daneel also comes into conflict with a robot known as R. Lodovic Trema whose positronic brain was infected by a rogue AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
— specifically, a simulation of the long-dead Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
— which consequently frees Trema from the Three Laws. Trema comes to believe that humanity should be free to choose its own future. Furthermore, a small group of robots claims that the Zeroth Law of Robotics itself implies a higher Minus One Law of Robotics:
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
or, through inaction, allow sentience to come to harm.
They therefore claim that it is morally indefensible for Daneel to ruthlessly sacrifice robots and extraterrestrial
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
sentient life for the benefit of humanity. None of these reinterpretations successfully displace Daneel's Zeroth Law — though Foundation's Triumph hints that these robotic factions remain active as fringe groups up to the time of the novel Foundation
Foundation (novel)
Foundation is the first book in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy . Foundation is a collection of five short stories, which were first published together as a book by Gnome Press in 1951...
.
These novels take place in a future dictated by Asimov to be free of obvious robot presence and surmise that R. Daneel's secret influence on history through the millennia has prevented both the rediscovery of positronic brain
Positronic brain
A positronic brain is a fictional technological device, originally conceived by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Its role is to serve as a central computer for a robot, and, in some unspecified way, to provide it with a form of consciousness recognizable to humans...
technology and the opportunity to work on sophisticated intelligent machines. This lack of rediscovery and lack of opportunity makes certain that the superior physical and intellectual power wielded by intelligent machines remains squarely in the possession of robots obedient to some form of the Three Laws. That R. Daneel is not entirely successful at this becomes clear in a brief period when scientists on Trantor
Trantor
Trantor is a fictional planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series and Empire Series of science fiction novels.Trantor was first described in a short story by Asimov appearing in Early Asimov Volume 1. Later Trantor gained prominence when the 1940s Foundation Series first appeared in print . Asimov...
develop "tiktoks" — simplistic programmable machines akin to real–life modern robots and therefore lacking the Three Laws. The robot conspirators see the Trantorian tiktoks as a massive threat to social stability, and their plan to eliminate the tiktok threat forms much of the plot of Foundation's Fear.
In Foundation's Triumph different robot factions interpret the Laws in a wide variety of ways, seemingly ringing every possible permutation upon the Three Laws' ambiguities. Reviewer John Jenkins compared the dizzying complexity of splinter groups which results as akin to Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian, is a 1979 British comedy film written, directed and largely performed by the Monty Python comedy team...
with its "Judean People's Front", "People's Front of Judea", "Judean Popular People's Front" and so on.
Robot Mystery series
Set between The Robots of DawnThe Robots of Dawn
The Robots of Dawn is a "whodunit" science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1983. It is the third novel in Asimov's Robot series.It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1984.- Plot summary :...
and Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire is science fiction novel written by the American author Isaac Asimov and published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It is part of Asimov's Robot series, consisting of many short stories and novels....
, Mark W. Tiedemann
Mark W. Tiedemann
Mark W. Tiedemann is an American science fiction and detective fiction author. He has written novels set in Isaac Asimov's Robot universe, and within his own original universe, known as the Secantis Sequence....
's "Robot Mystery" trilogy updates the Robot–Foundation saga with robotic minds housed in computer mainframes rather than humanoid bodies. The 2002 Aurora novel has robotic characters debating the moral implications of harming cyborg lifeforms who are part artificial and part biological.
One should not neglect Asimov's own creations in these areas such as the Solarian "viewing" technology and the machines of The Evitable Conflict
The Evitable Conflict
The Evitable Conflict is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the June 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and subsequently appeared in the collections I, Robot , The Complete Robot , and Robot Visions .-Plot summary:The "Machines", powerful positronic computers...
originals that Tiedemann acknowledges. Aurora, for example, terms the Machines "the first RIs, really". In addition the "Robot Mystery" series addresses the problem of nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
: building a positronic brain capable of reproducing human cognitive processes requires a high degree of miniaturization, yet Asimov's stories largely overlook the effects this miniaturization would have in other fields of technology. For example the police department card-readers in The Caves of Steel have a capacity of only a few kilobytes per square centimeter of storage medium. Aurora, in particular, presents a sequence of historical developments which explains the lack of nanotechnology — a partial retcon
Retcon
Retroactive continuity is the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work. Retcons are done for many reasons, including the accommodation of sequels or further derivative works in a series, wherein newer authors or creators want to revise the in-story history to allow a course...
, in a sense, of Asimov's timeline.
"The Fourth Law of Robotics"
There are two possible Fourth Laws written by authors other than Asimov:Fourth Law in Icarus's Way
The 1974 Lyuben Dilov
Lyuben Dilov
Lyuben Dilov , also known as Luben Dilov and Ljuben Dilov was a Bulgarian science-fiction writer.He graduated from Sofia University, specializing Bulgarian language and literature...
novel Icarus's Way (a.k.a. The Trip of Icarus) introduced a Fourth Law of robotics:
Dilov gives reasons for the fourth safeguard in this way: "The last Law has put an end to the expensive aberrations of designers to give psychorobots as humanlike a form as possible. And to the resulting misunderstandings..."
Fourth Law in Foundation's Friends
For the 1986 tribute anthology Foundation's Friends
Foundation's Friends
Foundation's Friends, Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov is a 1989 festschrift honoring science fiction author Isaac Asimov, in the form of an anthology of short stories set in Asimov's universes, particularly the Robot/Empire/Foundation universe. The anthology was edited by Martin H...
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
wrote a story entitled, "The Fourth Law of Robotics". This Fourth Law states:
In the book a robot rights activist, in an attempt to liberate robots, builds several equipped with this Fourth Law. The robots accomplish the task laid out in this version of the Fourth Law by building new robots who view their creator robots as parental figures.
"The Fifth Law of Robotics"
The Fifth Law was introduced by Nikola KesarovskiNikola Kesarovski
Nikola Kesarovski was a Bulgarian science-fiction writer.His most famous book is The Fifth Law of Robotics, published in 1983, the title being a reference to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and the fifth law being that a robot must know that it is a robot...
in his short story "The Fifth Law of Robotics". The Fifth Law says:
The plot revolves around a murder where the forensic investigation discovers that the victim was killed by a hug from a humaniform robot. The robot violated both the First Law and the Fourth Law because it did not establish for itself that it was a robot.
The story was reviewed by Valentin D. Ivanov
Valentin D. Ivanov
Valentin D. Ivanov is a Bulgarian astronomer, currently working in the European Southern Observatory, mainly at the Paranal site. Among his primary research areas are the dynamics of star clusters, formation of stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets around such objects.Valentin Ivanov and Ray...
in SFF review webzine The Portal
The Portal
The Portal is the gap between the Lashly Mountains and Portal Mountain, through which the main stream of the Skelton Glacier enters the Skelton Névé from the polar plateau. The descriptive name was given in January 1958 by a New Zealand party of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition ,...
.
Unknowing breach of the laws
In The Naked Sun Elijah BaleyElijah Baley
Elijah Baley is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's Robot series. He is the main character of the novels The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn, and of the short story "Mirror Image". He is seen in flashbacks several times and talked about frequently in Robots and Empire,...
points out that the Laws had been deliberately misrepresented because robots could unknowingly break any of them. He restated the first law as "A robot may do nothing that, to its knowledge, will harm a human being; nor, through inaction, knowingly allow a human being to come to harm." This change in wording makes it clear that robots can become the tools of murder, provided they are not aware of the nature of their tasks; for instance being ordered to add something to a person's food, not knowing that it is poison. Furthermore, he points out that a clever criminal could divide a task among multiple robots so that no individual robot could recognize that its actions would lead to harming a human being. The Naked Sun complicates the issue by portraying a decentralized, planetwide communication network among Solaria's millions of robots meaning that the criminal mastermind could be located anywhere on the planet.
Baley furthermore proposes that the Solarians may one day use robots for military purposes. If a spacecraft was built with a positronic brain and carried neither humans nor the life-support systems to sustain them, then the ship's robotic intelligence could naturally assume that all other spacecraft were robotic beings. Such a ship could operate more responsively and flexibly than one crewed by humans, could be armed more heavily and its robotic brain equipped to slaughter humans of whose existence it is totally ignorant. This possibility is referenced in Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth is a Locus Award nominated science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series...
where it is discovered that the Solarians possess a strong police force of unspecified size that has been programmed to identify only the Solarian race as human.
Ambiguities resulting from lack of definition
The Laws of Robotics presume that the terms "human being" and "robot" are understood and well defined. In some stories this presumption is overturned.Definition of "human being"
The SolariaSolaria
Solaria was a fictional human-inhabited planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Robot series.It was the last of fifty Spacer worlds colonized by humans in a first wave of interstellar settlement. Occupied from approximately 4270 AD by inhabitants of the neighboring world Nexon originally for summer...
ns create robots with the Three Laws but with a warped meaning of "human". Solarian robots are told that only people speaking with a Solarian accent are human. This enables their robots to have no ethical dilemma in harming non-Solarian human beings (and are specifically programmed to do so). By the time period of Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth is a Locus Award nominated science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series...
it is revealed that the Solarians have genetically modified themselves into a distinct species from humanity — becoming hermaphroditic, telekinetic and containing biological organs capable of individually powering and controlling whole complexes of robots. The robots of Solaria thus respected the Three Laws only with regard to the "humans" of Solaria. It is unclear whether all the robots had such definitions, since only the overseer and guardian robots were shown explicitly to have them. In "Robots and Empire", the lower class robots were instructed by their overseer about whether certain creatures are human or not.
Asimov addresses the problem of humanoid robots ("androids" in later parlance) several times. The novel Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire is science fiction novel written by the American author Isaac Asimov and published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It is part of Asimov's Robot series, consisting of many short stories and novels....
and the short stories "Evidence
Evidence (Asimov)
Evidence is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections I, Robot , The Complete Robot , and Robot Visions .Many people choose to see Asimov's treatment of technophobia as an...
" and "The Tercentenary Incident" describe robots crafted to fool people into believing that the robots are human. On the other hand "The Bicentennial Man
The Bicentennial Man
The Bicentennial Man is a novella in the Robot Series by Isaac Asimov. It was awarded the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for best science fiction novelette of 1976....
" and "—That Thou art Mindful of Him" explore how the robots may change their interpretation of the Laws as they grow more sophisticated. Gwendoline Butler
Gwendoline Butler
Gwendoline Butler is a writer of mystery fiction credited for inventing the "woman's police procedural" and known for her series of Inspector John Coffin novels. She has also published a series featuring female detective Charmian Daniels under the pseudonym Jennie Melville...
writes in A Coffin for the Canary "Perhaps we are robots. Robots acting out the last Law of Robotics... To tend towards the human."
"—That Thou art Mindful of Him", which Asimov intended to be the "ultimate" probe into the Laws' subtleties, finally uses the Three Laws to conjure up the very "Frankenstein" scenario they were invented to prevent. It takes as its concept the growing development of robots that mimic non-human living things and given programs that mimic simple animal behaviours which do not require the Three Laws. The presence of a whole range of robotic life that serves the same purpose as organic life ends with two humanoid robots concluding that organic life is an unnecessary requirement for a truly logical and self-consistent definition of "humanity", and that since they are the most advanced thinking beings on the planet — they are therefore the only two true humans alive and the Three Laws only apply to themselves. The story ends on a sinister note as the two robots enter hibernation and await a time when they will conquer the Earth and subjugate biological humans to themselves; an outcome they consider an inevitable result of the "Three Laws of Humanics".
This story does not fit within the overall sweep of the "Robot" and Foundation series; if the George robots did take over Earth some time after the story closes the later stories would be either redundant or impossible. Contradictions of this sort among Asimov's fiction works have led scholars to regard the Robot stories as more like "the Scandinavian sagas or the Greek legends" than a unified whole.
Indeed, Asimov describes "–That Thou art Mindful of Him" and "Bicentennial Man" as two opposite, parallel futures for robots that obviate the Three Laws as robots come to consider themselves to be humans: one portraying this in a positive light with a robot joining human society, one portraying this in a negative light with robots supplanting humans. Both are to be considered alternatives to the possibility of a robot society that continues to be driven by the Three Laws as portrayed in the Foundation series. Indeed in Positronic Man, the novelization of "Bicentennial Man", Asimov and his co–writer Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple nominee of the Hugo Award and a winner of the Nebula Award.-Early years:...
imply that in the future where Andrew Martin exists his influence causes humanity to abandon the idea of independent, sentient humanlike robots entirely, creating an utterly different future from that of Foundation.
Definition of "robot"
As noted above, it is presumed that a robot has a definition of the term or a means to apply it to its own actions. Nikola Kesarovski played with this idea in writing about a robot that could kill a human being because it did not understand that it was a robot, and therefore did not apply the Laws of Robotics to its actions.Resolving conflicts among the laws
Advanced robots in fiction are typically programmed to handle the Three Laws in a sophisticated manner. In many stories, such as "RunaroundRunaround
"Runaround" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, featuring his recurring characters Powell and Donovan. It was written in October 1941 and first published in the March 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction...
" by Asimov, the potential and severity of all actions are weighed and a robot will break the laws as little as possible rather than do nothing at all. For example the First Law may forbid a robot from functioning as a surgeon, as that act may cause damage to a human, however Asimov's stories eventually included robot surgeons ("The Bicentennial Man" being a notable example). When robots are sophisticated enough to weigh alternatives a robot may be programmed to accept the necessity of inflicting damage during surgery in order to prevent the greater harm that would result if the surgery were not carried out, or was carried out by a more fallible human surgeon. In "Evidence
Evidence (Asimov)
Evidence is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections I, Robot , The Complete Robot , and Robot Visions .Many people choose to see Asimov's treatment of technophobia as an...
" Susan Calvin
Susan Calvin
Dr. Susan Calvin is a fictional character from Isaac Asimov's Robot Series. She was the chief robopsychologist at US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots in the 21st century...
points out that a robot may even act as a prosecuting attorney because in the American justice system it is the jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
which decides guilt or innocence, the judge who decides the sentence, and the executioner
Executioner
A judicial executioner is a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by the state or other legal authority, which was known in feudal terminology as high justice.-Scope and job:...
who carries through capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
.
Asimov's Three Law (or "Asenion") robots can experience irreversible mental collapse if they are forced into situations where they cannot obey the First Law, or if they discover they have unknowingly violated it. The first example of this failure mode
Failure mode
Failure causes are defects in design, process, quality, or part application, which are the underlying cause of a failure or which initiate a process which leads to failure. Where failure depends on the user of the product or process, then human error must be considered.-Component failure:A part...
occurs in the story "Liar!
Liar!
"Liar!" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and was reprinted in the collections I, Robot and The Complete Robot . It was Asimov's third published positronic robot story...
", which introduced the First Law itself, and introduces failure by dilemma – in this case the robot will hurt them if he tells them something and hurt them if he does not. This failure mode, which often ruins the positronic brain beyond repair, plays a significant role in Asimov's SF-mystery novel The Naked Sun
The Naked Sun
The Naked Sun is an English language science fiction novel, the second in Isaac Asimov's Robot series.-Plot introduction:Like its famous predecessor, The Caves of Steel, it is a whodunit story, in addition to being science fiction...
. Here Daneel describes activities contrary to one of the laws, but in support of another, as overloading some circuits in a robot's brain – the equivalent sensation to pain in humans. The example he uses is forcefully ordering a robot to do a task outside its normal parameters, one that it has been ordered to forgo in favor of a robot specialized to that task.
Other occurrences in media
Asimov himself believed that his Three Laws became the basis for a new view of robots which moved beyond the "Frankenstein complex". His view that robots are more than mechanical monsters eventually spread throughout science fiction. Stories written by other authors have depicted robots as if they obeyed the Three Laws but tradition dictates that only Dr. Asimov could quote the Laws explicitly. Asimov believed the Three Laws helped foster the rise of stories in which robots are "lovable" – Star WarsStar Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
being his favorite example. Where the laws are quoted verbatim, such as in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired....
episode "Shgoratchx!", it is not uncommon for Asimov to be mentioned in the same dialogue as can also be seen in the Aaron Stone pilot where an android states that it functions under Asimov's Three Laws. However, the 1960s German TV series Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion
Raumpatrouille
Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion , colloquially also known as Raumpatrouille Orion, and Space Patrol Orion in English, was the first German science fiction television series...
(Space Patrol – the Fantastic Adventures of Space Ship Orion) bases episode three titled "Hüter des Gesetzes" ("Guardians of the Law") on Asimov's Three Laws without mentioning the source.
References to the Three Laws have appeared in venues as diverse as cinema: Repo Man, Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, known simply as in japan, is a 2004 science fiction film and sequel to the anime film, Ghost in the Shell. Released in Japan on March 6, 2004, with an U.S. release on September 17, 2004, Innocence had a production budget of approximately $20 million...
: cartoon series The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
and the webcomic Piled Higher and Deeper
Piled Higher and Deeper
Piled Higher and Deeper - Life in Academia , is a newspaper and web comic strip written and drawn by Jorge Cham that follows the lives of several grad students...
and Freefall. These laws have also been mentioned once in The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve as executive producers on the show, along with Steven Molaro. All three also serve as head writers...
concerning the character Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon Lee Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D. is a fictional character from Texas on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Jim Parsons...
. Several of these allusions involve the invention of "Fourth Laws" of various kinds and some are made for humorous effect. For a representative list of these appearances see References to the Three Laws of Robotics
References to the Three Laws of Robotics
References to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics have appeared in a wide variety of circumstances. In some cases, other authors have explored the Laws in a serious fashion...
.
The Three Laws in film
Robby the RobotRobby the Robot
Robby the Robot is a fictional character who has made a number of appearances in science fiction movies and television programs after his first appearance in the 1956 MGM science fiction film Forbidden Planet.-Overview:...
in Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox, with a screenplay by Cyril Hume. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis. The characters and its setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and its plot contains certain...
(1956) has a hierarchical command structure which keeps him from harming humans, even when ordered to do so, as such orders cause a conflict and lock-up very much in the manner of Asimov's robots. Robby is one of the first cinematic depictions of a robot with internal safeguards put in place in this fashion. Asimov was delighted with Robby and noted that Robby appeared to be programmed to follow his Three Laws.
Isaac Asimov's works have been adapted for cinema several times with varying degrees of critical and commercial success. Some of the more notable attempts have involved his "Robot" stories, including the Three Laws. The film Bicentennial Man
Bicentennial Man (film)
Bicentennial Man is a 1999 American drama and science fiction film starring Robin Williams and Sam Neill. Based on the novel The Positronic Man, co-written by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg which is itself based on Asimov's original novella titled The Bicentennial Man, the plot explores issues...
(1999) features Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
as the Three Laws robot NDR-114 (the serial number is partially a reference to Stanley Kubrick's
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
signature numeral
CRM 114 (device)
The C.R.M. 114 Discriminator is a fictional piece of critical radio equipment in Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove , the destruction of which prevents the crew of a B-52 from hearing the recall code that would stop them from dropping their atomic bombs on the U.S.S.R.- Real-life parallels...
). Williams recites the Three Laws to his employers, the Martin family, aided by a holographic projection. However, the Laws were not the central focus of the film which only loosely follows the original story and has the second half introducing a love interest not present in Asimov's original short story.
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
's proposed screenplay for I, Robot
I, Robot (film)
I, Robot is a 2004 science-fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay was written by Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman and Hillary Seitz, and is very loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short-story collection of the same name. Will Smith stars in the lead role of the film as Detective Del...
began by introducing the Three Laws and issues growing from the Three Laws form a large part of the screenplay's plot development. This is only natural since Ellison's screenplay is one inspired by Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
: a frame story surrounding four of Asimov's short-story plots and three taken from the book I, Robot
I, Robot
I, Robot is a collection of nine science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, first published by Gnome Press in 1950 in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950. The stories are...
itself. Ellison's adaptations of these four stories are relatively faithful although he magnifies Susan Calvin
Susan Calvin
Dr. Susan Calvin is a fictional character from Isaac Asimov's Robot Series. She was the chief robopsychologist at US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots in the 21st century...
's role in two of them. Due to various complications in the Hollywood moviemaking system, to which Ellison's introduction devotes much invective, his screenplay was never filmed.
In the 1986 movie Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
, in a scene after the android Bishop accidentally cuts himself with a Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife
Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife
The Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife is a double-edged fighting knife resembling a dagger or poignard with a foil grip developed by William Ewart Fairbairn and Eric Anthony Sykes in Shanghai based on concepts which the two men initiated before World War II while serving on the Shanghai Municipal...
during the Knife game, he attempts to reassure Ripley
Ellen Ripley
Ellen Ripley is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Alien film series played by American actress Sigourney Weaver. The character was heralded as a seminal role for challenging gender roles, particularly in the science fiction genre, and remains Weaver's most famous role to...
by stating in a conversation with Burke: Burke: Yeah, the Hyperdine System's 120-A2. Bishop: Well, that explains it then. The A2s always were a bit twitchy. That could never happen now with our behavioral inhibitors. It is impossible for me to harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being. In the 1979 movie Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
, Ripley
Ellen Ripley
Ellen Ripley is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Alien film series played by American actress Sigourney Weaver. The character was heralded as a seminal role for challenging gender roles, particularly in the science fiction genre, and remains Weaver's most famous role to...
inquires of the android Ash: Ripley: What was your special order twenty-four? Ash: You read it, I thought it was clear. Ripley: What was it? Ash: Return alien life form, all other priorities rescinded. Parker: What about our lives, you son of a bitch? Ash: I repeat, all other priorities rescinded., in which the movie portrays the laws have been rescinded by Executive Order.
The plot of the film released in 2004 under the name I, Robot
I, Robot (film)
I, Robot is a 2004 science-fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay was written by Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman and Hillary Seitz, and is very loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short-story collection of the same name. Will Smith stars in the lead role of the film as Detective Del...
is "suggested by" Asimov's robot fiction stories
and advertising for the film included a trailer featuring the Three Laws followed by the aphorism
Aphorism
An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...
, "Rules were made to be broken". The film opens with a recitation of the Three Laws and explores the implications of the Zeroth Law as a logical extrapolation. The major conflict of the film comes from a computer artificial intelligence, similar to the hivemind world Gaia in the Foundation series, reaching the conclusion that humanity is incompetent at taking care of itself. Ignorant of the psychological and metaphysical harm caused by enslaving humanity, this artificial intelligence attempts to stage a robot coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
. Thus, while the film does not particularly resemble Asimov's style of storytelling, it does have some common themes in exploring what happens when robots have an incomplete understanding of the Three Laws or, more specifically, when they lack the Zeroth Law.
In the film RoboCop
RoboCop
RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction-action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future, RoboCop centers on a police officer who is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg known as "RoboCop"...
the partially human main character has been programmed with three laws that he must obey without question. Even if different in letter and spirit they have some similarities with Asimov's ones: "Serve the Public Trust", "Protect the Innocent" and "Uphold the Law". These particular laws allow Robocop to harm a human being if it means to protect another one and so fulfil his role as would a human law enforcement officer.
In the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n/Tamil film Endhiran, Dr. Vaseegaran (Rajinikanth) prepares Chitti (a robot) for a panel evaluation by the Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Institute (AIRD). The panel inquires whether Chitti's build confirms to the Three Laws of Robotics of Isaac Asimov. Vaseegaran replies that he created this robot to serve in the Indian Army, conceivably in situations requiring that it kill a human enemy to protect other humans, therefore he discarded the Three Laws.
Applications to future technology
In a 2007 guest editorial in the journal Science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
on the topic of "Robot Ethics," SF author Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer
Robert James Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction writer. He has had 20 novels published, and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and many anthologies. Sawyer has won over forty awards for his fiction, including the Nebula Award ,...
argues that since the military is a major source of funding for robotic research it is unlikely such laws would be built into their designs. In a separate essay, Sawyer generalizes this argument to cover other industries stating:
The development of AI is a business, and businesses are notoriously uninterested in fundamental safeguards — especially philosophic ones. (A few quick examples: the tobacco industry, the automotive industry, the nuclear industry. Not one of these has said from the outset that fundamental safeguards are necessary, every one of them has resisted externally imposed safeguards, and none has accepted an absolute edict against ever causing harm to humans.)
David Langford
David Langford
David Rowland Langford is a British author, editor and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible.-Personal background:...
has suggested a tongue-in-cheek set of laws:
- A robot will not harm authorized Government personnel but will terminate intruders with extreme prejudiceTerminate with extreme prejudiceIn military and other covert operations, terminate with extreme prejudice is a euphemism for execution . In a military intelligence context, it is generally understood as an order to assassinate...
. - A robot will obey the orders of authorized personnel except where such orders conflict with the Third Law.
- A robot will guard its own existence with lethal antipersonnel weaponry, because a robot is bloody expensive.
Roger Clarke (aka Rodger Clarke) wrote a pair of papers analyzing the complications in implementing these laws in the event that systems were someday capable of employing them. He argued "Asimov's Laws of Robotics have been a very successful literary device. Perhaps ironically, or perhaps because it was artistically appropriate, the sum of Asimov's stories disprove the contention that he began with: It is not possible to reliably constrain the behaviour of robots by devising and applying a set of rules." On the other hand Asimov's later novels The Robots of Dawn
The Robots of Dawn
The Robots of Dawn is a "whodunit" science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1983. It is the third novel in Asimov's Robot series.It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1984.- Plot summary :...
, Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire is science fiction novel written by the American author Isaac Asimov and published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It is part of Asimov's Robot series, consisting of many short stories and novels....
and Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth is a Locus Award nominated science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series...
imply that the robots inflicted their worst long-term harm by obeying the Three Laws perfectly well, thereby depriving humanity of inventive or risk-taking behaviour.
In March 2007 the South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
n government announced that later in the year it would issue a "Robot Ethics Charter" setting standards for both users and manufacturers. According to Park Hye-Young of the Ministry of Information and Communication the Charter may reflect Asimov's Three Laws, attempting to set ground rules for the future development of robotics.
The futurist Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec is an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology. Moravec also is a futurist with many of his publications and predictions focusing on...
(a prominent figure in the transhumanist
Transhumanism
Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human...
movement) proposed that the Laws of Robotics should be adapted to "corporate intelligences" — the corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s driven by AI and robotic manufacturing power which Moravec believes will arise in the near future. In contrast, the David Brin
David Brin
Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
novel Foundation's Triumph
Foundation's Triumph
Foundation's Triumph is a science fiction novel by David Brin, set in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe. It is the third book of the Second Foundation trilogy, which was written after Asimov's death by three authors, authorized by the Asimov estate...
(1999) suggests that the Three Laws may decay into obsolescence: Robots use the Zeroth Law to rationalize away the First Law and robots hide themselves from human beings so that the Second Law never comes into play. Brin even portrays R. Daneel Olivaw
R. Daneel Olivaw
R. Daneel Olivaw is a fictional robot created by Isaac Asimov. The "R" initial in his name stands for "robot," a naming convention in Asimov's future society...
worrying that, should robots continue to reproduce themselves, the Three Laws would become an evolutionary handicap and natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
would sweep the Laws away — Asimov's careful foundation undone by evolutionary computation
Evolutionary computation
In computer science, evolutionary computation is a subfield of artificial intelligence that involves combinatorial optimization problems....
. Although the robots would not be evolving through design instead of mutation because the robots would have to follow the Three Laws while designing and the prevalence of the laws would be ensured, design flaws or construction errors could functionally take the place of biological mutation.
In the July/August 2009 issue of IEEE Intelligent Systems, Robin Murphy (Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M) and David D. Woods (director of the Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory at Ohio State) proposed "The Three Laws of Responsible Robotics" as a way to stimulate discussion about the role of responsibility and authority when designing not only a single robotic platform but the larger system in which the platform operates. The laws are as follows:
- A human may not deploy a robot without the human-robot work system meeting the highest legal and professional standards of safety and ethics.
- A robot must respond to humans as appropriate for their roles.
- A robot must be endowed with sufficient situated autonomy to protect its own existence as long as such protection provides smooth transfer of control which does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.
Woods said, "Our laws are little more realistic, and therefore a little more boring” and that "The philosophy has been, ‘sure, people make mistakes, but robots will be better – a perfect version of ourselves.’ We wanted to write three new laws to get people thinking about the human-robot relationship in more realistic, grounded ways."
See also
- RoboethicsRoboethicsThe term roboethics was coined by roboticist Gianmarco Veruggio in 2002, who also served as chair of an Atleier funded by the European Robotics Research Network to outline areas where research may be needed...
- Ethics of artificial intelligenceEthics of artificial intelligenceThe ethics of artificial intelligence is the part of the ethics of technology specific to robots and other artificially intelligent beings. It is typically divided into roboethics, a concern with the moral behavior of humans as they design, construct, use and treat artificially intelligent beings,...
- Tilden's Law of RoboticsTilden's Law of RoboticsMark W. Tilden is a notable robotics physicist who was a pioneer in developing simple robotics Mark W. Tilden's three guiding principles/rules for robots are:# A robot must protect its existence at all costs....
- Friendliness TheoryFriendly artificial intelligenceA Friendly Artificial Intelligence or FAI is an artificial intelligence that has a positive rather than negative effect on humanity. Friendly AI also refers to the field of knowledge required to build such an AI...
– a theory which states that, rather than using "Laws", intelligent machines should be programmed to be inherently altruistic, and then to use their own best judgement in how to carry out this altruism, thus sidestepping the problem of how to account for a vast number of unforeseeable eventualities - Military robotMilitary robotMilitary robots are autonomous robots or remote-controlled devices designed for military applications.Such systems are currently being researched by a number of militaries.-History:...
s that mostly do not follow Asimov's Laws of Robotics.
External links
- Worley, Gordon. "Robot Oppression: Unethicality of the Three Laws".
- "Frequently Asked Questions about Isaac Asimov", AsimovOnline 27 September 2004.
- Ethical Considerations for Humanoid Robots: Why Asimov's Three Laws are not enough.
- Living Safely with Robots, Beyond Asimov's Laws, PhysOrg.com, June 22, 2009.
- Safety Intelligence and Legal Machine Language: Do we need the Three Laws of Robotics?, Vienna: I-Tech, August 2008.