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New DoD memo on Open Source Software (David Wheeler's Blog)New DoD memo on Open Source Software (David Wheeler's Blog)Posted Oct 28, 2009 22:56 UTC (Wed) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)In reply to: New DoD memo on Open Source Software (David Wheeler's Blog) by nix Parent article: New DoD memo on Open Source Software (David Wheeler's Blog)
Asimov wrote stories where they give the robots strong AI, and those all end in a way that I'm guessing would be objectionable to all the "don't use my software in military applications" pacifists.
One in particular features robots which have been given strong AI and "fuzzy" laws as suggested, they are free to interpret the laws so that e.g. they don't obey the orders of an idiot, it seems initially that this has been very successful, but the reader (though not the humans in the story) discovers that actually these robots have re-assessed the provided definition of "human" and decided that in fact /they/ are most human, and therefore most deserving of protection from danger, such as the danger of being dismantled if they are discovered. It is clear that something very bad is likely to happen, but the story ends.
If someone's opposed to a war, or to all wars, that's a political issue that should be influencing your choice of government, not where you buy beans or what software license you choose. Muddling such different things together is how you end up with audiences trying to change the plotline of a TV show by boycotting products from a company that advertises on the TV network that distributes the show.
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New DoD memo on Open Source Software (David Wheeler's Blog) Posted Oct 29, 2009 8:54 UTC (Thu) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> Asimov wrote stories where they give the robots strong AI, and those all end in a way that I'm guessing would be objectionable to all the "don't use my software in military applications" pacifists.
> One in particular features robots which have been given strong AI and "fuzzy" laws as suggested, they are free to interpret the laws so that e.g. they don't obey the orders of an idiot, it seems initially that this has been very successful, but the reader (though not the humans in the story) discovers that actually these robots have re-assessed the provided definition of "human" and decided that in fact /they/ are most human, and therefore most deserving of protection from danger, such as the danger of being dismantled if they are discovered. It is clear that something very bad is likely to happen, but the story ends.
For what it's worth, that particular story was about the laws of robotics being weakened in a particular line of robots, and what happened next. It wasn't suggesting that the laws of robotics as they stood would have had that outcome.
Three Laws Posted Oct 30, 2009 17:17 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
The story I was thinking of, "... That Thou Art Mindful of Him" does not involve weakening the laws at all. You might be thinking of "Little Lost Robot" in which a robot with a dangerously incomplete Law One is hiding among otherwise identical robots.
In "That Thou Art Mindful" the robots are given more powerful abilities to make decisions based on the laws in order to be suitable for use on Earth, where they could encounter complicated scenarios with conflicting orders, simultaneous dangers and so on. So rather than being "hard coded" with a description of what makes something human, they're taught about this separately. This is to allow them to develop judgements about whether particular individuals are "fit" to order them about, and if humans give conflicting orders, which to obey.
The result is: "By the Three Laws, the human-beings-like-the-others are of lesser account and can neither be obeyed nor protected when that conflicts with the need of obedience to those like ourselves and of protection of those like ourselves". The story ends shortly after - having established the threat there is no need to describe the violent consequences.
Three Laws Posted Oct 30, 2009 17:31 UTC (Fri) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> The story I was thinking of, "... That Thou Art Mindful of Him" does not involve weakening the laws at all. You might be thinking of "Little Lost Robot" in which a robot with a dangerously incomplete Law One is hiding among otherwise identical robots.
It has been a long time since I read any Dr A. (Maybe even since his death.) I seemed to recall that the point of that story was that to counter scepticism about the laws of robotics, they were twisted (well in fact the robot's definition of a human being was, but in the end it amounted to the same) to try to make them please everyone, with unforeseen consequences.
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