Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!linus!mbunix!marsh From: marsh@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Ralph J. Marshall) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness Message-ID: <31832@linus.UUCP> Date: 13 May 88 13:49:42 GMT References: <4134@super.upenn.edu> <3200014@uiucdcsm> <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1029@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <912@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <5404@venera.isi.edu> <1115@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <17442@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> <31738@linus.UUCP> Sender: news@linus.UUCP Reply-To: marsh@mbunix (Ralph Marshall) Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Mass. Lines: 24 In article <31738@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort) writes: >I was glad to see John Nagle bring up Asimov's 3 moral laws of robots. >Perhaps the time has come to refine these just a bit, with the intent >of shaping them into a more implementable rule-base. > >I propose the following variation on Asimov: > > IV. A robot may act to expand its powers of observation and > cognition, and may enlarge its knowledge base without limit. > I don't think I want the U.S. government "expanding its powers or observation without limit" since I still think I am entitled to some privacy. I therefore certainly don't want some random robot, controlled by and reporting to God knows who attempting to gain as much information as it can possibly acquire. On a different note, your change of wording from human to sentient being is too vague for this type of rule. While I agree that other lifeforms that we may encounter should be given the same respect we reserve for other humans, I don't think we would ever want to choose a sentient robot over a human in a life or death situation in which only one could be saved. (This was the rationale for sending Lt. Cmdr. Data into a hostile situation _alone_ on a recent Star Trek and I agreed with it entirely. Androids/robots/ artificial persons are more expendable than people)