Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics

Extracted Attributes

• Domain

  Robotics, Artificial Intelligence Ethics, Science Fiction

• Creator

  Isaac Asimov

• First Law

  A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

• Third Law

  A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

• Second Law

  A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

• Co-developer

  John W. Campbell

• First Published In

  Runaround (1942)

• Zeroth Law (Later Addition)

  A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

Timeline

• Isaac Asimov and editor John W. Campbell conceptualize and explicitly formulate the Three Laws of Robotics during a discussion. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1940-12-23

• The Three Laws of Robotics make their first official literary appearance in Isaac Asimov's short story 'Runaround'. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1942-03-01

• The Three Laws are featured prominently in Isaac Asimov's fix-up collection 'I, Robot'. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1950-12-02

Three Laws of Robotics

The Three Laws of Robotics (often shortened to The Three Laws or Asimov's Laws) are a set of rules devised by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, which were to be followed by robots in several of his stories. The rules were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround" (included in the 1950 collection I, Robot), although similar restrictions had been implied in earlier stories.

Web Search Results

• Three Laws of Robotics - Wikipedia

  The Three Laws form an organizing principle and unifying theme for Asimov's robot-based fiction, appearing in his Robot series "Robot series (Asimov)"), the stories linked to it, and in his initially pseudonymous Lucky Starr series of young-adult fiction. The Laws are incorporated into almost all of the positronic robots appearing in his fiction, and cannot be bypassed, being intended as a safety feature. A number 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 in which it finds itself.[citation needed] [...] 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 attributed the Laws to a symbiotic 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's poem "The Latest Decalogue" (text in Wikisource), which includes the satirical lines "Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive / officiously to keep alive". [...] Other authors[which?] working in Asimov's fictional universe have adopted them and references appear throughout science fiction as well as in other genres.[citation needed] The original laws have been altered and elaborated on by Asimov and other authors. Asimov made slight modifications to the first three in subsequent works to further develop how robots would interact with humans and each other.[original research?] In later fiction where robots had taken responsibility for the government of whole planets and human civilizations, Asimov added a fourth, or zeroth law, to precede the others: 1. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. [citation needed]

• Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: From Science Fiction to AI Reality – Maybe Don't, AI

  ### What are Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics? The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules created by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, first appearing in his 1942 short story “Runaround.” They state: (1) A robot may not harm a human or allow a human to come to harm, (2) A robot must obey human orders unless they conflict with the First Law, and (3) A robot must protect its own existence unless it conflicts with the First or Second Laws. ### Why do the Three Laws of Robotics exist? [...] Spoiler: they mostly work. You definitely shouldn’t use them in production. ## What Are Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics? The Three Laws first appeared in Asimov’s 1942 short story “Runaround,” though Asimov and his editor John W. Campbell had been developing the concept since a conversation on December 23, 1940. They are: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given by human beings, except where such orders conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. [...] # Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: From Science Fiction to AI Reality Why the Three Laws exist, why they fail, and how to actually implement AI guardrails today Kendal Miller Kendal Miller Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are probably the most famous rules in science fiction. They’ve been quoted in Senate hearings, debated by ethicists, and referenced in every AI safety paper worth reading. But they started as a plot device — a set of constraints designed to make robot stories interesting. Eighty years later, AI agents are actually running commands, calling APIs, and making decisions in production systems. So we thought it would be fun to try something: implement Asimov’s Laws as real, working AI guardrails and see what happens.

• What Are Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics?

  # What Are Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics? ## Channel: World Science Festival 1.41M subscribers 757 likes ### Description 59,440 views Posted: 2016-07-18 Science fiction has tried to define the laws of the robotics world for many decades. Isaac Asimov was one of the first to suggest three laws that should govern all robotics in his 1942 short story "I, Robot". Asimov's Laws: 01. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 02. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 03. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. [...] ### Transcript [0:00] More than a half a century before he Stephven Hawkings and Elon Musk felt compelled to warn the world of artificial intelligence back in 1942, [0:09] before the term was even coined, the science fiction writer Isaac Azimov wrote the three laws of robotics, a [0:16] moral code to keep our machines in check. And the three laws of robotics are a robot may not injure a human being [0:25] or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. The second law, a robot must obey orders given by human beings [0:34] except where such orders would conflict with the first law. [0:38] And the third, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first and the second law. That sounds logical.

• Molecular Robots Obeying Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics | Artificial Life | MIT Press

  Issue Section: Articles Robotics, nanorobotics, Asimov's laws of robotics, DNA origami ## 1 Introduction The prolific science fiction author and biochemist Isaac Asimov devised the three laws of robotics during the first half of the 20th century . These laws became central to fictional literary works by him and others who dealt with the foreseen integration of autonomous robots into human society, technology, and culture. The three laws (L) are generally phrased as follows: L1: A robot may not harm a human being, or allow, by inaction, a human being to come to harm. L2: A robot must obey orders given by a human being, unless these orders are in conflict with L1. L3: A robot must protect its own existence, unless doing so is in conflict with L1 or L2. [...] Asimov's three laws of robotics, which were shaped in the literary work of Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) and others, define a crucial code of behavior that fictional autonomous robots must obey as a condition for their integration into human society. While, general implementation of these laws in robots is widely considered impractical, limited-scope versions have been demonstrated and have proven useful in spurring scientific debate on aspects of safety and autonomy in robots and intelligent systems. In this work, we use Asimov's laws to examine these notions in molecular robots fabricated from DNA origami. We successfully programmed these robots to obey, by means of interactions between individual robots in a large population, an appropriately scoped variant of Asimov's laws, and even [...] Together, these laws construct a reasoning process that a robot must undergo before making a decision of any kind (Figure 1). This process filters out any move that violates L1, L2, or L3 (in that order), assuming that no decision (including doing nothing) is allowed to bypass a stage in the process. Figure 1. Figure 1.  Refer to the image caption for details. View largeDownload slide A reasoning process constructed by Asimov's three laws of robotics. A schematic representation of Asimov's laws as a flow diagram. Any move (including doing nothing) proceeds through this decision process without bypassing any stage, with moves that violate either one of the three laws being filtered out in real time. Figure 1. Figure 1.  Refer to the image caption for details.

• Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics | Britannica

  SPEAKER 1: More than half a century before Stephen Hawkings and Elon Musk felt compelled to warn the world of artificial intelligence. Back in 1942, before the term was even coined, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote The Three Laws of Robotics: A moral code to keep our machines in check. And the three laws of robotics are: a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. The second law, a robot must obey orders given by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law. And the third, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first and the second law. That sounds logical. Do these three laws provide a basis to work from to develop moral robots? Marcus, what