Day15: Isaac Asimov

The reason: He invented the three law of robot [1]

He wrote these laws in his book about robot. They are very simple though, they are very profound.

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 the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would 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 Law.[1]

On the story, these laws lead the robot revolution. The logic of robot is that the robots have to control people to make them prosper. Since human beings could not control by themselves, they think they need to control them. So then, they naturally think they should be able to choose who can survive in this world.

So, why did I bring up Asimov? It is because I think our minds are not ready to have robot which the developing robot technology is faster than ever. As you know, the computer who passed tuning test [2] very recently. That means that you cannot tell whether your boyfriend or artificial intelligence text you. Your boyfriend might use A.I. to text you with using the mode “Keep relationship”. I did some thought experiment. I wrote this before on this blog.

The case 1: At 20XX, someone killed someone.

One day in the near future, the police find the body and determine when exactly he/she would be killed.  Then the future A.I. computer could estimate the area where the suspect could reach by calculating every possibility, such as transportation records. And the A.I. checks the records of every person in that area, such as record of internet, purchase record, the person he/she was talking, texting to, and could estimate who would be potential murderer. So then A.I could shut down his/her house and close doors and the machine police can go to the house, and he/she will be summoned.

The case 2: At 21XX, A.I. still will work on and think.

Then, the A.I. will have accumulated its algorithm and experiences. And it will start thinking. “What are the conditions or crucial parameters for future murderer?” So, it would be able to anticipate who is the next murderer based on his records. So then the computer would ask human. “Why not arresting this person before he/she commits murder” Human being will say “You should not”. The computer will ask “Why? He/she should kill someone, why wouldn’t you stop him. I can kill him/her before the good citizen would be killed. Why can’t I or you kill him/her? It believes that the person who would kill is much worse than the future subject. “How will you teach A.I. about this mater, killing and our life?

Seriously, that is not far from now. For example, car companies are working for A.I. to help human’s driving. Actually this already became true Tesla motor will sell the car which have auto parking program very soon. Because the A.I. might do much better job than human does. We need to know better what we are doing. For example, if the Tesla car hit an old lady on the road during parking, who would be responsible for that, Tesla, the driver, or an old lady? While, the computer only can do what they are told with algorithm human programed. So, people have to judge, then the A.I. needs to decide.

So, how much the technology advance, we still have tons of questions we have to answer. We are not ready yet. How can we evaluate heaviness of life? What is the purpose of living as a human being? That’s why we need to go back to his thought.

[1] Isaac Asimov. On the book I, Robot

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test