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Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ankitpati Every book and short story from Asimovs robotic series does exactly that. Show how the three/four laws create unsolvable contradictions. That’s their purpose. That’s why the books work.

4 comments
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ankitpati It took me many years to understand that simple truth. But once I did and read the books again, it was so obvious and helped me understand the deeper meaning. Reality is more complex and contradictory than simple rules suggest.

Ankit Pati

@jwildeboer The way I remember it, it’s always because *someone* (not robots, but actual humans) thinks they’re smarter than the laws and/or the laws don’t apply to them and/or they can helpfully reorder the laws. Basically in-universe techbros.

If anything, the tales show exactly why we need iron-fisted regulatory frameworks backed by severe personal penalties (no, companies are not persons) to enforce these laws.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ankitpati you really should read the books again, especially from the perspective of Susan Calvin, the robopsychologist. Her struggles with the 3 laws and how she tried to reason them makes a lot more sense when viewed from the perspective of failure. It took me some time to understand.

m
@jwildeboer @ankitpati by the time i finished reading I, Robot it felt less like speculative fiction about artificial intelligence and more a collection of clever moral logical conundrums told through a specific arbitrary setting that happened to involve artificial intelligences
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