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South Korea to detail robot etiquette

Seoul writes for automatons

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The South Korean government is working on a set of guiding principles to outline how people and robots should interact.

A panel is working on the commandments Robots Ethics Charter and is due to report back later this year. The five member team includes a science fiction writer and could well mirror Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics. Asimov's laws have been criticised for not allowing police or soldier robots.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said: "The government plans to set ethical guidelines concerning the roles and functions of robots as robots are expected to develop strong intelligence in the near future."

The South Korean government is convinced robots have a role well beyond bomb disposal and Fiat factories. They are already in use in post offices, and the government predicts that every South Korean home will have a networked robot by 2020.

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Latest Comments

3 Laws?

Surely you jest. Any decent Asimov reader knows that there are 4 Laws of Robotics: The Zeroth Law was postulated as "No robot can harm Humanity or through inaction allow Humanity to be harmed."

As for the "What is human, what is humanity", this was also discussed by R Daneel Olivaw as a failure of the Law (and in fact used by him/it to order another robot about).

Yes, it is true that the 4 Laws leave a lot of jiggle-room for writers to play with. Asimov himself said that, having written the Laws, he now had to find ways around them for his stories. Personally, I think those made for his greatest Robot stories.

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Langford's Laws...

Don't forget Dave Langford's alternative Three Laws of Robotics:

(1) A robot will not harm authorized government personnel but will terminate intruders with extreme prejudice.

(2) A robot will obey the orders of authorized personnel except where such orders would conflict with the Third Law.

(3) A robot will guard its own existence with lethal anti-personnel weaponry, because a robot is bloody expensive.

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UltiMate Games .......... are Real Enough 42 Control Mind Games Research Interest

"It is a parlour game amongst sci fi bufs to propose situations where the 3 laws lead to the wrong result.".

Kurt,

It may be/is a boudoir game amongst Pi sci fi buffs/buffers to propose situations where the 3 laws lead to the right results. A Paradigm Shift in EmPhasis..... http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/03/08/intel_pram_production_plan/

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