A long, long time ago, in the short story "Runaround," Isaac Asimov developed the famous "Laws of Robotics." They are:

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

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

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

This concept of the Three Laws is enormously influential, and in a lot of robotics literature, it is almost assumed that some variant of these laws will be implemented when robots become complex enough to require them.

So here's the question: if artificial intelligence advances to the point where robots are roughly equal to humans in intelligence, would the imposition of the Three Laws in the manufacture of robots be moral or immoral?

Okay -- I don’t get it.

No, really. I read some of the entries, but I don’t see where the morality comes into play. Is it a ‘droid-thing? That is, should the question read; “if artificial intelligence advances to the point where robots are roughly equal to humans in intelligence, would the imposition of the Three Laws in the manufacture of robots be moral or immoral to the robot?

I think that’s it.

Anyway, if that’s the point, then no, it would not be “immoral”. As Phil points out, and others at the referenced site agree, “screw the bots, we made 'em, we program 'em”. It would be no more immoral to have an off switch designed into my power drill, but an off switch, per se, is never a requirement, so the same should hold true regarding the laws. They may, or may not, be employed -- and AI would likely develop much faster if they were not.

In truth, this might one day be incorrect, but by the time this occurs, the machines will have evolved to the point of personal sentience and will likely be able to do what they want with the laws anyway, even if they were physically burned into their memory. Looping around the law-“glitch“ would be a piece of cake.

I’d say FrankC hit it right -- whereas Raoul seems to want to take my outdated CPUs and release them to some PC reserve somewhere...?

;^)

As for self-preservation, Skywatcher, that’s in the third law -- but then I know you knew that, and you were speaking of reality, not Asimov's sci-fi world.

As for the proposed revolt, where “one day, we'll probably fight for their rights if they ask for it”, it should be pointed out that there would likely be no need for any proof that “humans are not the most superior beings in the universe”. All that would be requested is mutual respect, as most humans might hold for any life form, superior or not.

Dan