One of the old questions people asked of AI researchers is, “Why not just program in the Three Laws of Robotics,” referring to the science-fiction stories by Isaac Asimov. For many years, all of us in the field of artificial intelligence said, “Oh, haha, you can’t program that into a computer. Read the stories! They don’t even work in the stories!”
It wasn’t until later, with the hindsight of experience, that I understood that was the point. Asimov wasn’t saying that the Three Laws were a panacea that would control artificial intelligence, but the exact opposite, that AI would be put into situations where any set of rules, no matter how clearly stated or well-intentioned, would conflict with each other or the environment. The society of the Three Laws wasn’t a utopia, it is a cautionary tale.
– Professor Holly Wu
