Asimov's laws initially entailed three guidelines for machines:
• Law One - "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."
• Law Two - "A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law."
• Law Three - "A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."
• Asimov later added the "Zeroth Law," above all the others - "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."
Harm from robots is now a growing threat. Perhaps being raised with Battlestar and I, Robot, I have a biased opinion of what would happen if we let robots loose in our society. Already drones and autonomous space planes circle our planet. Robonaut 2 on the ISS is capable of Telepresence communication. The Laws of robotics do not work. No technology can yet replicate Asimov's laws inside a machine. As Rodney Brooks of the company iRobot—named after the Asimov book, they are the people who brought you the Packbot military robot and the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner—puts it, "People ask me about whether our robots follow Asimov's laws. There is a simple reason [they don't]: I can't build Asimov's laws in them."
The most important reason for Asimov's Laws not being applied yet is how robots are being used in our real world. You don't arm a Reaper drone with a Hellfire missile or put a machine gun on a MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System) not to cause humans to come to harm. That is the very point!
Which is why “soft robotics” — soft to the touch, soft in their interaction, soft and natural in their movements — will be important, and Roboy will be covered with “soft skin,” making interacting with him safer and more pleasant...for now!
15 project partners and over 40 engineers and scientists are constructing Roboy as a tendon-driven robot modeled on human beings. Service robots are already used in a wide variety of areas today, including for household chores, surveillance work and cleaning, and in hospitals and care homes. Roboticists say our aging population is making it necessary to keep older people as autonomous as possible for as long as possible, which means caring for aged people is likely to be an important area for the deployment of service robots.
To speed up the process, the AI Lab researchers set a goal to build Roboy in just 9 months (the project began five months ago). Roboy will be unveiled at the Robots on Tour March 8 and 9, 2013 in Zurich.
To make this ambitious schedule possible, they decided to finance the first grassroots robotics project via crowdfunding. To participate, see Make Roboy your friend.
The Autonomous Systems Labs in Zurich has decided to give us a taste of a future in which Santa’s workforce has been replaced by robots. It seems pretty innocuous until you get to the robotic reindeer.
Here's a poem for the age:
Who mourns Adonis when Mars is the Apollonian' s Holy Grail? The Hand of God has set its sights on fear and panic. Ares has succumbed to the Dragon and Atlantis will not rise again but, still they give space to HERMES.
Phantom Robotic Falcons circle the earth seeking prey and Atlas orbits the sun. Anubis prepares the funerary rites of Akhenaten, that Renegade Sun, and Apophis sets to strike. Is it WISE to seek the invisible sun? Forbidden stars appear with the Ark and gods begin to rise from the deep.
ISiS bears the True Cross awaiting the Threshold to bring LUCIFER's command. IKAROS hopes to harness the Sun bringing the ultimate light to create dark forces in nature. ATLAS and ALICE seek god's pieces and a way to get through. Souls transmitted as the PHENIX and STAR to another time perhaps to be Apollo 2.
