Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Robots & Rules


robots.net is posting a link to a BBC-article about a Korean group of experts (including futurists and a science fiction writer) devising a compilation of "ethical guidelines concerning the roles and functions of robots as robots are expected to develop strong intelligence in the near future" to be presented soon.
The experts are "dealing with social problems such as human abuse of robots, humans becoming addicted to "robot interaction", using robots illegally and even humans who want to marry their robots."
Steve concludes "Also, to put this story in perspective, keep in mind that Korea is actively installing border robots that are capably of killing humans autonomously, so maybe a few rules aren't a bad idea."

The BBC-article mentions that the "European Robotics Research Network is also drawing up a set of guidelines on the use of robots.", believing "that robotics will soon come under the same scrutiny as disciplines such as nuclear physics and Bioengineering.".
And quotes from their draft: "In the 21st Century humanity will coexist with the first alien intelligence we have ever come into contact with - robots.
It will be an event rich in ethical, social and economic problems.
"

Update: In my original post I had already begun a half-sentence of a commentary (which read something like "Anybody who thinks ... Asimov ... bla"), when I ran out of words and decided to let the above speak for itself -
but today SB found the right words, which I would like to share:
"HahahahahahaAaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahaaahaha
hahhoohooWHOOPPHEEHEEEHEEHEEEHEEHEEHEEEHEEEHAAAAHHAAAA
AHAAAAHHAAAAAAAHHAAAAAAAAAHAHAAHAAAAHAAAHAAAHAAHA
"

2 comments:

Joe said...

Hi:

My name is Joe Alterio, and those are my posters. Thanks for spreading the good word. May I ask where you found them?

magnus said...

dear joe,
what an honor having you visit this humble blog!

these two posters were posted by "someone" at our cocktailrobotics festival ROBOEXOTICA last december (which explains the stain on "Freedom"). as this someone posted them when noone was looking and gave funny answers when asked about the posters, i have so far declined to identify the individual, usually hinting at a mysterious humanoid - but in this case i feel obliged to at least tell you that "someone" teaches robotics in California and holds a well known annual robotics fest in SF ;)

when ROBOEXOTICA was over I was more than happy to snatch them!

... when i googled robo-equality i found a boingboing post from 2004 which has no longer working link to a gallery of posters ...
but i found one more in a post on suicidebots-blog (where prof. "someone" is posting too) ...
um - so i have one or two questions too:
are there any more different designs? and ARE those posters available on the interwebs??

magnus