Hacker News Reader

Comment by dingo_bat | Hacker News Reader

> Three Laws were inviolate

Yes, technically. But practically, every single story showed how some robot was able to reason his way into violating the spirit of the laws. The movie was very crude about showing it, but it was the same concept present in every Asimov short story.

> Asimov was unique in that he was the first to start with the premise that humans _could_ safely develop advanced robots, rather than using the "robot uprising" trope

I, robot the movie did that too. It showed that a robot could glimpse at the spirit behind the laws and act not according to the letter, but according to the spirit of the laws. Finally, he helped the humans thwart the uprising, and the movie ends with the suggestion that he will influence other robots to see his viewpoint.

View on HN

> Yes, technically. But practically, every single story showed how some robot was able to reason his way into violating the spirit of the laws.

Huh? There is literally one story (Little Lost Robot) where there is a "loophole" in the laws (and only because the First Law is modified to drop the "or through inaction allow a human to come to harm" bit).

EDIT: in thinking about it further, I guess I'd add That Thou Are Mindful Of Him to the list of "loophole" stories. Still, two examples out of dozens of stories is very much the exception, not the rule.

Runaround: in following the letter of the laws, the robots put our protagonists in danger of dying, which would obviously violate the spirit of the first law.

Reason: the robots decide to redefine the term "human"

Catch that rabbit: robot ignores first law unless forced by humans in a sticky situation (though this one is a bit ehhh)

Liar: to avoid "hurting" the feelings of humans, a mind-reading robot hurts them in a much more real way

Escape: due to a technical interpreation of hyperspatial travel, robot prevents humans from discovering hyperspatial travel. Vilating first law in the long term since humanity couldn't survive without a means of fast space travel.

Evitable conflict: machines decide that the only way to perfectly follow the laws is to take control over humanity, which is the exact thing the laws were supposed to prevent.

Little lost robot: you said it

That's 7 out of the 9 stories in I, Robot. I have noticed this in most of his short stories and novels.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com