David Gewirtz
for DIY-IT
| August 23, 2021 — 13:41 GMT (14:41 BST)
| Topic: Robotics
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 the 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.
Any science fiction enthusiast of a certain age would recognize these as Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, as described in the “Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.” Asimov introduced these laws as part of his robot series, and they became the Asimovian equivalent of the Prime Directive for his fictional universe.
Asimov wanted to write about robots integrated into everyday life. Prior to the early 1940s, when he began his series, most robot stories were of robots run amok. Even though the techniques we use today for artificial intelligence and machine learning development weren’t part of any educational curriculum, Asimov postulated the concept of intelligent robots, and then gave them a set of guiding principles around which they were to make all decisions.
Obviously, the implied AI he had running in those robots was even more sophisticated than what we have today. But the idea that robots were required to have safety protocols before being unleashed on consumers might be something we want to take very seriously.
Especially if Elon Musk’s Tesla Bot concept is to be taken seriously. Apparently, Tesla expects to have a 5′ 8″ 125 pound bipedal robot ready to enter testing sometime next year. Because…of course it does.
At the recent Tesla Day event, Musk described Tesla as the biggest robotic company in the world, given how many autonomous (or at least marginally autonomous) vehicles the company has sold. According to Musk, “Our cars are like semi-sentient robots on wheels.”
Hair. Back of neck. Raised.
Of course, he didn’t mention that the National Transportation Safety Board cited Tesla’s autopilot for contributing to a fatal 2019 crash with a tractor trailer and another with a Chevy Tahoe. So far, TeslaDeaths (yep, that’s a site) reports nine verified autopilot-related deaths.
Now, ask yourself if you want an adult-sized bipedal robot in your home. Personally, though I loved Asimov’s stories and dreamed of having my own robots, I’ve grown to understand one simple fact: robots are stupid.
I know this because my house is filled with robots, mostly in the form of the 3D printers I review for ZDNet. I have a long thin room in my house, called the Fab Lab, which is where I keep the 3D printers. Each printer is on a rolling cart, and each cart has a space under the lower shelf that a robot vacuum cleaner can easily get into when cleaning.
The other day, I was testing out yet another 3D printer. That one has a filament runout sensor, which is supposed to stop the machine if the filament spool is empty. But even though the filament had run out, the filament runout sensor had somehow failed, and the robot didn’t know. The printer head was still moving back and forth, up and down, trying desperately to print something in thin air.
Robots are stupid.
Unlike my pup who likes to run around the house and pee everywhere when he gets excited, my 3D printers stay where they’ve been placed. They can’t run around the house and poop filament.
But then there’s my robot vacuum.
David Gewirtz
for DIY-IT
| August 23, 2021 — 13:41 GMT (14:41 BST)
| Topic: Robotics