Robot Visions

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 03:20:03 -0700, Tim Bruening
<tsbrueni DeleteThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:

>
>
>DJensen wrote:
>
>> On Jun 19, 5:09 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru... DeleteThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>>
>> > Since robots don't need food, why didn't the narrator ask Archie if he
>> > had seen any farms or anyone eating?
>>
>> Bad writing?
>>
>> > Why isn't the narrator robot compelled by the First Law to prevent the
>> > extinction of humanity?
>>
>> That's the Zeroth Law.
>
>Wouldn't the extinction of humanity count as a massive violation of the
>First Law?

No.
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David Johnston wrote:

> On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 03:20:03 -0700, Tim Bruening
> <tsbrueni.DeleteThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >DJensen wrote:
> >
> >> On Jun 19, 5:09 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru....DeleteThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Since robots don't need food, why didn't the narrator ask Archie if he
> >> > had seen any farms or anyone eating?
> >>
> >> Bad writing?
> >>
> >> > Why isn't the narrator robot compelled by the First Law to prevent the
> >> > extinction of humanity?
> >>
> >> That's the Zeroth Law.
> >
> >Wouldn't the extinction of humanity count as a massive violation of the
> >First Law?
>
> No.

Extinction sounds like harm to me!
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Tim Bruening <tsbrueni.TakeThisOut@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:

> David Johnston wrote:
>
> Extinction sounds like harm to me!

If you decide not to have any kids, does that hurt you? If so, what,
exactly, is a robot supposed to do about it?

-jwgh

--
"'God damn, this banjo will make a club!'"
-- John Brunner, _No Other Gods But Me_ (1966)
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Jon Schild <jjs DeleteThis @xmission.com> writes:

>Tim Bruening wrote:

>> Since robots don't need food, why didn't the narrator ask Archie if he
>> had seen any farms or anyone eating?

>He had enough information (no babies) so that the question was not
>necessary.

And it's unclear that the robots wouldn't need food, since they
were of a new `humaniform' type, with organic components. While they
are viewed as robots by the plain-style humans who start things off,
they are also clearly not clanking metal constructs, and how they get
energy is left unstated.


>> Why isn't the narrator robot compelled by the First Law to prevent the
>> extinction of humanity?

>Because Asimov didn't write the story, and others' robots are not
>compelled to follow his 3 (or 4) laws.

Actually, Asimov did. Lead story in his anthology 'Robot Visions',
and rather pleasant for Asimov's the-world-is-doomed-we're-all-gonna-die
pieces.

The narrator concludes that the underlying causes of the
catastrophe which reduces the human population from ten billion to one
billion are beyond the power of robots to change; and hypothesizing that
the surviving creatures may be humaniform robots, reasons that if it were
general knowledge that humaniform robots were to take over humanity's
place in the solar system, humans might well decide to exterminante *them*.

So with a mass extinction event of humans unavoidable, and only
the survival of humaniform robots possible, the narrator chooses to act
in the way which preserves the robots at least. And, of course, he may
be wrong and humans may well have been the survivors anyway.

Furthermore, the humans come to the conclusion that the folks
of James Blish's 'Beep' did decades ago: given detailed information of
The Future, it's quite important to make sure the information about that
future reaches them as it actually did. Maybe creating a paradox in the
course of history would resolve itself; maybe it wouldn't. Would you be
willing to risk the universe on that? The robot's information was that
there just weren't other probes of the time machine into the time between
the start and the glimpsed future; therefore, they don't dare risk the
extermination of the univeres by contradicting that.

--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Tim Bruening wrote:

> The only religious robot I know of was Cutie (Reason). Cutie didn't seem to
> believe in the Afterlife. Why would a robot believe in the afterlife?

Because then where would all of the calculators go?

--
Erik Max Francis && max.TakeThisOut@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
And a grateful nation will be in his debt.
-- John F. Kennedy (on the pilot killed in the Cuban Missile Crisis)
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On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:41:40 -0700, Tim Bruening
<tsbrueni.RemoveThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:

>> >Wouldn't the extinction of humanity count as a massive violation of the
>> >First Law?
>>
>> No.
>
>Extinction sounds like harm to me!

Harm to whom? The First Law doesn't apply to humanity in general. It
only applies to the specific humans you perceive to be in immediate
avertable danger. The robot has no idea what happened to humanity in
the future. Maybe they just stopped having kids. That is not "harm".
 >> Stay informed about: Robot Visions 

Joseph Nebus wrote:

> Jon Schild <jjs.DeleteThis@xmission.com> writes:
>
> >Tim Bruening wrote:
>
> >> Since robots don't need food, why didn't the narrator ask Archie if he
> >> had seen any farms or anyone eating?
>
> >He had enough information (no babies) so that the question was not
> >necessary.
>
> And it's unclear that the robots wouldn't need food, since they
> were of a new `humaniform' type, with organic components. While they
> are viewed as robots by the plain-style humans who start things off,
> they are also clearly not clanking metal constructs, and how they get
> energy is left unstated.
>
> >> Why isn't the narrator robot compelled by the First Law to prevent the
> >> extinction of humanity?
>
> >Because Asimov didn't write the story, and others' robots are not
> >compelled to follow his 3 (or 4) laws.
>
> Actually, Asimov did. Lead story in his anthology 'Robot Visions',
> and rather pleasant for Asimov's the-world-is-doomed-we're-all-gonna-die
> pieces.
>
> The narrator concludes that the underlying causes of the
> catastrophe which reduces the human population from ten billion to one
> billion are beyond the power of robots to change; and hypothesizing that
> the surviving creatures may be humaniform robots, reasons that if it were
> general knowledge that humaniform robots were to take over humanity's
> place in the solar system, humans might well decide to exterminante *them*.
>
> So with a mass extinction event of humans unavoidable, and only
> the survival of humaniform robots possible, the narrator chooses to act
> in the way which preserves the robots at least. And, of course, he may
> be wrong and humans may well have been the survivors anyway.

So the narrator is echoing Nestor-10's logic from "Little Lost Robot", in which
Nestor 10 argues that if a robot is certain to die if it tries to save a human, it
should save itself so that it can save humans in the future.
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Jon Schild skrev:
>
> Tim Bruening wrote:
>
>> Since robots don't need food, why didn't the narrator ask Archie if he
>> had seen any farms or anyone eating?
>
> He had enough information (no babies) so that the question was not
> necessary.
>
>> Why isn't the narrator robot compelled by the First Law to prevent the
>> extinction of humanity?
>
> Because Asimov didn't write the story, and others' robots are not
> compelled to follow his 3 (or 4) laws.
>
>
>

The rather explicit answer in the story shows clearly that this robot
*does* indeed see human extinction as a first law imperative.

I won't spoil it further for those who haven't read it. (Or, like Tim,
might want to read it again )
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"Tim Bruening" <tsbrueni.DeleteThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message
news:4678065A.2C1D6E1F@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us...
>
>
> AJ wrote:
>
>> "Tim Bruening" <tsbrueni.DeleteThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message
>> news:4677ADD3.C1EC1AFB@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us...
>> >
>> >
>> > DJensen wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Jun 19, 5:09 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru....DeleteThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Since robots don't need food, why didn't the narrator ask Archie if
>> >> > he
>> >> > had seen any farms or anyone eating?
>> >>
>> >> Bad writing?
>> >>
>> >> > Why isn't the narrator robot compelled by the First Law to prevent
>> >> > the
>> >> > extinction of humanity?
>> >>
>> >> That's the Zeroth Law.
>> >
>> > Wouldn't the extinction of humanity count as a massive violation of the
>> > First Law?
>>
>> Depends on your definition of harm... a robot with a firm belief in an
>> afterlife could kill willy nilly.
>
> The only religious robot I know of was Cutie (Reason). Cutie didn't seem
> to
> believe in the Afterlife. Why would a robot believe in the afterlife?


No, what I'm saying that is if a robot were to have a firm grasp of an
afterlife, and a belief that when humans die they go somewhere "better"
then he could simply kill at will.
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"AJ" <torturedartist RemoveThis @gmaill.cam> wrote in news:46790fd3$0$4319
$9a566e8b@news.aliant.net:

> No, what I'm saying that is if a robot were to have a firm grasp of an
> afterlife, and a belief that when humans die they go somewhere "better"
> then he could simply kill at will.
>

Here's a YASID: what was the story where a robot got the idea that a
certain person was an angel, and hence that it would be acceptable to kill
him?
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On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:28:38 -0400, yoof.TakeThisOut@jwgh.org (Jacob W. Haller) wrote:

>Tim Bruening <tsbrueni.TakeThisOut@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:

>> David Johnston wrote:

>> Extinction sounds like harm to me!

>If you decide not to have any kids, does that hurt you?


If you live in a society where all care and comfort for the elderly is
provided by their own children, that might set you up for a world of
hurt thirty or forty years down the road.

If you live in a society that handles such things collectively rather
than familialy, your decision not to have any kids could be argued to
hurt absolutely everybody, one little infinitesmial bit.


Of course, how to deal with people who only hurt themselves, and how
to deal with extremely diffuse collective harm, are among the trickiest
ethical problems. Somehow I'm skeptical that just branding a positronic
brain with "thou shalt not allow a human to come to harm!", automagically
generates unambiguous solutions.


>If so, what, exactly, is a robot supposed to do about it?

Replacing all your birth control pills with placebos would be the obvious
answer. The more practical one might involve various subtle propaganda
claims coordinated by many robots who have observed the same "problem".


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schillin@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
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Erik Max Francis <max RemoveThis @alcyone.com> wrote on Wed 20 Jun 2007 09:46:55a

> Tim Bruening wrote:
>
>> The only religious robot I know of was Cutie (Reason). Cutie didn't
>> seem to believe in the Afterlife. Why would a robot believe in the
>> afterlife?
>
> Because then where would all of the calculators go?
>

They don't go anywhere. They just die.

--
Chris
Concatenate for email: mrgazpacho @ hotmail . com
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John Schilling <schillin RemoveThis @spock.usc.edu> wrote:

> On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:28:38 -0400, yoof RemoveThis @jwgh.org (Jacob W. Haller) wrote:
>
> >Tim Bruening <tsbrueni RemoveThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >> David Johnston wrote:
>
> >> Extinction sounds like harm to me!
>
> >If you decide not to have any kids, does that hurt you?
>
> If you live in a society where all care and comfort for the elderly is
> provided by their own children, that might set you up for a world of
> hurt thirty or forty years down the road.

In this case, I'd think that the robots probably would feel obligated to
provide such care, but there are additional complications that might
make this not workable.

[. . .]
> >If so, what, exactly, is a robot supposed to do about it?
>
> Replacing all your birth control pills with placebos would be the obvious
> answer. The more practical one might involve various subtle propaganda
> claims coordinated by many robots who have observed the same "problem".

An added complication is that giving birth is itself not devoid of pain
or risk.

-jwgh

--
"'God damn, this banjo will make a club!'"
-- John Brunner, _No Other Gods But Me_ (1966)
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