Are You Ready for the Robot Revolution?

By Gordon Hopkins “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom” - Isaac Asimov As a lonely boy growing up in a scary world that had no respect for science fiction and the nerdlingers who read it, Isaac Asimov was my best friend. I never met him but we conversed almost daily through his books. They were one-way conversations, of course, but he cared about the things I cared about: science, spaceships, the future. And most of all, robots. I could, at a very young age, recite by heart Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, which did nothing to endear me to the various bullies I went to school with. For the record, here are those laws: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. First written in 1942, they are simple, understandable and, to my mind, oh so necessary. This seems especially true today, decades later, given current, rapid developments in artificial intelligence, or AI. Asimov was not the only one who saw the need for rules governing artificially-created thinking machines. In 2019, the European Commission creating rules of the development of AI. The European Commission is the European Union's executive arm, responsible for proposals for new European legislation. Unfortunately, the Laws of Robotics were created by one rather smart man, whereas the Laws of AI were created by a committee. The rules created by Asimov were precise, concise and gives very little wiggle room. In comparison, the new rules are vague and ill-defined. Plus, there are seven of them. The EC created more than twice as many rules as Asimov and they are nowhere near as effective. If that isn't a prime example of running things by committee, I don't know what is. For your edification, here are the Seven Laws of AI: Human agency and oversight. Robustness and safety. Privacy and data governance. Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness. Transparency. Societal and environmental well-being. Accountability. Of course, they are not really laws anyway because there is no method of enforcing them. So they are really more guidelines than rules. If rules are made to be broken, then guidelines are made to be ignored. AI infiltrating our lives is no longer hypothetical. It is real and it is happening. Alarm bells are being rung by scientists, politicians and those artists and writers that may soon find themselves replaced by a computer program. Not to mention the people who get their information online and would probably like to know if what they are reading was written by a flesh-and-blood being or a silicon-and-electron being. Put simply, we don't need guidelines. We don't need rules. We need laws. If natural intelligence must follow laws, artificial intelligence should, too. I'm not sure about all the laws that should be governing AIs, but I can think of at least one that absolutely should exist as soon as possible. And, like Asimov's Law, it should be immutable. In fact, I will present that law in the same manner as Asimov did. First Law of AI: An AI must identify itself.

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