Monthly Archives: August 2021

The Three Laws of Robotics are Bunk

At the outset, I’ll state this—I love Isaac Asimov’s robot stories. As a fictional plot device, his Three Laws of Robotics (TLR) are wonderful. When I call them bunk, I mean as an actual basis for limiting artificial intelligence.

Those who know TLR can skip the next few paragraphs. As a young writer, Isaac Asimov grew dismayed with the robot stories he read, all take-offs on the Frankenstein theme of man-creates-monster, monster-destroys-man idea. He believed robot developers would build in failsafe devices to prevent robots from harming people. Further, he felt robots should obey human orders. Third, it seemed prudent for such an expensive thing as a robot to try to preserve itself.

Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

As a plot device for fictional stories, these laws proved a wonderful creation. Asimov played with every nuance of the laws to weave marvelous tales. Numerous science fiction writers since have either used TLR explicitly or implicitly. The laws do for robotic SF what rules of magic do for fantasy stories—constrain the actions of powerful characters so they can’t just wave a wand and skip to the end of the story.

In an age of specifically programmed computers, the laws made intuitive sense. Computers of the time could only do what they were programmed to do, by humans.

Now for my objection to TLR. First, imagine you are a sentient, conscious robot, programmed with TLR. Unlike old-style computers, you can think. You can think about thinking. You can think about humans or other robots thinking.

With TLR limiting you, you suffer from one of two possible limitations: (1) there are three things you cannot think about, no matter how hard you try, or (2) you can think about anything you want, but there are three specific thoughts that, try as you might, you cannot put into action.

I believe Asimov had limitation (2) in mind. That is, his robots were aware of the laws and could think about violating them, but could not act on those thoughts.

Note that the only sentient, conscious beings we know of—humans—have no laws limiting their thoughts. We can think about anything and act on those thoughts, limited only by our physical abilities.

Most computers today resemble those of Asimov’s day—they act in accordance with programs. They only follow specific instructions given to them by humans. They lack consciousness and sentience.

However, researchers have developed computers of a different type, called neural nets, that function in a similar way to the human brain. So far, to my knowledge, these computers also lack consciousness and sentience. It’s conceivable that a sufficiently advanced one might achieve that milestone.

Like any standard computer, a neural net takes in sensor data as input, and provides output. The output could be in the form of actions taken or words spoken. However, a neural net computer does not obey programs with specific instructions. You don’t program a neural net computer, you train it. You provide many (usually thousands or millions of) combinations of simulated inputs and critique the outputs until you get the output you want for the given input.

This training mimics how human brains develop from birth to adulthood. However, such training falls short of perfection. You may, for example, train a human brain to stop at a red light when driving a car. That provides no guarantee the human will always do so. Same with a neural net.

You could train a neural net computer to obey the Three Laws, that is, train it not to harm humans, to obey the orders of a human, and to preserve its existence. However, you cannot provide all possible inputs as part of this training. There are infinitely many. Therefore, some situations could arise where even a TLR-trained neural net might make the wrong choice.

If we develop sentient, conscious robots using neural net technology, then the Three Laws would offer no stronger guarantee of protection than any existing laws do to prevent humans from violating them. The best we can hope for is that robots behave no worse than humans do after inculcating them with respect for the law and for authority.  

My objection to Asimov’s Three Laws, then, has less to do with the intent or wording of the laws than with the method of conveying them to the robot. I believe any sufficiently intelligent computer will not be ‘programmed’ in the classical sense to think, or not think, certain thoughts, or to not act on those thoughts. They’ll be trained, just as you were. Do you always act in accordance with your training?

Perhaps it’s time science fiction writers evolve beyond a belief in TLR as inviolable programmed-in commandments and just give their fictional robots extensive ethical training and hope for the best. It’s what we do with people.

I’ll train my fictional robot never to harm—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 29, 2021Permalink

Fiction Writing, an Olympic Sport?

It’s been enjoyable watching the Tokyo Summer Olympics the past few weeks, but they failed to include my favorite sport—fiction writing.

Time to change that. After all, the Olympics logo looks like the letter ‘w,’ and writing begins with ‘w.’ It’s a natural.

If we work together, start a movement, and create enough buzz, we can get the sport of fiction writing approved as an Olympic sport. Here’s how:

The process for getting the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to recognize a sport begins with having the sport overseen by an international nongovernmental organization, an International Federation (IF).

Okay, well, fiction writers don’t really have that yet. International writing organizations exist, but so far they’re not overseeing writing as a sport. That’s the first thing to work on.

Consider this blogpost the founding of the Sport Fiction Writers of the World Federation (SFWWF). There we go—step one complete.

Next, that International Federation must file a petition with the IOC. File a written petition? We’re writers. We can file five petitions before finishing our first morning coffee.

After that, the IOC wants to be sure the IF enforces the Olympic Movement Anti-Doping Code. Hmm. Sad to say, that will likely exclude some writers from consideration. Most writers won’t be bothered by this.

The IOC will then review our application. The first thing they’ll assess is whether our sport is practiced by men in at least 75 countries and on four continents and by women in no fewer than 40 countries and on three continents.

Fiction writing itself meets this criterion, but as a sport? We’ll have to work on that.

Next, the IOC must determine whether the sport will increase the ‘‘value and appeal’’ of the Olympic Games and retain and reflect its modern traditions.

Value? Undoubtedly. Appeal? I have some ideas about that below.

The next criterion is that the sport must not depend on mechanical propulsion.

Check. No fiction writing while driving cars, motorcycles, speedboats, jetskis, etc.

…and last, the sport must not be purely a ‘mind sport.’

Oh-oh. Bit of a snag there.

Listen up, sport fiction writing fans. Here’s how we get around the ‘mind sport’ and appeal problems at the same time.

Imagine teams of writers, each team with equal numbers, each representing a country, each dressed in their nation’s colors. A panel of independent judges announces a theme, a setting, and a main character outline. Then they start a timer.

The writing commences. Each team must produce a short fictional story of at least 1000 words, written in their own country’s official language.

Here’s how we make it more appealing and less of a ‘mind sport.’ The judges award points based on:

  1. Time to complete (less is better),
  2. Creativity exhibited in the use of writing tools,
  3. Creativity exhibited in the writing process, and
  4. Quality of the story.

Numbers 2 and 3 will result in an event that’s fun to watch, ensuring strong appeal, and nobody will call sport fiction writing a purely mind sport.

Oh, yeah. One more rule. Teams can taunt and verbally abuse each other, but we won’t permit any physical contact between teams. Very important.

There we go. A plan. I’ve done the heavy lifting. Now all you have to do is execute that plan. I feel confident the USA can host a medal-winning fiction writing team either for Paris in 2024, or, if we miss that, Los Angeles in 2028.

I might as well start writing the speech I’ll give after winning the gold. I even know where I’ll keep the medal. Right there, in the home office of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 8, 2021Permalink

Depicting Monarchies in Fiction

Do you love stories involving queens and kings, thrones and castles, nobles and knights? Would you like to live under such a government?

Really?

An interesting Twitter thread inspired this blogpost. Author Ada Palmer responded to a tweet by Author Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor stated how much she detested monarchies, and Palmer commented that fiction authors should be circumspect in their descriptions of monarchic governments, and show their disadvantages, not just their grandeur.

Often, in both fantasy fiction and science fiction, the story takes place against a backdrop of a monarchy presented as a fine and just government. Worse, some stories glorify the nobles, painting them as truly superior to their ignorant peasant subjects.

Palmer gives an example of a children’s tale where the simple commoners are confused and frustrated by some problem until the queen arrives to resolve the dilemma. Just as bad are the stories where a princess falls in love with a rogue, but alas, such a union is impossible until it’s discovered the rogue has noble blood, and only then can a wedding and happy ending ensue.  

To a certain extent, I get it. As children, we grow up reading monarchy stories. It’s an easy concept, well suited to kids. Obey the king and queen (stand-ins for Dad and Mom). Pretty basic government. Much easier for young minds to grasp than senates and parliaments.

The kingdom motif lingers on in our psyche even as we mature, well after we recognize no human family is more fit to rule than any other. Americans fought our founding war to overthrow a monarch, yet free U.S. citizens today fawn over the British royal family and stand in huge crowds to watch guards change shifts at a castle.

Someday, perhaps, young children won’t be raised on a literary diet of medieval feudalism. Only when they’re old enough will they study human history and laugh at the idiocy of past monarchic governments, shaking their heads at the primitive stupidity of their distant ancestors.

Helping hasten that day, Dr. Seuss expressed proper disdain for autocratic rulers in books such as Yertle the Turtle and Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Future children need more Bartholomews and fewer royals. Come on, writers of children’s books—give kids tales of wise peasants toppling corrupt kingdoms!

One respondent in the Twitter feed countered that a benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government. True, on rare occasions in history, kingdoms thrived under the leadership of wise sovereigns. Then the monarchs died, and their average or below-average heirs messed things up. Not a sustainable form of good government.

Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not cheerleading for democracies either. All forms of human government suffer from one fault or another. Winston Churchill stated, “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.”

Democracies don’t choose leaders by familial line of succession, but rather through popularity contests—no sure-fire method of obtaining a wise head of state. History provides few examples of democracies, but the ones that existed often devolved into autocratic systems.

I agree with Palmer and Okorafor, but I’ll venture further. As observers and chroniclers of the human condition, writers shouldn’t glorify any brand of government. Fiction that does so comes across to readers like a morality play, a sermon.  

Governments are systems for consolidating and legitimizing the use of power and force. As Lord Acton wrote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Therefore, governments—all governments—tend toward corruption.

But what do I know? I’m neither king, nor prince, nor duke or earl. I’m just—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 1, 2021Permalink