Robots of the Future

The gap between science fiction and science fact is closing, and closing fast. In fact, the technology is advancing so quickly that some people are already worried about what will happen when robots become as emotional as we are. Will they turn against their creators, as Capek predicted? In the new Hollywood blockbuster, I, Robot (which is loosely based on an eponymous collection of Asimov's short stories), Will Smith plays a detective investigating the murder of a famous scientist. Despite the fail-safe mechanism built into the robots, which prevents them from harming humans, the detective suspects that the scientist was killed by a robot. His investigation leads him to discover an even more serious threat to the human race.

I, Robot is set in the year 2035, thirty one years in the future. To get an idea of how advanced robots will be by then, think about how far videogames have come in the last thirty one years. Back in 1973, the most advanced videogame was Pong, in which a white dot representing a tennis ball was batted back and forth across a black screen. The players moved the bats up and down by turning the knobs on the game console. By today's standards, the game was incredibly primitive. That's how today's robots will look to people in the year 2035.

iRobots from the film

Will those future people look back at the primitive robots of 2004 and wish they hadn't advanced any further? If we want to avoid the nightmare scenario of a battle between humans and robots, we should start thinking about how to ensure that robots remain safe even when they are more intelligent. Isaac Asimov suggested that we could make sure robots don't become dangerous by programming them to follow the following 'Three Robot Laws':

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 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.

At first blush, these three laws might seem like a good way to keep robots in
their place. But to a roboticist they pose more problems than they solve. Asimov was well aware of this, and many of his short stories revolve around the contradictions and dilemmas implicit in the three laws.

The sobering conclusion that emerges from these stories is that preventing intelligent robots from harming humans will require something much more complex than simply programming them to follow the three laws.

Note on the Author: Dr Dylan Evans teaches robotics at the University of the West of England, Bristol.