Why Guardrails for AI Ethics is an Important Ask

THE FAMOUS SCI-FI WRITER Isaac Asimov foretold the shape of artificial intelligence (AI) to come. This was much before the ideology was even incubated into commercialisation. He developed the Three Laws of Robotics, as an antidote to the challenges of autonomous AI. 

- Srinath Sridharan

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.”

In his later years, he added a fourth law (or rather Zeroth law as he wanted this new law to precede the earlier ones) in his fiction novel – a plot where robots take over governing the planets and humans.

Zeroth Law — “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”.

AI 101

Artificial Intelligence “is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.” 

— John McCarthy, early proponent of AI