The Three Laws Of Humanics

By I-click As-i-move*

Found at gmanetwork.com. I know it from somewhere else, and someone will tell me exactly where…

This should be easy. All we need to do is make suitable adjustments to Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws Of Robotics, which as everyone knows, go like this:

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 to 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.

It’s a piece of cake, innit?

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

Hmmm. You may have the same trouble with the amended Rule 2 that I do. Changing a to authorised, or to any equivalent, suggests an ant-like hierarchy that does not suit humans, despite their regular attempts to implement such arrangements. Who does the authorising? Does the human get a say?

Rule 3 also translates imperfectly, since it derives from the idea that a robot is a financially valuable item to its human owner. Humans, at least in the tiny fraction of the world we call civilised, don’t have owners. Well, they shouldn’t have owners. Some nations go so far as to say so in their Constitutions, although there are many ways round a Constitution.

Let’s see… after a bit of thought, in what you might call a First Amendment, Asimov added to his own Rules a fourth:

0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

Hey, now we’ve got four Rules! We only need three: three is a magic number, four isn’t. Suppose we retire Rule 2 and tidy up the others, what would we have left?

1. A human may not harm the rest of humanity, or, by inaction, allow the rest of humanity to come to harm.
2. A human may not injure another human being or, through inaction, allow another human being to come to harm, except where such action/inaction would conflict with the First Law.
3. A human may do whatever the hell it pleases as long as such pleasure does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I could live with those. What do you think?

* The name I-click As-i-move was invented by John T Sladek, a wonderful parodist and intricate plotter. Read, if you have not already, The Reproductive System. (If that link doesn’t work, work it out. You can do that, you’re a human. Aren’t you?)