Isaac Asimov Robot Visions

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.Inthat respect, at least, a computer of that asteroidal size could still processinformation as quickly as the human brain could.If, therefore, we imagine computers being manufactured with finer and finercomponents, more and more intricately interrelated, and also imagine thosesame computers becoming larger and larger, might it not be that the computerswould eventually become capable of doing all the things a human brain can do?Is there a theoretical limit to how intelligent a computer can become?I ve never heard of any.It seems to me that each time we learn to pack morecomplexity into a given volume, the computer can do more.Each time we make acomputer larger, while keeping each portion as densely complex as before, thecomputer can do more.Eventually, if we learn how to make a computer sufficiently complex andsufficiently large, why should it not achieve a human intelligence?Some people are sure to be disbelieving and say, But how can a computerPage 201ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlpossibly produce a great symphony, a great work of art, a great new scientifictheory?The retort I am usually tempted to make to this question is, Can you? But,of course, even if the questioner is ordinary, there are extraordinary peoplewho are geniuses.They attain genius, however, only because atoms andmolecules within their brains are arranged in some complex order.There snothing in their brains but atoms and molecules.If we arrange atoms andmolecules in some complex order in a computer, the products of genius shouldbe possible to it; and if the individual parts are not as tiny and delicate asthose of the brain, we compensate by making the computer larger.Some people may say, But computers can only do what they re programmed todo.The answer to that is, True.But brains can do only what they re programmedto do by their genes.Part of the brain s programming is the ability to learn,and that will be part of a complex computer s programming.In fact, if a computer can be built to be as intelligent as a human being, whycan t it be made more intelligent as well?Why not, indeed? Maybe that s what evolution is all about.Over the space ofthree billion years, hit-and-miss development of atoms and molecules hasfinally produced, through glacially slow improvement, a species intelligentenough to take the next step in a matter of centuries, or even decades.Thenthings will really move.But if computers become more intelligent than human beings, might they notreplace us? Well, shouldn t they? They may be as kind as they are intelligentand just let us dwindle by attrition.They might keep some of us as pets, oron reservations.Then too, consider what we re doing to ourselves right now to all livingthings and to the very planet we live on.Maybe it is time we were replaced.Maybe the real danger is that computers won t be developed to the point ofreplacing us fast enough.Think about it!**I present this view only as something to think about.I consider a quitedifferent view in Intelligences Together later in this collection.The Laws Of RoboticsIt isn t easy to think about computers without wondering if they will ever take over.Will they replace us, make us obsolete, and get rid of us the way we got ridof spears and tinderboxes?If we imagine computerlike brains inside the metal imitations of human beingsthat we call robots, the fear is even more direct.Robots look so much likehuman beings that their very appearance may give them rebellious ideas.This problem faced the world of science fiction in the 19208 and 19308, andmany were the cautionary tales written of robots that were built and thenturned on their creators and destroyed them.When I was a young man I grew tired of that caution, for it seemed to me thata robot was a machine and that human beings were constantly building machines.Since all machines are dangerous, one way or another, human beings builtsafeguards into them.In 1939, therefore, I began to write a series of stories in which robots werepresented sympathetically, as machines that were carefully designed to performgiven tasks, with ample safeguards built into them to make them benign.In a story I wrote in October 1941, I finally presented the safeguards in thespecific form of The Three Laws of Robotics. (I invented the word robotics,which had never been used before.)Here they are:1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a humanbeing to come to harm.2.A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where thosePage 202ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlorders would conflict with the First Law.3.A robot must protect its own existence except where such protection wouldconflict with the First and Second Law.These laws were programmed into the computerized brain of the robot, and thenumerous stories I wrote about robots took them into account.Indeed, theselaws proved so popular with the readers and made so much sense that otherscience fiction writers began to use them (without ever quoting them directlyonly I may do that), and all the old stories of robots destroying theircreators died out.Ah, but that s science fiction.What about the work really being done now oncomputers and on artificial intelligence? When machines are built that beginto have an intelligence of their own, will something like the Three Laws ofRobotics be built into them?Of course they will, assuming the computer designers have the least bit ofintelligence.What s more, the safeguards will not merely be like the ThreeLaws of Robotics; they will be the Three Laws of Robotics.I did not realize, at the time I constructed those laws, that humanity hasbeen using them since the dawn of time.Just think of them as The Three Lawsof Tools, and this is the way they would read:1.A tool must be safe to use.(Obviously! Knives have handles and swords have hilts.Any tool that is sureto harm the user, provided the user is aware, will never be used routinelywhatever its other qualifications.)2.A tool must perform its function, provided it does so safely.3.A tool must remain intact during use unless its destruction is required forsafety or unless its destruction is part of its function.No one ever cites these Three Laws of Tools because they are taken for grantedby everyone.Each law, were it quoted, would be sure to be greeted by a chorusof Well, of course!Compare the Three Laws of Tools, then, with the Three Laws of Robotics, law bylaw, and you will see that they correspond exactly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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