futurescope:

Robot paralysed by choice of who to save

New Scientist has a story about a new experiment that tests Asimov’s fictional First Law of Robotics in which ethical robots prevent humans from coming to harm.

CAN we teach a robot to be good? Fascinated by the idea, roboticist Alan Winfield of Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK built an ethical trap for a robot – and was stunned by the machine’s response.

In an experiment, Winfield and his colleagues programmed a robot to prevent other automatons – acting as proxies for humans – from falling into a hole. This is a simplified version of Isaac Asimov’s fictional First Law of Robotics – a robot must not allow a human being to come to harm.

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