Fundamental Laws for Thinking Machines

This subject can be traced back to the three ‘Laws of Robotics’ laid down by Isaac Asimov in Runaround. I, Robot -  the fictional Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D. Later Asimov in Foundation and Earth added a  Zeroth law.

These laws have been used in fiction, commented on, and modified by many authors during the last sixty years.. 

For my Gaia Nova novels I have rewritten these laws as the Fundamental Laws of Thinking Machines and added two more to cover what I think humans will want:

• thinking machines must serve and protect humanity and human beings and protect themselves in so doing.

• In addition humanity will require thinking machines not to construct other machines that do not respect these fundamentals and to destroy any machines that tried to do so.

• Humans will want to exert a control over the activities of thinking machines when these are material to human interests. 

I will write about each of these in subsequent blogs.