Three Laws Blog: Law and Artificial Intelligence

Regulating Robots To Safeguard Humans? Here Are Some Suggestions @ConversationUS

Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are principles that supposedly govern robot behavior. In reality, they allowed Asimov to propel his stories. From the Conversation, a new proposal from Christopher Salge to regulate robots that would also protect humans. 

Very Inappropriate Robot Gavels @igavels

Bloomberg Business News features this piece about robots and their use in domestic relations law. The image would be fine if it pictured a U.S. judge--they use gavels. But it shows a robot in a wig, and U.K. and Canadian judges, for example, don wigs, when they're presiding in court. And they don't use gavels. Nor do Australian judges. 

I'm suggesting a Fifth Law of Robotics: A robot must not use gavels inappropriately. 

Balkin on The Three Laws of Robotics in the Age of Big Data @jackbalkin

Jack M. Balkin, Yale University Law School, is publishing The Three Laws of Robotics in the Age of Big Data in volume 78 of the Ohio State Law Journal (2017). Here is the abstract.

In his short stories and novels, Isaac Asimov imagined three law of robotics programmed into every robot. In our world, the "laws of robotics" are the legal and policy principles that should govern how human beings use robots, algorithms, and artificial intelligence agents. This essay introduces these basic legal principles using four key ideas: (1) the homunculus fallacy; (2) the substitution effect; (3) the concept of information fiduciaries; and (4) the idea of algorithmic nuisance. The homunculus fallacy is the attribution of human intention and agency to robots and algorithms. It is the false belief there is a little person inside the robot or program who has good or bad intentions. The substitution effect refers to the multiple effects on social power and social relations that arise from the fact that robots, AI agents, and algorithms substitute for human beings and operate as special-purpose people. The most important issues in the law of robotics require us to understand how human beings exercise power over other human beings mediated through new technologies. The "three laws of robotics" for our Algorithmic Society, in other words, should be laws directed at human beings and human organizations, not at robots themselves. Behind robots, artificial intelligence agents and algorithms are governments and businesses organized and staffed by human beings. A characteristic feature of the Algorithmic Society is that new technologies permit both public and private organizations to govern large populations. In addition, the Algorithmic Society also features significant asymmetries of information, monitoring capacity, and computational power between those who govern others with technology and those who are governed. With this in mind, we can state three basic "laws of robotics" for the Algorithmic Society: First, operators of robots, algorithms and artificial intelligence agents are information fiduciaries who have special duties of good faith and fair dealing toward their end-users, clients and customers. Second, privately owned businesses who are not information fiduciaries nevertheless have duties toward the general public. Third, the central public duty of those who use robots, algorithms and artificial intelligence agents is not to be algorithmic nuisances. Businesses and organizations may not leverage asymmetries of information, monitoring capacity, and computational power to externalize the costs of their activities onto the general public. The term "algorithmic nuisance" captures the idea that the best analogy for the harms of algorithmic decision making is not intentional discrimination but socially unjustified "pollution" - that is, using computational power to make others pay for the costs of one's activities. Obligations of transparency, due process and accountability flow from these three substantive requirements. Transparency - and its cousins, accountability and due process - apply in different ways with respect to all three principles. Transparency and/or accountability may be an obligation of fiduciary relations, they may follow from public duties, and they may be a prophylactic measure designed to prevent unjustified externalization of harms or in order to provide a remedy for harm.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Asimov on the Three Laws of Robotics (Video)

Isaac Asimov on the Three Laws of Robotics he formulated so many years ago. Here, a video available via Open Culture.

Welcome To Three Laws

Three Laws is a blog devoted to artificial intelligence, robots, and the law (and other interesting and related issues).  As you can probably infer, the blog name refers to Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics:

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 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.

Asimov introduced the laws in his 1942 short story "Runaround."

Later, he introduced an earliest (zeroth) law:  0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

In future posts, I'll bring news of the interactions of the law and robotics, AI, and technology, and of the uses of robots and AI and how the law and society are interacting with them.