A hierarchy of constraints in which a machine must not harm humans, must obey them, and must protect itself, in that order of precedence.
Asimov wrote the stories to demonstrate that such rules fail under interpretation, and they are frequently cited as though they were a proposal. Every story in the sequence is a case of the laws going wrong.
In practice
- A content system instructed never to permit harm and always to obey blocks a doctor's clinical query, and both rules were followed.
- A committee writes three ranked principles for an automated decision, and the first case it meets turns on which of the three the situation belongs to.
- Standing
- Asimov wrote the stories to demonstrate that such rules fail under interpretation; they are frequently cited as though they were a proposal.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Technology & Software
- Essay
- Design rules that engineers pass down