Very Interesting – July-August 2019

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interesting

• A robot must obey the orders
  received from a human except
  where such orders would conflict
  the First Law.


• A robot must protect its own
  existence as long as such
  protection does not conflict with
  the First or Second Laws.
  Their working theory is that robots
  can be programmed to know that
  they can affect a situation for the
  betterment of all involved. One
  valid example is that you could
  teach a robot not to push a human
  for fear of hurting them, but that a
  robot which understood its
  environment and the rules of
  empowerment would understand
  that pushing a person out of the
  path of a car would be acceptable.

Dialled in

 When will we run out of

cellphone numbers?

Daniel Shaw,Pretoria

No real research has been

conducted regarding this question

in South Africa. The rest of the

world, however, has been panicking

about it since around 2014.

ACMA, an Australian company,

reported the registration of 24.

million cell numbers in 2011,

estimating that they will need

between six and 62 million new cell

numbers by 2020. In the UK, 2014

Robot corruption

If we are training robots to

learn and think like us, what

will stop them from

developing thoughts of theft

or corruption to enrich

themselves?

Mark Booysen, Benoni

Owen Holland, a researcher

from Essex University,

believes that a conscious

robot would have to build up

internal models – one for the

robot itself and another for

the surrounding world.

As humans we process

physical limitations (what we

could do), what the best

choice is (what we should

do), but also what we are

most likely to choose and the

outcomes thereof (what we

would do). Holland uses the

analogy of a recovering

alcoholic needing cigarettes,

with the choice of a bar next

door or a shop a block away.

He could physically go to

either. He should go to the

shop, but he will end up

drinking in a bar.

Daniel Polani and Christoph

Salge from Hertfordshire

University published a paper

in Frontiers 29 in June 2017

titled Empowerment As

Replacement for the Three

Laws of Robotics. The rules

they refer to are Asimov’s

Three Laws:

• A robot may not injure a
  human being or, through
  inaction, allow a human to
  come to harm.

After four reboots,

it felt good to be

wanted.