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Ask HN: What has happened to Azimov's rules for robots in 2025?

by eimrine on 5/19/25, 6:33 PM with 4 comments

Why have people forgotten the three rules? There are numerous reports of the development of manned robots, semi-autonomous targeting devices, and the inevitable emergence of swarms of fully autonomous killer devices.

  • by pavel_lishin on 5/19/25, 6:48 PM

    The three rules were never meant to be a guideline for how to safely build artificial intelligences; the three rules were incredibly fallible, and most of the stories centered around how they weren't enough to protect neither humans nor robots, or about the unintended consequences of those rules.

    I remember reading somewhere that Asimov explicitly made the rules faulty, so he could write interesting stories, but I don't know if that's apocryphal or not.

  • by sherdil2022 on 5/20/25, 6:03 AM

    Those rules are not 'set in stone' - for lack of a better term. They are more like guidelines.

  • by bigyabai on 5/19/25, 6:35 PM

    Capitalism has one rule: is it profitable?

    Much simpler to program around.