Robotic Persons and Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics

Abstract

Abstract Famously, the writer Isaac Asimov came up with three laws of robotics. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. But these laws rest on the notion that artificial intelligence can never reach the stage that robots would acquire moral status—a premise with which this chapter takes issue.