Robot arm punches human to obey Asimov's rules

[Swede]

Isaac Asimov would probably have been horrified at the experiments under way in a robotics lab in Slovenia.

There, a powerful robot has been hitting people over and over again in a bid to induce anything from mild to unbearable pain - in apparent defiance of the late sci-fi sage's famed first law of robotics, which states that "a robot may not injure a human being".

But the robo-battering is all in a good cause, insists Borut Povše, who has ethical approval for the work from the University of Ljubljana, where he conducted the research. He has persuaded six male colleagues to let a powerful industrial robot repeatedly strike them on the arm, to assess human-robot pain thresholds.

http://io9.com/5665282/robot-arm-punches-human-to-obey-asimovs-rules

[tridim]

1. LOL

:rofl:

Is a robotic arm technically a robot as defined by Asimov?

[krispos42]

2. Robot, punch yourself

Problem solved!



The Three Laws of Robotics are as follows:

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 any orders given to 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.

[johnnypneumatic]

3. it only works if a robot is programmed with the 3 laws

it only works if a robot is programmed with the 3 laws in the first place.

If is is programmed to hit humans, then it will hit humans.

Bender: Kill all humans!

[NBachers]

4. Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Only works with robots having ...

genuine positronic brains™. If there's an "Intel Inside" sticker on the chassis, pain and suffering are not excluded.

[Tesha]

7. Not to mention errors in floating-point arithmetic. (NT)

[sakabatou]

6. This has got to get an Ignobel Award