The Laws of Robotics

When I first read Asimov's 'I Robot' it fired up in me an already huge ambition to become a technologist. Tackling technology and social issues through science fiction was not new but it was certainly new to me. Every automation project I have worked on has been influenced in some way by his Three Laws of Robotics but non more so than creating a trading robot.

Read about the Laws in more detail here. They are exquisitely stated, succinct, finely balanced generalizations, reading more like a set of ideals in a declaration of independence than the opaque code we are used to interpreting from our lawmakers:

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

2. A robot must obey the 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.

As a designer they provide helpful guides through the minefields of privacy, risk, autonomous decision making and of course responsibility.