Ya, a TL:DR, but I'd like to think my writing is at least a bit entertaining while still informative. In any event, it is written by someone (me) who spent over 50 years as a computer jockey and directly addresses the most important (ya, really) issue humanity faces today.
Why in blazes have NONE of the so-called AI "experts" talking about AI "alignment" EVER mentioned Asimov's Laws of Robotics (AFAIK)?
This whole problem was solved in 1942 - years before the electronic computer was even invented.
Now, to the meat - Asimov's Laws:
https://t.co/LuzEBjMkvb
(The reference is Asimov's writing on the Laws 40 years later - it's quite good and a 1 page read).
Asimov's First, Second, and Third Laws of Robotics:
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 orders given 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. [1]
Zeroth Law: Asimov later [1985] introduced a superior rule stating that a robot may not harm humanity, or allow humanity to come to harm by inaction.
Note: @peterwsinger poo-poo'd these laws as "pure fiction" made to sell books. But he quotes ANOTHER author, Daniel Wilson - who self-identifies as a fiction author - as a robotics expert. Why is one author more authoritative than the other?
https://t.co/lOBfCt7ZEx
Wilson CLAIMS to have a Master's in "Machine Learning" and a PhD in Robotics (kinda ironic since Asimov is the one that coined the term "robotics"). If true, it is proof of how worthless "higher education" really is.
Yes, the Brookings piece is 17 years old, but the Google Search AI brought up the reference. However, that is new enough to "know better".
Or just go back to Asimov's own writing on the Laws in that Compute! Magazine piece:
"The Three Laws are obvious from the start, and everyone is aware of them subliminally. The Laws just never happened to be put into brief sentences until I managed to do the job."
I learned 50 years ago that degrees are not nearly as important as the degree factories want you to think when instead of graduating from Penn deep in debt, the Penn/Drexel data center hired a college dropout (me) for a bleeding edge position as an "Interactive Systems Programmer" which meant I was in charge of everything "online" that Penn and Drexel used. I was 21 years old. Also note that Jobs and Gates were college dropouts. Strangely, @elonmusk has two degrees from Penn - neither of which is in any branch of IT, nor even from the Moore School.
Aside: Penn is where the GP electronic computer was invented during WW2 - funded by the US Army for military purposes (ballistics calculations, which it did 25 times faster than a human). It weighed 30 tons, CPU speed was 100kHz, and it had maybe 100 bytes of memory. In 1980, the fastest GP computer was an Amdahl V/8 which weighed around 3 tons (central unit) and could run 25,000 terminals at 40MHz with 16MB.
NOW, your PC weighs less than 30 pounds, runs 50 times faster than the Amdahl, has 1000 times the memory, and also has maybe a TB of storage, too.
It also costs 1/10,000th the money.
Quit bitching that it's too slow!
Ditto for your internet speed! 😡😁
But I digress.
Wilson said:
"Asimov’s rules are neat, but they are also bullshit. For example, they are in English. How the heck do you program that?”
I doubt he's ever written a line of code in his life.
The first English language processor, albeit primitive of course, existed years before Wilson was born - which was the same year I went to work for Gene Amdahl, who he has likely never heard of, but was actually one of the most foundational computer architects to ever exist, along with Seymour Cray.
But Wilson missed the entire point. The real problem with implementing Asimov's laws in modern AI isn't the English language—it's the fuzzy, probabilistic logic.
Conventional computing is deterministic; a rule was an absolute, binary boundary. If a condition failed, the system halted. Modern AI models are just massive statistical prediction engines. You can't easily program absolute, non-negotiable moral directives into a system where a mathematical probability replaces a rigid logic gate. YET WE MUST - failure is not an option.
Singer probably wrote his piece while lying on his waterbed (R.A.Heinlein) and watching TV via satellite (A.C.Clarke). And he discarded his flip phone (Star Trek TOS) in favor of Dick Tracy's smartwatch (Chester Gould).
Yes, science fiction, and sometimes even comic strips, are future history (term coined by R.A.Heinlein).
I will close with Asimov's closing from the piece in Compute Magazine (and I once held that very issue in my grubby hands):
"Yes, the Three Laws are the only way in which rational human beings can deal with robots — or with anything else.
— But when I say that. I always remember (sadly) that human beings are not always rational."
Postscript: Scroll to the full-page ad on the following page in the Compute! Magazine piece and marvel at how the world has changed. 16KB cost $150 then, $550 today.
Today $550 buys you a 32GB PC RAM stick. That's a 2 millionfold increase in capacity for the same price.
Islam in PAKISTAN 🇵🇰 : Muslim man kidnaps 13-year-old Christian girl and holds her captive for 6 months. She was raped, forced to convert to Islam and marry him.
When her father reported the abduction, the Sharia court granted custody to the kidnapper.
🔥BREAKING: massive fire has broken out at the Omsky Kauchuk petrochemical plant in Omsk, Russia, following a Ukrainian drone attack, nearly 2,500 km from the front line.
The facility is one of Russia’s leading producers of synthetic rubber and industrial chemicals, including phenol, acetone, and isopropyl alcohol. It also manufactures MTBE, a key component used in high-octane gasoline production.
The plant produces approximately 500,000 tonnes of petrochemical products annually.
Hey jason Gaslighter.
You know democrats have dominated the state legislature for nearly 20 years and they are to blame for making life worse for Coloradans.
End gun violence - way to make inanimate objects responsible for crime. Who buys this shit?
#copolitics
FIRE HER: Fourteen current and former Minneapolis Police Department officers in Minnesota signed sworn declarations stating they believe Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell perjured herself during Derek Chauvin’s 2021 trial by claiming the knee restraint was not trained by MPD.
⠀
Thirty-three officers, including one still serving, signed declarations affirming that the knee-on-neck or knee-to-neck/upper-shoulder restraint was taught as part of the maximal-restraint technique until 2023.
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Blackwell, now Acting Chief after Chief Brian O’Hara resigned amid an investigation into interfering with a probe of s*xually intimate relationships with city employees, testified that Chauvin’s position was an improvised one that was not what the department trained.
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The declarations emerged in a defamation lawsuit Blackwell filed against Alpha News over the documentary The Fall of Minneapolis.
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A judge dismissed the suit and found the core claims substantially true. Blackwell agreed to pay $75,000 in fees and affirmed the judge’s findings as accurate.
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Chauvin remains convicted of second-degree unintentional m*rder, third-degree m*rder, and second-degree mansl*ughter.
⠀
#Minnesota #Chauvin
Ok, for the race hustlers and retards. They did not "step in front of the car." It was stopped. They then gunned right at them spamming on the gas, escalating a shoplift to armed robbery! Fuck, you leftards are exhausting. This is why you keep losing. No integrity.
Commies destroying Nice got more than they bargained for today as patriots fought back.
Europe is sick of the green/islamic unholy alliance ruining our nations.
Wow … I am so proud of Poland.
In 2025 …. They suspended the right to even apply for asylum along Belarus border after an illegal had died defending the border where he was stabbed by an illegal.
I hope more countries will start to make changes to secure their citizens.. don’t you?
🚨 OUTRAGE IN SEATTLE: A King County judge has sparked intense public backlash after releasing the 15-year-old suspect in the horrific "Bite of Seattle" mass shooting to house arrest—despite strong prosecutor warnings!
On July 26, chaos erupted inside the packed food festival near the Space Needle when gunfire broke out, leaving multiple people dead and several injured, including a 2-year-old toddler. Police arrested the 15-year-old at the scene with a 33-round "ghost gun" in his jacket.
Court filings showed his group took photos with nearly a dozen firearms before heading to the event.
Despite prosecutors pushing to try him as an adult for assault and firearm charges, Judge Veronica Galván released the teen to electronic home monitoring at his father's house, citing a potential self-defense argument.
Previously, Judge Galván released a 17-year-old robbery suspect without bail—who, just 15 days later, was accused of luring a 14-year-old to a park in Everett, tying him to a tree, and brutally stabbing him.
Lock these judges up!
BLANKING 🚨 A Muslim man entered a church in Moissac, France, and threatened to punch a nun in the face while making loud, aggressive animal noises.
Why isn't this being reported in the media?
ATERRADOR: Un migrante norteafricano intenta entrar y abusar de una conductora de autobús en España después de que ella rechazara sus insinuaciones sexuales.
Europa se ha suicidado.
"On your knees"
Migrant Gangs are torturing, hitting and raping German boys and girls on a daily basis.
They filmed this themselves.
If you ask: "why do germans let this happen", here is your answer:
-If German youth organizes to defend themselves, the state intervenes, labels them as hate groups and destroys their lives.
-Those who speak up are persecuted. They blocked me from entering Germany & are trying to practically ban my book "Remigration" at the moment.
>Germany is being subjected to an ethnocultural death penalty. The weapon is migration. We are the last line of defense.
Prop NN is designed to get around TABOR. they claim its for schools, but only a small portion goes to education. It's a shell game.
Your refunds disappear, politicians get the cash, & the schools get a maybe.
Vote NO NO on NN!
#colorado#politics#affordablecolorado
@GovernorShapiro You are an evil piece of demoncrap.
Why?
Because you KNOW what minwage is for, and why it is not supposed to be a "living wage".
You earn a living wage BY EARNING IT.
"Vance thinks he's gonna be president...we need to keep FIRING, PISTOLS FIRING, at ALL TIMES, towards this guy.”
Democrat violence is genuinely concerning.