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Lord0fHats t1_j9cz910 wrote

4: Assimov's writing has extensive exploration of the three laws being insufficient beyond hypotheticals to assuage the fear of robots in men or to answer any the moral and ethical dilemmas they present.

I feel like at least part of the point of it all was that while the three laws embodied good principals they're too rigid in practice to actually be the basis of any sort of programmed behavior.

One of his stories is about the second and third law contradicting each other and locking the robot in a loop.

Another explores the duality of lying to spare people their feelings/hurting them by not telling the truth.

Others explore the ways the laws could inevitably be turned against people themselves.

Because the point of the Three Laws isn't to provide an answer for people's fear of machines. It was mostly fodder to create interesting and dramatic moral dilemmas. I.E. The three laws are not a serious proposal for how we deal with this problem.

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MarksmanKNG t1_j9eiitc wrote

Agreed on this. It provides a baseline foundation which can be comforting to the common layman at first glance.

But devil's in the details and as shown in his novels, there are a lot of details in a big spider web. And those details goes in both ways in more than one.

I'm hoping to pursue further in this with my own writing following Isaac Asimov's track. Truly a man of his time.

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