>>Are robots with Positronic Neural Nets the only type subject to the
>>laws of robotics?
>
>Not even most of them, as Gryphon points out.
>
>The original Asimov's Laws will eventually end with the robot
>imprisoning its master in order to protect them. (May not, by
>inaction, allow a human to come to harm.) Even by giving exemptions to
>allow humans freedom of choice, the laws are less than optimal; any
>robot complex enough to require the laws is also complex enough to
>bypass them, and has a small chance of being complex enough to make
>those programmed-in laws a violation of civil rights. Indeed. And some of the horrifying consequences are explored in the
"Foundation" books that follow on from Asimov's work (Foundation's Fear,
Foundation and Chaos, and something else, by Brin, Benford, and someone
else... examples include destroying all record of human history prior to
the Empire, the construction of von-neumann-warships to empty the galaxy
of non-human sentience, placement of empathic projectors in orbit over
every inhabited planet... yeah, that is NOT a universe I want to live in.
--
"Eat hot blazing photonic pulse fire, you alien invading human-abducting saucer-alien bastards!" -- Captain of EAS Bellerophon, firing on a Vree cruiser.