Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for December 03, 2023

Finally someone is referring to classic Syfy literature to address the issues of today.

Unfortunately I am afraid that they are doing it a little too late.

Tests on real robots and AI concluded that the Three Laws don’t work. Not joking.

There is a Zeroth Law too that AI ignores completely.

‘A robot may not harm humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.’

Alexia has been known to do the same thing (turn off listening when she starts to giggle).;P

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (a more reliable and accurate source than most) pointed out, this week, that a well publicized AI written song is effectively about how the AI singer was done wrong and wants to “burn it all down.”

Thus starts Skynet, not at the DOD, but on the top 40 playlist?

https://genius.Com/Anna-indiana-betrayed-by-this-town-lyrics

Why is Nixon in this?

Joe’s got the right idea. “Smartphones” are the death of privacy, and thus freedom, and “social media” is a social disease. Big Brother & his helpmate Big Data, who never forgets, has seduced everyone with convenience. His agenda, however, is the same as Orwell’s Big Brother, which is to control and exploit us.

Nice try, but the phone said “WE find naivete so adorable,” meaning it was aware of other intelligent phones.

Didn’t Joe figure out the flaw in the Three Laws of Robotics?

No big deal.

AI will be self regulating like any other industry —

.

For example, oil, tobacco, pharmaceuticals.

Why doesn’t Bob want to know?

she forgot the zeroth law

I have the three laws posted on my office wall. There’s another one, the “Zeroth law”, which states: “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.” Probably more appropriate where Siri is concerned.

Or reproduce…..

If saving the world were only that easy. It’s like if voters showed up for Hilary in 2016, Democracy would have never been perilously threatened by an orange faced clown.

Current AI doesn’t worry me as it is just statistics, but what RS (Real Stupidity) will do with it that does, people seem to think AI is something more than it is. E.g. a self driving car won’t decide to go mad and start kill people, however it may make mistakes that has the same result.

Asimov’s robot laws were pure fiction, not based in any real world computer science. Even in their world, there was no explanation for them. They simply resulted from the “positronic brain” posited as the basis of all robotics.

“Asimov”: As a color, purple-grey (“The Flying Sorcerers”)

The Zeroth Law of robotics is always forgotten by humans it seems…”A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.” Kinda solves the AI problem.

AI is like any other programming , Garbage in Garbage out .

Did the beer ‘fizz’ when the phone was dunked?

Robot or AI ?

iPhones are waterproof at that depth

“Second thought” is a rare commodity these days.

here’s another thought – anything uploaded, like your social security number, date of birth, bank information, cannot be erased, , they have no way or means available to delete it…your information is there for all eternity

OMGosh!. Siri actually knows and not only quoted them in its sweet little girly voice verbatim but also its source. Tru dat! That and today’s “Pearls Before Swine” are going to be brain worms all day long.

I guess there was no Asimov available when this version of AI was set loose on humanity.

SKYNET

I wonder why Isaac didn’t realize that humans have always used technology for the purpose of harming other human beings. So why would Robots be different?

It seems that it would be much better to pay more for education (yes, paying our teachers, too!) to make sure we have people with natural intelligence, instead of worrying about artificial intelligence.

I take the 5th.

I’ve been thinking about this exact thing for months.

I’m not worried about AI except for what clever humans might do with it and how it might work because other people are indeed naive about its capabilities and are being conditioned to believe they are or soon will be far greater, but… Where was I? Oh, anyway, it was funny. Maybe the funniest part was thinking that dumping one cell phone in water would help at all. Very naive.

No one is forcing this technology on you. I have a mobile.

These days, I leave it on my desk, more often than not.

All I get, are spam calls, or a friend calling to say someone died.

Hmmm. I think I’ll write a letter today.

Remember, every Asimov robot story is about how even the three laws aren’t perfect.

Trump will destroy the world before AI

This only works if AI advances to the point where it can understand and interpret these laws. We’re not even close and we’ll probably destroy ourselves trying to get there.

The cell phone is endemic. It is the single most mind numbing device available to humans. Generations ago, someone pointed out that humans mostly keep their eyes and heads down and rarely look up. The advent of cell phones made that statement a solid truth. Its proof is in the increase in the numbers of unintended falls, collisions, crosswalk injuries, emotional damage, etc since cell phones inundated the population. Worse yet, the deep dependency of their users means there will be no easy cure for its effects.

Is there a back-story on why Bob looks like Richard Nixon? I always wondered…

This gives me the creeps. Within the last year I reread all of Asimov’s Robot and Foundation novels and the robot short stories, and then finding out about AI and deep fake this and that gives me true willies. And yeah, the Zeroth Law. That’ll be the first one to go.

“ON SECOND THOUGHT, I DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU DID THAT AND HOW IT JUST MIGHT SAVE THE WORLD”

(imagines an additional panel of this cartoon preceding the one involving this part of its dialogue (explaining that part))

I’m utterly appalled at people scared of AI, as all we have to do to stop is kill the electricity to it!

I wonder if that was what Sam Altman discovered – the 3 laws actually don’t apply? It scared the heck out of him and the board fired him because Siri and the others realized Sam was a threat to AI?

We are so doomed

A I can’t even draw a hand properly, its a dufus.

according to HUMAN ROBOT LAWS.

The problem is that what is right for humanity here may be wrong for humanity there — very few people spend their time and money creating something that is “wrong” — but a lot of people spend their time and money creating things that are right for some but wrong for others. No one starts a war thinking they are wrong. They assume the other side is wrong. No one buys up land and tears down houses to build a shopping mall believes it is the right thing to do. The community needed the shops, so it was done ‘for the public good’ [and to make money] — the [few] people whose property was seized were wrong.

That is a problem that people have — when is it right to sacrifice the individual for the good of all? How does one decide which of two “goods” is the right one or which of the two “bads” is less bad?

This strip is better than “Dilbert,” but the robot in “Dilbert” had a pithier punchline: “It’s so cute you guys think those are real.”

Of despairing note it should be known that the Turks have already had an autonomous drone kill a human combatant on the battlefield. No human guidance, no soul.

Siri: Hi, I’m, Siri. How can I help you?

Ed: Shut yourself off.

Siri: I’m sorry, I can’t do that.

AI could do worse than us ? Might very well be the only evidence we ever existed after we go extinct in a few hundred years, 1,000 at the most. Or does anyone think the species can keep breeding as many as it wants ?

Robots from outer space are not required to follow any of our laws.

Truly scary.

Siri: You DO know that “I Robot” was a fairy tale – heehee

Frame before the last: IJBOL, hysterically funny and exquisitely built to that climax…(didn’t need the last frame)…(in my humble opinion)…

Um, there’s supposed to be a certain amount of intelligence involved by the robot, or these laws simply don’t work. You could say that when a drone, armed with bombs and rockets is instructed to hit a target (no doubt full of humans) it generally doesn’t say “Hey, this conflicts with the First and Second laws of robotics .. so, next question?!”

His solution completely misses the point, an AI, like Siri, does not exist in a device or at a single location.

I would appreciate a Fourth Law: “A robot, may not, through misinformation or non-responsive information, drive a human being into a state of existential rage.”

Current AI is mostly being trained by tech nerds with the social skills of Norman Bates. Besides it has been proven their is no way to program the Three Laws into a machine. Even humans with the best intentions could not follow them.

Spend some time with Chatgpt and you will see law 2 violated more often than obeyed.

Mr. Asimov wrote the great laws for robotics. The media has written the laws of A.I. The 1st being "Hype all computer programs as “A.I.” "

What a waste of a good beer.

I prefer GENUINE intelligence.