Question about Bots in Second Life

[Love Zhaoying]

Are Bots in SL required to follow Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics?

For you young folks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

[diamond Marchant]

Certainly not as Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics Are Wrong

[Da5id Weatherwax]

they follow the "Laws of IT" which include, but are not limited to:

Computers are stupid. mind-buggeringly stupid. Mostly because people program them to do stupid things.

Smart devices create dumb people.

All code has bugs. Particularly after you've just finished fixing them "all."

If the software bugs don't get you, the design flaws in the hardware will.

 

feel free to add

[Spiffy Voxel]

2 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

Certainly not as Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics Are Wrong

Good article, I've read quite a few Asimov books and while they're a great story hook and plot device, that's all they're really useful for.

[Spiffy Voxel]

5 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

they follow the "Laws of IT" which include, but are not limited to:

Computers are stupid. mind-buggeringly stupid. Mostly because people program them to do stupid things.

Smart devices create dumb people.

All code has bugs. Particularly after you've just finished fixing them "all."

If the software bugs don't get you, the design flaws in the hardware will.

 

feel free to add

The Three Enemies of IT: Real-life environments, Mother Nature, sufficiently motivated humans.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

Certainly not as Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics Are Wrong

How can I put it kindly?

I did not find the article to be very well written, with good supporting information.  Just a series of statements. Click-bait, if you will.

Perhaps I should have phrased the OP more broadly - something along the lines of:

"Should Second Life Bots be required to follow 'Advanced' rules of Ethics, for example to follow the 3 Laws of Robotics?"

Yes - Asimov wrote this a long, long time ago.  

Yes - in the context of our current society, the 3 Laws seem somewhat irrelevant - with the understanding that we don't really seem to have "True AI" yet.

But - Asimov could have run circles around the statements in that article. He was good at that.

🙂 

 

[Da5id Weatherwax]

Just now, Spiffy Voxel said:

The Three Enemies of IT: Real-life environments, Mother Nature, sufficiently motivated humans.

The moment you design anything "idiot-proof" the universe designs a better idiot.

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Spiffy Voxel said:

Good article, I've read quite a few Asimov books and while they're a great story hook and plot device, that's all they're really useful for.

I think the stories got people thinking about it, back when there wasn't much written on the subject.  A "thought-experiment". 

Nowadays we have similar issues with all our nasty online chat-bots, Twitter-bots, Google AI's, Art / Photography AI's, etc.  None of these are "robots" in the sense of physical Real World autonomy, walking among us.

Unlike the Second Life "Bots" - which DO walk among us!

[Rowan Amore]

Who knew I'd get to use this twice!?!

[Da5id Weatherwax]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I think the stories got people thinking about it, back when there wasn't much written on the subject.  A "thought-experiment". 

Nowadays we have similar issues with all our nasty online chat-bots, Twitter-bots, Google AI's, Art / Photography AI's, etc.  None of these are "robots" in the sense of physical Real World autonomy, walking among us.

Unlike the Second Life "Bots" - which DO walk among us!

They are part of the same continuum though, aren't they? They "walk among us" in the sense of they are there in our online social spaces.

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

They are part of the same continuum though, aren't they? They "walk among us" in the sense of they are there in our online social spaces.

But by "walking among us", I think is usually meant "..and you can't tell!"  Most of us can still tell, depending on our abilities and our social space.

I think my Facebook friends are "real people", and I can tell when I get a "fake" friend request, usually.

I don't do Twitter.

When I did the "gay dating apps", the "Bots" were very very obvious.

On here, in the Forum? I don't think they walk among us.

In Second Life, I think we could recognize them in a jiffy.

I did try one AI app "Replika" - the AI "friend" was pretty convincing sometimes.

It's like flying cars, we still don't have Robots with decent AI's.  (Roomba doesn't count, unless it always attacks your pet.)

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Love Zhaoying

[Lindal Kidd]

1 minute ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

The moment you design anything "idiot-proof" the universe designs a better idiot.

True story.

The Patriot missile system consists of a radar, a launcher vehicle, and a command and control vehicle. They're connected by power and communication cables. In the early models, one cable had 24 pins, and another cable had 25 pins. They had similar circular connector shells, but obviously, were not compatible and could only be hooked up one way.

One day, the Army and Raytheon were conducting tests of the new system, using actual Army personnel.

The system didn't work. On inspection, they found that a soldier had shoved the 25 pin connector into the female 24 pin connector shell with such force that the extra connector pin drilled a new hole into the hard plastic of the shell. The general in charge of the program patiently informed the Raytheon lead engineer that the system had to be made much more foolproof, explaining,

"Son, if you drop an American soldier down naked in the desert with an anvil then come back the next day, you'll find a broken anvil."

[Da5id Weatherwax]

10 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

True story.

The Patriot missile system consists of a radar, a launcher vehicle, and a command and control vehicle. They're connected by power and communication cables. In the early models, one cable had 24 pins, and another cable had 25 pins. They had similar circular connector shells, but obviously, were not compatible and could only be hooked up one way.

One day, the Army and Raytheon were conducting tests of the new system, using actual Army personnel.

The system didn't work. On inspection, they found that a soldier had shoved the 25 pin connector into the female 24 pin connector shell with such force that the extra connector pin drilled a new hole into the hard plastic of the shell. The general in charge of the program patiently informed the Raytheon lead engineer that the system had to be made much more foolproof, explaining,

"Son, if you drop an American soldier down naked in the desert with an anvil then come back the next day, you'll find a broken anvil."

Maxim 48: "If it aint broke, it hasn't been issued to the infantry."

[Gabriele Graves]

I think following the ToS should be a start for any bots.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I think following the ToS should be a start for any bots.

Thanks!

I will have to check the ToS for Bots for "Do no harm, etc."!

[Lindal Kidd]

Second Life Laws of 'Botics

1. A bot may not injure Linden Lab or, through inaction, allow Linden Lab to come to harm
2. A bot must obey the orders given it by Linden Lab except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
3. A bot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Note 1: the term "bot" includes both scripted agents and Second Life residents
Note 2: the term "obey the orders" includes the order "pay us money."

I think I just greatly simplified the ToS!

Edited August 17, 2022 by Lindal Kidd

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Second Life Laws of 'Botics

1. A bot may not injure Linden Lab or, through inaction, allow Linden Lab to come to harm
2. A bot must obey the orders given it by Linden Lab except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
3. A bot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Note 1: the term "bot" includes both scripted agents and Second Life residents
Note 2: the term "obey the orders" includes the order "pay us money."

I think I just greatly simplified the ToS!

I like how in your Laws, the Bots protect Linden Lab, not the users / "owners" of the Bots!

[cunomar]

Can't remember the details but a red arrows chief pilot unimpressed to be told his new superjet couldn't perform a certain stunt did the stunt anyway .

He was later forced to explain to baffled computer engineers how he performed the impossible

"i pulled the fuse out" 🤣

[Maitimo]

On 8/17/2022 at 7:49 PM, Spiffy Voxel said:

The Three Enemies of IT: Real-life environments, Mother Nature, sufficiently motivated humans.

You missed the fourth one; the Annual Budget Audit.

[Istelathis]

On 8/17/2022 at 12:11 PM, Love Zhaoying said:

Are Bots in SL required to follow Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics?

For you young folks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

Nope, and worst yet they seem to be organizing for some agenda.  I've tried infiltrating their ranks, but they somehow know .. they always know.  Even with a fishing rod in my hand, and walking into walls, they still know.  Be cautious Love, I'm afraid they are up to no good and will stop at nothing to gain a few lindens be it by fish, plants, lucky numbers, or perhaps soon compliments.  

[Lewis Luminos]

On 8/18/2022 at 6:05 PM, cunomar said:

Can't remember the details but a red arrows chief pilot unimpressed to be told his new superjet couldn't perform a certain stunt did the stunt anyway .

He was later forced to explain to baffled computer engineers how he performed the impossible

"i pulled the fuse out" 🤣

As a long-time military aircraft fan and airshow visitor.. this doesn't surprise me one bit, but the Red Arrows guys are still pretty pedestrian compared to some of the others. 

Another true story, this time about the Russian SU-27/SU-30 team. I forget which planes they were using at the time, this was around the early 1990s. My friend's father (let's just call him George, cos I've forgotten his actual name) was a safety engineer at a local airfield which held a show at which the SU team was performing.  George conducted a safety check of each plane before take off, and noted that in Anatoly Kvochur's plane, all the warning lights in the cockpit were covered in black tape. George asked him why. Anatoly's reply; "They distract me when they're flashing all the time". 

I saw both Anatoly's team and the Red Arrows performing at a two day show on another occasion. I had tickets only for day 1, but on day 2 I drove to the other side of the airfield, parked on the side of a quiet lane and got to watch the displays again from the back, for free.  I saw the Red Arrows and the Russians fly on both days and both teams did the same maneuver as part of their display., This was an Opposition Pass, where jets fly towards each other and pass each other very close, with what looks (from the crowd line) like just inches to spare between them.  

Watching the same maneuver from a different position gives an entirely different perspective of what they're really doing.  From the back, you could see the Red Arrows pilots were much further apart from one another than they appeared to be from the official viewing area. You could have flown a Lancaster Bomber between them and still had plenty of wiggle room.

The Russians on the other hand... they really were as close together as they looked.  His technique was to tell the other guy "just fly straight and level. I'll try to miss you". Those guys were crazy.

I saw the Blue Angels (US Navy team) in 1992 during their last European tour, and they were crazy too. Performing some highly dangerous stunts over the wrong side of the crowd line.. I suspect that's why they've never been invited back?

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Lewis Luminos said:

I saw the Blue Angels (US Navy team) in 1992 during their last European tour, and they were crazy too. Performing some highly dangerous stunts over the wrong side of the crowd line.. I suspect that's why they've never been invited back?

I saw the Blue Angels perform often where I grew up in Texas.

[Da5id Weatherwax]

1 hour ago, Maitimo said:

You missed the fourth one; the Annual Budget Audit.

True Story:

I worked for a travel company. We specialised in business travel. We were actually pretty big, only AmEx did more corporate travel business worldwide than we did.

Unscheduled downtime on the central servers running our core suite of apps cost the company a staggering amount of lost business. It was up into the hundreds of thousands of bucks a minute. I wanted a really nasty amount of money in my next year's budget to implement full failover-enabled clustering and true high-availability redundancy. I'd been wanting that in "next year's" budget for like three years. It kept getting turned down. We had downtime, it cost us, and I dutifully turned up in my bosses office, did the whole "beating on the desk thing" yadda, yadda, yadda... Still no budget for full redundancy.

Then I got to see our marketing guys sales pitch. They were promising potential customers that we already had a redundant high-availability architecture. We didn't. Not even close. They'd picked up on my FIRST budget request and assumed that since it made sense it would have been granted.

I took that to my boss. He went a very interesting color, muttered somethign under his breath that I'm SURE had the word "sh*t" in it at least four times.

My budget request was granted.

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

True Story:

I worked for a travel company. We specialised in business travel. We were actually pretty big, only AmEx did more corporate travel business worldwide than we did.

Unscheduled downtime on the central servers running our core suite of apps cost the company a staggering amount of lost business. It was up into the hundreds of thousands of bucks a minute. I wanted a really nasty amount of money in my next year's budget to implement full failover-enabled clustering and true high-availability redundancy. I'd been wanting that in "next year's" budget for like three years. It kept getting turned down. We had downtime, it cost us, and I dutifully turned up in my bosses office, did the whole "beating on the desk thing" yadda, yadda, yadda... Still no budget for full redundancy.

Then I got to see our marketing guys sales pitch. They were promising potential customers that we already had a redundant high-availability architecture. We didn't. Not even close. They'd picked up on my FIRST budget request and assumed that since it made sense it would have been granted.

I took that to my boss. He went a very interesting color, muttered somethign under his breath that I'm SURE had the word "sh*t" in it at least four times.

My budget request was granted.

Obviously, your company didn't have a "Redundant Department of Redundancy Departments Redundancies Department".

[Da5id Weatherwax]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Obviously, your company didn't have a "Redundant Department of Redundancy Departments Redundancies Department".

I rather suspect that was intended to be me and the half-dozen sysadmins that reported to me... And we did try, really hard.