Three Laws of Robotics

From Citizendium
Revision as of 18:21, 15 March 2007 by imported>Benjamin McCandless (Creation, in all of it's rudimentary glory)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by Isaac Asimov that governed the behavior of all Robots. They are as follows:

  1. A robot may not harm a human, or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
  2. A robot must follow orders given to it by humans, except where this would conflict with the first law.
  3. A robot must protect it's own existance, except where such protection would conflict with the First or Second law.

The Three Laws were first introduced in their current form in the short story Runaround, published in 1942. However, in the short story Liar! the First Law was mentioned, and the other two were alluded to.