[ Thanks to Chao-Kuei
Hung for this link. ]
“Globally, consumer rights and even human rights are
eroding as some vendors infect their consumer electronics with
Digital Restrictions Management mechanisms and as DMCA — the law
that tries to protect DRM — is being secretly negotiated by a few
strong countries and to be forced upon the rest of the world as
treaties (ACTA 1, 2). These strong forces are overriding the three
laws of robotics (if there ever will be at all) with something
else.“As Asimov pictures it, a robot should give highest priority to
(L1) protecting human beings (L2) obeying human orders (L3)
protecting itself, in that order, above anything else. Any robot in
Asimov’s Sci-Fi is equipped with a positronic brain that will go
nuts, so to speak, if it ever breaks these laws. This is to a
society heavily dependent on robots what a fuse is to an electronic
device. Imagine the threat one faces living in a world full of
robots without these laws.“Except that you really don’t have to imagine. We are living in
such a world.”