The 3 Laws of Humanity or why AI may make us more ethical

We are entering the age of Isaac Asimov's "3 Laws of Robotics." While many pundits and industry experts are running around like Chicken Little, lamenting the proverbial AI sky is falling, I think we may be at a moment of positive change, at least as far as business and politics (let's leave this one alone til after the 2020 elections) are concerned. This is not simply a Pollyanna view of current trends and things to come. The conditions are right for transformation and with the advent of neo-humanistic technologies, we could truly change the world.

Wow, that sounds great. How are we going to do it? Well, let's start with the three laws and go from there. Isaac Asimov, writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, introduced the 3 Laws of Robotics in his 1942 short story, "Runaround," and then later in "I, Robot." The laws were as follows:

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

What is interesting to me is that if you replace the word robot with the word human you get the following:

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

Hmm. So, if humans and robots (AI) must follow these same laws in all that they do, we might find ourselves in quite an interesting world.

Let's look at one potential example. The board of directors for a major agriculture company adds AI to its board of directors. The company needs the board to approve a new line of business that has been shown to have the potential to be extremely profitable, however, a side effect is it will cause harm to both company workers and one percent of the consumers. Based on the first law, the robot AI would not be able to approve the decision to move forward and the line of business would not be created and no humans would be harmed. Now, extrapolate this same scenario to all businesses world-wide. While this would not happen overnight, we have the potential to suddenly find businesses (and, eventually individuals and governments) focused on serving and benefiting humanity and proactively striving to do no harm.

So, when we look at the ethical ramifications of AI and robotics, consider it works both ways. Let's start looking at the upside and work with the robots to make the world better for humanity.