Robots R Us

Brooks endorses such a law, but cautions "we do not know how to build robots that are perceptive enough and smart enough to obey such laws." Any person knows that if she sees a car rushing toward a child see must yell, "Look out!" Basically, all the computing power in the world currently cannot grasp what a "harm through inaction" situation might be. For this reason, Brooks thinks that initial programming of robots must be very specific and restricted, as in, "you may do tasks A, B and C but nothing else."

Eventually, the pursuit of artificial intelligence may begin to move beyond that. Brooks, like so many others, throws up his hands on what this might mean, since "we are completely prescientific at this point on what consciousness is." Until consciousness can be understood or at least defined--and neither science nor religion is close--it will be impossible to say whether it could occur in electronic form. But then, our brains are mainly patterns of electricity, and we die when the electricity stops. Someday robots may earnestly insist they are conscious. First they must learn to mow the lawn.