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gpm • today at 8:01 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

So first off, Asimov's entire point was these laws don't work. But also the entire setup of the trolley problem means that the robots only option is to violate 1. by either pulling or not-pulling the lever (though the server case is different - at least in the philosophical interpretation - I can easily see Asimov justifying it by saying that destroying the train-control-robot is going to cause a lot of human beings to come to harm).


Replies

Supermancho • today at 8:34 PM

> So first off, Asimov's entire point was these laws don't work.

Don't always work in all scenarios, was the takeaway.

There's a metric ton of salt to be taken with the mental concepts and possible interpretations of such "laws".

Largely, they do work in the stories, despite the inherent ambiguity.