Korea wants robotic prison guards

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by applejuice

The only way to have an incorruptible policeman is to design a robot/human programmed to obey the law... no exceptions. But, would we want an entity that executes the Law no matter the cost?

Human programmed to obey the law ... shudder! You should hear what you are saying.

Anyways I think there is a problem with AIs. A hope would be that they re rational, incorruptible and follow the rules 100%. The way it looks now, AIs are less likely to come from programming a set of rules and responses into a computer, but rather from creating learning machines, essentially neuronal networks that in a way mimic biological brains. There is to my knowledge no inherent reason why this would produce any of these desired outcomes. This has been dealt with in many Sci Fi novels. You run into two main problems there - the possibility of self-awareness of AIs at which point it becomes a philosophical/ethical problem and the unpredictability of behaviour of such systems - e.g. how would you ensure that an AI that was created by a learning process will obey the rules any more than you can ensure that for a human being. Even if you take Asimovs laws of robotics and somehow enforce them in such an AI, that as well can lead to undesired outcomes.

As usually thei thread deviates a lot from the OT, which was about the use of robotic prison guards and the potential of semi-autonomous robots like this to be used in ways that harm people. They are used as soldiers already, but I dont want to see them in prisons, schools, retirement homes or on the streets fighting uprisings or protests.