Korea wants robotic prison guards

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Actually, not only are you using a fallacy (The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence - Less Wrong)

I assume now that this was directed mostly at me as I brought up SciFi?

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

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

I read your "fallacy" article and it was interesting but I think it is valid to use SciFi novels as a reference to what others have thought of before. I would not conclude from it that it has to be so, but in some cases at least those are really good researched novels. Things like "Terminator" and other movie or cheap SciFi stuff is mostly an exciting story, but good novels (something that has become a rarity these days) actually look at the problems of society, technologies and explore them in a fictional context. But besides that, I think to use a term like "Asimovs laws of robotics" was in this case on my side more of a placeholder for any arbitrary set of rules that fulfil the same task as those do in his novels. The statements I used to a large part are also valid without specific SciFi references. Mostly the unpredictability of AIs which even was mentioned in that article. I see this as a problem. Also I think the general principles of AIs becoming self-aware or being bound to some human-made specific rules exist besides any SciFi explorations of how this could play out specifically.
SciFi stories are just that - stories, narratives and explorations of possibilities. They are also metaphors or placeholders for problems.
This is true for the problematic side (e.g. "Robot overlords") as well as for the romantic side (e.g. "benevolent Techno-Gaia").

But I know that prison guards on wheels are very far from that problem, it just seems that all the topics that deal somehow with robots or computers in this forum will eventually turn out to be about AIs and some rather Sci-Fi oriented idea of some great robotic future :s

Originally Posted by Human No More

the thread was never about robots harming humans, but simply replacement of humans with them, which actually REDUCES harm since a guard now can't beat a prisoner up because the prisoner said something they disliked (and also means that if prisoners start beating each other up or stab someone, it will get noticed quickly and dealt with).

Well I started the thread, so I should know what it was about.
And I have huge issues with this. For once - if those robots are just for observing the inmates - why not simply install cameras. Why create something that essentially is a moving camera that is vulnerable to pranks? The only reason I can fathom is that the plans are to use these guards for more elaborate purposes than simply observing at a later time. Otherwise it does not make sense. And in that moment, that robot will have to carry weaponry, because thats what prison guards do.
Also by putting in a mediation between the prison guards and the prisoners, you cause all kinds of problems. It is way easier for people to press a button knowing it hurts someone elsewhere than to stare the victim in the eye and press that button.
The biggest problem I have with this is the added isolation, mechanization and frankly dehumanization of people (in this case prisoners) by replacing people with machines. In a prison, this may make sense if you regard the prisoners as evil subhumans - as part of a machine that processes them until they have to be released. I guess in US prisons that attitude is still there, but it is utterly wrong! Prisons are supposed to be "correctional facilities", not punishment houses. If the purpose of prisons would be to punish people and to lock them away so they cannot do any more harm, we're reverting to the early 20th century. Instead a prison should have the goal to create persons that can later again enter society. This is why they should not just be given the chance to educate themselves, have therapy if needed, do exercise and have the chance to be apprentices - but also to provide a human context. After all, the guards are the only people from the outside world that those prisoners meet on a regular basis - if you isolate them even more, they will go more insane because the only people they see for many years are other inmates. What you produce then socially are people who are incapable of dealing with finding a place in society. It may save the guards some time walking through corridors - economically it may make sense, but my concern is never about economics, it is always about the people.