Robotics and its laws

We hear the term robot many times in our life. But none of us knows what "actually" a robot is. The most basic remote controlled car is also a robot and the complex machinery being used in the industries are themselves a special class of robots.

If we go by the actual definition , Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, and application of robots as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing. These technologies deal with automated machines that can take the place of humans in dangerous environments or manufacturing processes, or resemble humans in appearance, behavior, and/or cognition. Many of today's robots are inspired by nature contributing to the field of bio-inspired robots.

So that was about the term "Robotics". But what about a Robot?

A robot is a mechanical or virtual artificial agent, usually an electro mechanical machine that is guided by a computer program or electronic circuit. Robots can be autonomous or semi-autonomous and range from humanoids such as Honda's Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility (ASIMO)

Terminators :  Fictious example of AI gone wrong

But if we talk about robots or robotics , we should know about the basic laws that governs there existence among us. Of course an out of control robot can pose a serious threat to the human civilization ( You may have watched the terminator series already for example).

Coming to the laws , there are three laws of robotics. These three laws were not written by any scientist or a researcher but surprisingly by a fiction writer named "Isac Asimov" ( Honda's ASIMO's ??) . These rules were introduced by him in the year 1942 in "Runaround". Since then these rules have been widely accepted by the scientists in the real world itself.

The three laws are :

Isaac Asimov

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 to 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 Law

Over the years the original laws have been altered and elaborated on by Asimov and other authors. Asimov himself made slight modifications to the first three in various books and short stories to further develop how robots would interact with humans and each other. Later Asimov also added the law called   "Zeroth Law" which precedes the above mentioned 3 laws. The law states the following :

    " A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."

Thus these laws have now been adopted by various scientists in the world and the various robots we see around us are governed by these laws .


In the next post we will be covering the Topic : Introduction to application of robotics in our day to day life.


Comments regarding the posts will be appreciated.