I happened today to stumble upon what is possibly the most famous and lasting idea one of my favourite writers came up with: the “Three Laws of Robotics” – the idea that at some point in technological advancement humans will create robots which are self-aware, and created with three unbreakable rules hardwired into their (positronic) brains. They read somewhat exactly as so:

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 any 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.

A pretty useful idea really – after all I’d rather the robot which is going to be the first thing to succeed in tidying my bedroom didn’t turn murderous and kill me for leaving an odd sock under my bed. But the thing is, in a way we do already give a group of people the ability to conduct extreme measures for the good of the public. So I’d like to hope if humanity ever develops a self-conscious politician like Asimov’s robots they’d be given some hardwired instructions, something like this:

1. An elected representative of the people may not injure a constituent, or through inaction allow a constituent to come to harm.
2. An elected representative must obey any orders given to it by constituents, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. An elected representative must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Okay, so those are pretty poor. But they’re better than the ones which politicians seem to follow at the moment, which go more like:

1. An elected representative of the people may not injure its party, or through inaction allow a business of interest to the party to come to harm.

Well, okay, that’s just a waffle; obviously I know we’ll never be able to hardwire politicians into being decent people – we’ve just got to hope some of them are.

Just unloading some madness