  Adam Forrest:
My Two Cents
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The future is now
[Posted Monday, June 22, 2026 6/22/26 7:45 am]
This is a real picture and headline from Google News:
Don't these people read books? This is very scary to me, because this kind of thing is exactly the dark future foretold by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in his robot stories, especially his novel The Caves of Steel.
 | | First edition of The Caves of Steel |
Originally published in 1954, and still in print, The Caves of Steel takes place on a future Earth where humans have gone off to colonize other planets. While still shunned and feared on Earth, humanoid robots are common on the "Spacer" worlds.
An important aspect of the story is what is now called Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, which were hard-coded into the programming of all humanoid robots. They are:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
In the course of the story (this isn't a spoiler, you've had since 1954 to read the book!) an Earth detective, "Lije" Baley, figures out that his own boss, Chief of Police Enderby, had done something unthinkable and gotten around the Three Laws in a very ingenious way to use a Spacer robot to kill a Spacer.
The Three Laws and the breaking thereof is a recurring theme of Asimov's work and much of the science fiction which followed him, including, especially, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Colossus: The Forbin Project, stories of intelligent computers taking over the world or otherwise causing dangerous havoc, because of their mis-use or mis-treatment by humans.
In real life, computers and AI are getting smarter all the time. And now, we have the use of robots in China to kill people. And the three laws protecting us humans are nowhere to be seen.
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