I, ROBOT
The Three Laws of Robotics — humanity's first attempt to codify machine ethics. Every story demonstrates how rules, no matter how carefully designed, produce unintended consequences.
READ / BORROW
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From the archive
Asimov's Three Laws are the original alignment framework: 1) Don't harm humans, 2) Obey humans, 3) Protect yourself. Every story in this collection demonstrates edge cases, contradictions, and failures. Seventy years later, AI alignment researchers face exactly the same fundamental challenge: you cannot specify human values in a finite set of rules. Copyright remains with the Asimov estate (US public domain ~2046).
Key passages
"The Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot may not injure a human being... 2. A robot must obey orders... 3. A robot must protect its own existence..."
Discussion prompt
Asimov's Three Laws fail at edge cases. The Signal Index methodology shows 5 weighted factors — is a weighted model better than hard rules? Can you design a value system that can't be gamed?