Long Read: Why, When, and How to Regulate AI

Debate should move away from abstract consideration of what rules might constrain or contain AI behavior, and get into the more practical challenges of lawmaking

The better part of a century ago, science fiction author Isaac Asimov imagined a future in which robots have become an integral part of daily life. At the time, he later recalled, most robot stories fell into one of two genres. The first was robots-as-menace: technological innovations that rise up against their creators in the tradition of “Frankenstein,” but with echoes at least as far back as the Greek myth of Prometheus, which had been the subtitle of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. Less common, a second group of tales considered robots-as-pathos — lovable creations that are treated as slaves by their cruel human masters. These produced morality tales about the danger posed not by humanity’s creations but by humanity itself.

Asimov’s contribution was to create a third category: robots as industrial products built by engineers. In this speculative world, a safety device is built into these morally neutral robots in the form of three operational directives or laws. The first is that a robot may not injure a human, or through inaction allow a human to come to harm. Second,