Robot Buddy Becomes Killer in Stunning Short Film
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
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A well made video. And yet another reminder why the Three Laws of Robotics are so damn important. Also, making them immune to logic bombing would be pretty important as well.
For those who do not know the Three Laws, here they are, C&P from Wiki:
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.
For those who do not know the Three Laws, here they are, C&P from Wiki:
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.
This wasn't that good. The kid and his mother were pretty crappy characters; the kid was a dick for the sake of being a dick, and the kill commands were hastily crammed into the dialog. I actually laughed when the robot asked "Did you enjoy your meatballs?", just because it was so obvious, and it kinda reminds me of the South Park episode with the human chili. The movie has a good premise, but the human characters just ruined it for me. It's not so shocking if I'm glad they're dead. Feel sorry for the dog and the cops though, if only because they didn't get the chance to do something stupid.
So, did anyone else find it slightly creepy that Blinky's right eye is slightly bigger than his left? (At it looks that way, 4:35 is a good example.) Perhaps helping to give Blinky a look of "something's not quite right" even if you can't put your finger on it?
And yeah, I sort of had to suspend my disbelief about the idea that any society with as many "robots going crazy" horror stories as ours could build a robot that is marketed to follow orders without first ensuring that there is some protection against murder. Heck, if for no other reason that I could willfully use a robot to try to murder someone else.
But, this film or rather this discussion has made me wonder about the "3 laws" thing. One person complained earlier that this film is unrealistic because you'd have to program the robot to kill which would be difficult and a waste of time. Put simply, that's not how AI works. You don't manually program a robot to be able to do every single task that you want it to do (if we're talking about something as versatile as Blinky, at least). The idea is that you program it with a knowledge base, and it uses that knowledge base things that it wasn't explicitly programmed to do (though there are many different opinions on how you'd go around doing this). Blinky wasn't programmed to murder, but it obviously knew how to use a meat slicer, and obviously knew basic human anatomy. So, yeah, it's not at all implausible that it would be able to kill, if it wasn't programmed with failsafe preventing it.
But that did raise the question, since killing isn't a specific action, necessarily, how do you program against it? Or perhaps, how do you program against it in a failsafe way, that a simple bug won't just ignore that part of the code? Even if Blinky is "three laws safe", if the three laws are prohibiting a rather abstract idea, isn't it plausible that that code is going to be a little bit fragile?
And yeah, I sort of had to suspend my disbelief about the idea that any society with as many "robots going crazy" horror stories as ours could build a robot that is marketed to follow orders without first ensuring that there is some protection against murder. Heck, if for no other reason that I could willfully use a robot to try to murder someone else.
But, this film or rather this discussion has made me wonder about the "3 laws" thing. One person complained earlier that this film is unrealistic because you'd have to program the robot to kill which would be difficult and a waste of time. Put simply, that's not how AI works. You don't manually program a robot to be able to do every single task that you want it to do (if we're talking about something as versatile as Blinky, at least). The idea is that you program it with a knowledge base, and it uses that knowledge base things that it wasn't explicitly programmed to do (though there are many different opinions on how you'd go around doing this). Blinky wasn't programmed to murder, but it obviously knew how to use a meat slicer, and obviously knew basic human anatomy. So, yeah, it's not at all implausible that it would be able to kill, if it wasn't programmed with failsafe preventing it.
But that did raise the question, since killing isn't a specific action, necessarily, how do you program against it? Or perhaps, how do you program against it in a failsafe way, that a simple bug won't just ignore that part of the code? Even if Blinky is "three laws safe", if the three laws are prohibiting a rather abstract idea, isn't it plausible that that code is going to be a little bit fragile?
Good catch! I don't think anyone else in the two pages of comments I read saw that...Dastardly said:
far from saying the kid deserved it I feel bad for him....I mean sure he treated the robot like shit and acted like a brat...but he was only lashing out at Blinky over A) his parent seemingly constant fighting(makes sense) and B) Blinky's programming...more specifically how its a robot it can't help that it can only talk a certain way and likely only say so many things from a preset list. All in all its more A and the parents who are to blame than anything. Ontop of the fact that they stupidly gave Blinky suggestions/commands that it attempted to carry out to thier satisfaction(kill me and my parents, make them stop fighting, I'll have Blinky clean you and cook you)
All that said there is a large plothole I think in the fact that Blinky was able to kill, clean and cook Andy all without his parents knowledge(arguing or not I'd think Andy would scream bloody murder and that they'd here said scream or that they'd find the bloody mess as Blinky worked)
All that said there is a large plothole I think in the fact that Blinky was able to kill, clean and cook Andy all without his parents knowledge(arguing or not I'd think Andy would scream bloody murder and that they'd here said scream or that they'd find the bloody mess as Blinky worked)
Yeah, I figured that about the glitch, but I think it would have had more impact if the parents maybe figured it out before he confirmed their fears. Like for instance, the mother bites onto the meatball only to find a human tooth, then looks up from her dinner to see Blinky staring at her proudly. That's when I'd have him say the line.PrototypeC said:
Don't get me wrong though, that scene managed to scare me as soon as I saw them eating, which is more than any slasher movie has ever been able to achieve.
Interesting how people are dehumanizing the kid or saying "It was his fault"
Perfect world bias at it's best
Perfect world bias at it's best
I'm glad they dehumanized him, I don't think I could have kept watching if he wasn't so annoying.Chertan said:
I loved it! If only I hadn't found it through this article first, which is for all intents and purposes a giant spoiler, and all I read was the title!
