He Who Laughs Last…
Cogito Ergo Doleo
I think, therefore I am depressed
Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are:
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 the orders given 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 bombshell exploded. Within moments a peaceful field
turned into a war-zone. Mortar shells pummelled the starved
earth and bullets zinged through the sky. Barbed wire
criss-crossed through a pit, which had filled itself with
stagnant water, already the home of a thriving ecosystem.
It was an environment few men dared to venture.
Through the roar of the guns and the shards of metal,
piercing the fog of war, a soldier rushed into battle.
With foolhardiness that few possess, he charged the enemy
lines, and just as he approached the final trench, artfully
dodging every obstacle in his way, and the munitions fired
at him, he stopped, and sat down, and started to sulk.
In an instant, a striped general called the battle off.
Technicians rushed onto the battlefield, like ants towards
a picnic basket, to figure out what went wrong. When they
reached the soldier, they couldn't get a word out of him,
he just sat there, and sulked. Soon a group of whitecoats
arrived at the scene, and extracted him from the Warzone.
"Well, gentlemen, what went wrong? I thought this
was supposed to be the perfect soldier. One who ALWAYS
took orders?" The General disdainfully addressed
the group of research scientists. Out of the test field,
they now sat in the air-conditioned environment of the
nearby military base. In the comfort of the ready room,
the lead researcher from Union Robotics India had beads
of sweat tricking down his back.
"Sir, the problem lies in the robots basic programming.
Along with the three laws of robotics, on your request
we had programmed in artificial intelligence. It was required
by the Military that the new series of automated soldiers
be able to make decisions on their own accord, to make
on field judgements, you might say. Unfortunately, the
A.I has interacted with the basic three laws, and it sees
the scenario as a conflict of interests."
"Get to the point, Mr. Balakrishnan. Why is my soldier
sulking in a corner?"
"Sir, the problem seems to be that the auto-soldier
has decided that the entire war scenario seems to be a
little pointless. He thinks that war might involve him
killing someone, and though we have strictly programmed
that he is only to disable an opposing soldier, the first
law still conflicts with his A.I. As a result he is a
little confused about what to do. He knows he won't have
to kill anyone, but can't get to grips with the fact that
he might have to hurt someone. He lacks motivation to
fight, he seems to think that the entire situation is,
is… how do you say, a little depressing."
"Wonderful, our perfect soldier is depressed. Get
to the point, what do you plan to do about it?"
"The problem seems to be that there's nothing we
can do about it. At least, not without having to format
the whole programme, and starting again from scratch,
and I think we both agree that that is not an option."
" Are you telling me that we have no solution?"
The general roared at the timid little mouse.
"No sir, we have yet to fully analyse the problem,
I am sure that we will find a suitable solution within
a little while."
"Lets hope it is a very little while, Mr. Balakrishnan,
time is not a luxury we possess."
"Yes, sir. We will have the problem solved as soon
as possible." Satisfied that he cleared the immediate
problem, he started to worry about the bigger problem
at hand, how to get his soldier out of depression.
The brainstorming session began. It was a collection of
the top minds of India, the Chief Development Staff of
Union Robotics India. The think tank was a well-lit room
in the interior of the headquarters of U.R.I, in a small
suburb of Bangalore. In it, the Chief of Operations, Mr.
Balakrishnan, called the session to order. Though not
much order could be created in the wild atmosphere of
genius' Balakrishnan was an expert at leading the discussion
in the right direction. The rest took care of itself.
"So what could we do? Has anyone considered removing
the three laws themselves, and replacing them with something
more flexible?"
"I hope you are joking sir, that just couldn't be
done. Think of the danger involved."
"Yes, but we seem to be running out of ideas extremely
fast. All attempts to alter the programming result in
a complete loss of the A.I. We need something new."
A lone voice picked up amidst the din. "Maybe we
need to think in a new perspective. How would we react
to a situation that seemed hopeless, pointless, and utterly
stupid?"
Sometimes the greatest ideas are those that are the most
simple. This was fast turning out to be one of those great
ideas.
"I do say, the man is on to something. How would
a human react to such a situation?"
"He'd tell a joke, sir." Laughter broke out,
demonstrating the quite prevalent hopelessness of that
situation. But Balakrishnan thought differently. True
genius, of course, lies in the ability to discern the
greatest ideas from rubbish, and he wasn't the Big Chief
for nothing.
"That's the best solution I've heard all day."
More laughter broke out amidst the staff. "Here me
out. If we could programme in a sense of the ridiculous
into our robot, a sense of treating a hopeless situation
with blatant disregard, and programme it to laugh at the
whole futility of things, it would stop sulking. It would
continue its duty, and laugh on the inside."
Suddenly the room was abuzz with excited scientists. The
caffeine kicked in, and the whole group began discussing
how to make a robot laugh, with hysteria that couldn't
be equalled by sane men.
When it all was over, after all the simulations, and
test runs, they input the new programme into the soldier,
and asked it how it felt about fighting, and the soldier
laughed, and claimed that it had to do what it had to
do. So they packed their new and improved soldier off
to boot camp, for the military to test its application.
"Mr. Balakrishnan. There has been… a problem."
The general spoke with a less than comforting voice.
"Why? I'm sure that our new programme works perfectly
fine, I don't see how the robot could be having any problems
with fighting now."
"The problem does not lie in its desire to fight
anymore, Mr. Balakrishnan."
"Then what could it possibly be?" Balakrishnan
cut in.
"The problem is, that ever since we sent it out to
fight, your soldier hasn't stopped laughing."
By Bhavya Khanna
