Laws of robotics¶
A proposed rule framework constraining how autonomous robots prioritize safety, obedience and self-preservation.
Core Idea¶
Asimov’s fictional laws, later revisions and research ethics principles differ, and natural-language rules do not by themselves solve specification, conflict or verification. An ordered or otherwise resolved set of norms maps perceived situations into prohibited, required or permitted actions and provides a priority rule when duties conflict. The abstraction is therefore identified by a declared carrier, a transformation or constraint over that carrier, and an invariant that tells an analyst whether the named structure is genuinely present.
The load-bearing residual is not the broad topic of robot ethics. It is the domain-specific identity fixed by the author and version, robot and autonomy scope, protected parties, rules and priority order, action and omission semantics, knowledge and uncertainty, conflict resolution, enforcement or implementation status and fictional or normative context are explicit.
Scope of Application¶
Laws of robotics belongs to robot ethics and is useful where the analyst can specify the typed robot ethics carrier, including objects, relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, and comparison cases, then evaluate the author and version, robot and autonomy scope, protected parties, rules and priority order, action and omission semantics, knowledge and uncertainty, conflict resolution, enforcement or implementation status and fictional or normative context are explicit. The scope is broad within that domain but bounded by the need for the author and version, robot and autonomy scope, protected parties, rules and priority order, action and omission semantics, knowledge and uncertainty, conflict resolution, enforcement or implementation status and fictional or normative context are explicit.
Clarity¶
The abstraction clarifies a crowded vocabulary by making the author and version, robot and autonomy scope, protected parties, rules and priority order, action and omission semantics, knowledge and uncertainty, conflict resolution, enforcement or implementation status and fictional or normative context are explicit the center of the account. A claim should name the carrier, the governing operation or relation, the applicable assumptions, and the recognition test.
Manages Complexity¶
Without the abstraction, an analyst must reason directly over many local details: the carrier roles, admissibility assumptions, competing conventions, derived invariants, boundary cases, and proof or validation obligations specific to Laws of robotics. Laws of robotics compresses them into the roles in the structural signature. That compression permits comparison across instances without erasing the variables that determine validity. It also exposes which details may be varied safely and which are constitutive.
Abstract Reasoning¶
- Identify the carrier. State what the elements, states, objects, or observations are: the typed robot ethics carrier, including objects, relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, and comparison cases. Reject examples whose alleged carrier belongs to a different problem. 2. Lock the constitutive rule. Express the author and version, robot and autonomy scope, protected parties, rules and priority order, action and omission semantics, knowledge and uncertainty, conflict resolution, enforcement or implementation status and fictional or normative context are explicit independently of one notation or implementation.
Knowledge Transfer¶
Knowledge transfers strongly among subfields of robot ethics because they reuse the typed robot ethics carrier, including objects, relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, and comparison cases, An ordered or otherwise resolved set of norms maps perceived situations into prohibited, required or permitted actions and provides a priority rule when duties conflict., and type the carrier, state every parameter and convention in the definition, test that the author and version, robot and autonomy scope, protected parties, rules and priority order, action and omission semantics, knowledge and uncertainty, conflict resolution, enforcement or implementation status and fictional or normative context are explicit, compare the nearest accepted identity, and report counterexamples, uncertainty, and limiting cases.
Relationships to Other Abstractions¶
Current abstraction Laws of robotics Domain-specific
Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on
-
Laws of robotics is a kind of Governance Prime
The proposed strict upward parent is
prime:governance.
Hierarchy paths (2) — routes to 1 parentless root
- Laws of robotics → Governance → Accountability → Authority
- Laws of robotics → Governance → Authority
Neighborhood in Abstraction Space¶
Laws of robotics sits in a moderately populated region (54th percentile for distinctiveness): it has near-neighbors but no dense thicket of look-alikes.
Family — Ethics, Agency & Worldviews (21 abstractions)
Nearest neighbors
- Professional ethics — 0.89
- Moral authority — 0.88
- Animal protectionism — 0.88
- Automated planning and scheduling — 0.87
- Motion planning — 0.87
Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-09-08