Google's developing its own version of the Laws of Robotics -- ExtremeTech Access

Google's artificial intelligence researchers are starting to have to code around their own code, writing patches that limit a robot's abilities so that it continues to develop down the path desired by the researchers -- not by the robot itself. It's the beginning of a long-term trend in robotics and AI in general: once we've put in all this work to increase the insight of an artificial intelligence, how can we make sure that insight will only be applied in the ways we would like? That's why researchers from Google's DeepMind and the Future of Humanity Institute have published a paper outlining a software "killswitch" they claim can stop those instances of learning that could make an AI less useful -- or, in the future, less safe. It's really less a killswitch than a blind spot, removing from the AI the ability to learn the wrong lessons. Specifically, they code the AI to ignore human input and its consequences for success or failure. If going inside is a "failure" and it learns that every time a human picks it up, the human then carries it inside, the robot might decide to start running away from any human who approaches.