Jalopnik
Number-one among Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics is "first do no harm." Or is that the doctors' oath? (shut up, Google). Nonetheless, the robots at one automated parking lot in Hoboken, New Jersey went all kerfluffle last week, trapping hundreds of cars inside the facility. Apparently it was the matter of a bureaucratic showdown. The city-owned lot had been in a contract dispute with operator Robotic Parking, during which the company's employees were asked to leave and the software license voided — reducing the all-important hardware to really expensive crap and leaving the cars trapped in their cubbies. Of course, the story gets even more complicated — pitting bureaucrat against software monkey, in what could be described as a really boring Ultimate Fighting special — but we'll let Wired handle the geeky lifting.
Giant Robot Imprisons Parked Cars [Wired]
Related:
Robot, You Can Park My Car: High-Tech Parking Systems Gain Visibility in the US [internal]
Comments
I think the second law of robotics is more fitting in this case than the first.
Law #1 - A robot may not injure any human being, nor through an action allow a human to be harmed.
Law #2 - A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
That is "... nor through INaction..."
So this would be a perfect violation of the first act. As one could argue that keeping people (say doctors) from work could cause harm to come to humans.
hah hah. the town, sorry CITY of Hoboken is run by a bunch of corrupt asses. They have a huge influx of new residents and businesses, most of them high-end, and all the city really does is line it's own pockets with all the extra money.
DocGratis - Whoops. That's what what happens when I learn my robotics laws from Servotron songs.
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