Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov (1920 to 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry. He wrote dozens of stories about robots, collected in books such as I, Robot.

The Three Laws

In his fiction, robots follow three built-in rules: do not harm a human, obey humans unless that conflicts with the first rule, and protect yourself unless that conflicts with the first two.

Real robots do not work this way

The laws are a literary device. Real robots have no built-in understanding of "harm". Safety comes from engineering: sensors, speed limits, emergency stops and standards like ISO 10218.

Why he matters

Asimov's stories shaped how the public thinks about robots, and they show how hard it is to describe good behaviour in simple rules. That is still an open problem in AI.