[jdsteel]

Isaac Asimov had the answer years ago. Rules of robotics, aka The Three Rules:

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 to 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 Laws.

[cripplecreek]

I actually preferred the no law robots of “Inferno”. No law robots would be far more interesting conversationalists.

I thought an interesting question was raised in the book about who had really been enslaved by the 3 laws. The bots just acted on the 3 laws with no conscious thought about it but humans had modified their own behavior to avoid the robots interfering to act upon the 3 laws. It had crushed the human spirit of adventure.

[jimt]

You forgot the fourth law, or as Asimov called it, the zeroeth law:

“A robot shall not injure humanity, nor through inaction allow humanity to come to harm.”

Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao exemplified it and Obama believes in that one.

[COBOL2Java]

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 to 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 Laws

"Nice laws, human. Let's see you enforce them."