Asimov's Laws and Ethics

The laws and their limits

Isaac Asimov's First Law says a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A 2017 paper in Connection Science by Margaret Boden, Joanna Bryson, Alan Winfield and colleagues calls the laws a useful departure point for discussion, but fictional devices. They would not be practical to apply, the authors write, not least because they simply do not work in practice. Their central point is that the people who design and use robots, not the robots, must be the subjects of any rules.

The Principles of Robotics

Those authors were part of a group from technology, industry, the arts, law and the social sciences who met at a joint retreat of two UK research councils, the EPSRC and the AHRC, in September 2010. They drafted five principles for robots in the real world. Two of them capture the shift from Asimov: humans, not robots, are responsible agents; and robots are manufactured artefacts, so the illusion of emotions and intent should not be used to exploit vulnerable users. The principles place duties on designers, makers and users.

Ethics treated as a design hazard

The British Standards Institution turned that thinking into guidance. BS 8611, first published in 2016 and revised in 2023, guides designers in identifying potential ethical harm and in controlling a robot's design through its whole life. It treats ethical hazards as broader than physical ones, covering psychological and social harm as well. Physical safety stays with the safety standards, and BS 8611 deals with the ethical side. It is written for designers, managers, operators and systems integrators among others.

Building values into the process

IEEE 7000-2021 takes a process approach. It sets out how organisations can consider ethical values from the earliest concept stages through development, by eliciting and prioritising the values of chosen stakeholders, then tracing them into concrete requirements and design decisions. It is meant for organisations of any size using their own development life cycles. When assessing a robot maker, ask whether it follows BS 8611 or IEEE 7000, and request evidence such as a hazard log that includes ethical risks.

Sources and further reading

• Principles of Robotics: Regulating Robots in the Real World — Connection Science, author copy (Goldsmiths, University of London).
  The paper behind the EPSRC and AHRC Principles of Robotics, explaining why Asimov's laws fail as real rules.
• BS 8611:2023 Robots and robotic devices. Ethical design and application of robots and robotic systems. Guide — BSI (British Standards Institution).
  BSI's guide to ethical robot design, treating ethical harm as a hazard to assess alongside safety.
• IEEE 7000-2021 Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design — IEEE Standards Association.
  IEEE's process standard for turning stakeholders' ethical values into traceable design requirements.

Common questions

What are Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics?

In Isaac Asimov's fiction, a robot must not harm a human or allow harm through inaction, must obey people unless that conflicts with the first law, and must protect itself unless that conflicts with the first two.

Is there a law that governs robot ethics?

There is no single law. Robots fall under product, safety and data rules, while voluntary guidance such as BS 8611 and IEEE 7000 covers ethical design.