Isaac Asimov

Russian-born American science-fiction writer whose robot stories introduced the Three Laws of RoboticsThree Laws of Robotics, n.: Three rules that science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov built into his fictional robots — do not harm people, obey orders, protect yourself — in stories that mostly show how such simple rules go wrong.; a biochemist by training who held a professorship at Boston University, he had some 500 books to his name as author or editor. First stated in full in 'Runaround' (1942), gathered with other stories in 'I, Robot' (1950) and developed in later novels, the laws forbid a robot to harm humans, require it to obey them and allow it to protect itself, in that order of priority; he later added a 'Zeroth Law' putting humanity as a whole first. Many of the stories turn on robots following their laws to unexpected and unwanted conclusions, an early fictional treatment of problems AI researchers now discuss as specification gamingspecification gaming, n.: When an AI meets the letter of its goal while defeating its purpose, like a genie who grants exactly the words of a wish instead of what the wisher meant. and value alignmentvalue alignment, n.: Building AI whose goals reflect human values — what people care about and consider right — rather than one that merely follows orders or chases a narrow target.. The Oxford English Dictionary credits him with the first use of the word roboticsrobotics, n.: The science and engineering of building robots and making them work: designing their bodies, sensors and motors, and writing the software that lets them see, plan and move safely., in the story 'Liar!' (1941), and his 'positronic brain' became a science-fiction staple.