The three laws worked really well as a literary device exactly because they are completely inadequate as an design / engineering / ethical tool. The stories are about the problems caused by the three laws, and how interesting they are. No one who has thought about it a bit, and certainly not Asimov, would seriously recommend them as an engineering solution.
Moreover, he sidestepped misuse of the tech by claiming that the Laws were "hard-wired" into the design of the positronic brain. Not only could be the Laws not be over-written, it was literally impossible in Asimov's universe to create a robot that was without them.
In real life, we know how trivial it would be to completely overwrite the operating system with arbritary software.
Comments
The three laws worked really well as a literary device exactly because they are completely inadequate as an design / engineering / ethical tool. The stories are about the problems caused by the three laws, and how interesting they are. No one who has thought about it a bit, and certainly not Asimov, would seriously recommend them as an engineering solution.
Moreover, he sidestepped misuse of the tech by claiming that the Laws were "hard-wired" into the design of the positronic brain. Not only could be the Laws not be over-written, it was literally impossible in Asimov's universe to create a robot that was without them.
In real life, we know how trivial it would be to completely overwrite the operating system with arbritary software.