Laws of Robotics and Human Consciousness

Rajeev Sangal

Abstract

Laws of robotics were formulated in fiction so that robots do not allow any harm to come to human beings, and yet they obey them and protect themselves. Question asked in this paper is what are the laws of human consciousness? It is argued that the normal scientific method yields that human beings also follow the same laws. ‘Doing good to others’ is innate to human consciousness. Test of this is that they feel happy when they follow the same laws voluntarily (given that there is no fear and temptation gripping them). Understanding and feelings are an integral part of human consciousness.

The modern society is built on the belief that human beings are selfish and greedy. Together with market, it uses these assumptions to organize economic activity efficiently, in the hope that the human being would be happy living in such a society. However, this can never be! These assumptions clash with the innate nature of human consciousness creating a dissonance within the individual. It is no wonder that the society has an unusally large number of individuals who are unhappy and in depressed state, in spite of better economic conditions.

At the level of society, there is increased violence both at the level of nations, as well as within the nation. There is a need, therefore, to build a society aligned with laws of human consciousness, namely, based on doing good to others and having good relationships with feelings. The current society is also violent towards nature. A societal organization is needed which has decentralization, empowerment and autonomy for people living in autonomous communities (or samaj), in other words, there is a need for swaraj.

Education would have to take a lead to work out how swaraj can be built under the current conditions. It also has to focus on making students aware of their own feelings towards family and others. The expansion of these feelings would gradually build global family or communities (called vasudhev kutumbakam).

1 Three Laws of Robotics

Ever since people started thinking of robots, namely autonomous agents, their causing harm to human beings has been a concern. The story of Frankenstein expressed such a concern in 1818, where a scientist created an autonomous being, which turned against its creator. In 1942, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, concerned with robot ethics, formulated the three laws of robotics, which would be part of every robot that is made or manufactured, and therefore, the robot would have to follow them. These laws (Asimov, 1942) are as follows[1]:

• L1. A robot will not harm a human being, nor allow harm to come to a human being through inaction.

• L2. A robot will obey human beings.

• L3. A robot will protect its existence.

There is an order of priority in these laws. L1 has the highest priority and must be followed. The second law L2 must be followed as long as it does not violate the first law L1. Similarly, the law L3 must be followed, as long as L1 and L2 are not violated. Admittedly, the laws are simple, not addressing the richness of life as experienced by us human beings. There are other desirable parameters for a human being besides outright physical harm – feelings, achievement, autonomy, meaningfulness, satisfaction, sacrifice, etc. However, even these simple laws of robotics, limited in scope as they are, raise many problems in their application.[2]

1.1 Dilemmas

Application of these laws raises many issues. For example, what is meant by harm? Is it only physical or it might be mental also? Is the harm temporary or is it permanent?

Is causing pain to someone, equal to causing harm to the person? Forcing a child to study and to follow a healthy routine, might be painful in the immediate term, but would be beneficial in the long term. Is it, then, really harm, even if it causes immediate pain?

What does ‘harm to come to human being’ mean? Consider that a person is swimming in water. Should he be forcefully removed by the robot because there is a potential for great harm, namely, drowning? Then what about a person walking on the street where there are moving vehicles?

What would a robot do if performing an action causes harm to one human being, but performing another action causes harm to several other people, and not doing anything causes harm to all! Which option out of the above three must it chose?

Indeed, a number of science fiction stories were written on these dilemmas. There was even the case where a robot would tell lies to its master to avoid giving a bad news, as it would cause discomfort or ‘mental harm’. The harm caused by this in the longer run was much greater, compared to the short term discomfort. The solution, interestingly, was through counseling the robot by a professional robot psychologist who happened to be a woman. Once the robot understood how it was causing harm in trying to avoid immediate discomfort, it corrected itself!

Over the issue of protecting itself (L3), there was a story that in case of an advanced costly robot, the threshold ‘potential’ of L3 was increased by the company which produced it, so that it is more prone to protecting itself compared to other robots. Therefore, if there was another ‘ordinary’ robot with lower value of L3, the ordinary robot would perform the task first, even putting itself into danger (while obeying the order of its master under L2). Thus, the costly robot would be saved. But what would happen if there were no robots nearby, and this robot delays taking action in a grave situation where a human being is in danger, effectively resulting in the dilution of L1?

All this goes to show the intricacies involved in following even these simple laws by the robots.

2 Robots and Human Beings

The question arises whether the above laws are only for robots or do they also apply to human beings?

In fact, it could be argued the other way that the priority of the laws L1 and L3 would be reversed in case of most human beings. The human would first save oneself, and only afterwards save others (L3 with greater priority than L1). The laws of robotics are on a higher ethical plane, in other words, they are for an ideal human being!

But is it the case that the human being would save oneself first, always? There are known cases to the contrary. In the case of mother and child, the mother gives higher priority to the child - going even to the extent of saving the child by giving up her own life! That is why the mother-child relationship is considered special, because it reaches the highest state of relationship (love). Generalizing, if one considers the other person as one’s own (or inseparable from oneself or ‘ananya’), one is willing to sacrifice oneself for the other.[3]

How do the laws within us operate, which results in behaviour such as that of mother and child? Are we programmed with these laws like the Asimov’s robots? In our case, there is a feeling of relationship, which is an essential part of being human, and which causes us to behave in this manner. Stronger the feeling, the closer we are to the behaviour corresponding to these laws, namely, L1 having higher priority than L3.

If we were to view the human being as possessing some innate properties (such as the above laws), wouldn’t they apply to the human being at all times, in all circumstances - much like the physical matter? Most fields in social science and human psychology reach the conclusion that human beings or the human consciousness does not obey any universal law. Human beings are relative, there are no absolutes - sometimes they follow the condition, other times they do not. This is as good as saying that there are no universal laws for the human being, unlike the inert matter.

2.1 Innate Property of Inert Matter

This brings us to an interesting parallel. When Newton discovered the laws of motion, he found an innate nature of matter that was totally opposed to common sense and common observation! No, the property was not that apples fall to the ground - an obvious observation. The counter-intuitive property was and still is, in common man’s language, “A moving body will move forever".[4]

People said that every single observation in their life is to the contrary - moving bodies invariably come to a stop in real life. Newton’s answer was that the bodies come to a stop because of an external force in the opposite direction, such as friction. And if the external force were absent, the body would move forever! The conclusion that maintaining motion (inertia of motion to be precise) is an innate property obeyed by all matter (and therefore a universal property), required a leap of imagination!

2.2 Innate Property of Human Consciousness

A similar question comes up regarding the nature of human consciousness. What is the innate nature of such consciousness? Do conscious bodies in nature obey law L1 or do they obey L3 - and with what priority? Most of the time we observe that human beings keep L3 higher than L1 (much like the common sense observation in case of matter, that moving objects always stop). But what is the actual innate property of human consciousness, in other words, which law has the higher priority - L1 or L3?

To get the priority, we need to understand that feelings in relationship play an important role. For example, does a hungry human being feel happier when he eats the piece of bread with him, or when he gives away his bread to a family member, say, a child who is in a great need of it?

Indeed, when the hungry person feels related to another human being, he/she feels happier in giving up the bread than eating it. So unlike the inert matter in laws of motion, the conscious entity’s behaviour depends on his/her feeling of relationship with the other person! When that happens, lo and behold, L1 has a higher priority than L3! Thus, for a human being, L1 has a higher priority than L3 with respect to another human being if the other person is seen to be related. One can observe that when the person gives higher priority to L1, he feels happy.

Note that we are talking about the internal thoughts and feelings experienced by a person. The expression of these is the external action carried out by the person, and takes time.

This is the major difference between matter and consciousness. Matter obeys the universal laws unconditionally, whereas consciousness follows the laws with reasoning and feelings.

When we talk about actions we are concerned with those which are conscious actions or mindful actions, in other words, actions that are carried out consciously - based on rational as well as empathetic considerations. If an action is carried out unconsciously without rational thought, or by ignoring one’s own feelings, it would not be a conscious or mindful action.

Note that behind the conscious actions, we are including both rational thoughts as well as feelings.[5] Both can be developed through education and the right environment. Today’s education as well as the societal environment emphasize only the former (reasoning and logic), and largely ignore the latter (feelings and empathy).

Besides considerations of relationships, there are also those of society. People are willing to place L1 higher than L3 for society, where personal relationships might not be directly involved. This includes cases of bravery in war or during a natural calamity, even when no direct relationship or feelings with a person is involved.

3 Method of Science

The method used in finding out the laws of nature is the same, whether they are laws of matter or laws of consciousness. It involves proposing a hypothesis, making observations, and verification or rejection of the hypothesis. The difference is in the nature of observation. In the case of matter, the observations are external; whereas in the case of consciousness, the observations are internal regarding the self. The former observations may involve instruments and certainly involve the senses; the latter involve looking inside, meaning thereby, experiencing the feelings (Nagraj, 2009). Keen observation is needed, whether in the case of physical observation or observation of the self.[6]

For example, when a person gives his bread to a hungry child without any external force, the happiness felt can be observed by the person. The same experiment can be repeated in a different setting. If the results are the same, irrespective of time (this century or the past century), irrespective of geographic place, irrespective of religion, culture, country, education, etc., then we may accept this as a universal law of human consciousness. Note that each of the parameters is observable and verifiable.

The question arises that if it is the innate nature of human consciousness, then why does the human being behave otherwise, even once? The metaphorical answer is “friction"! In other words, if the human being fails to recognize the relationship, or is under fear or temptation, then the behaviour that occurs may be different.

3.1 Comparing the Laws of Matter and Consciousness

If we compare the laws of matter and laws of consciousness, we find a correspondence. After all, both are search for truth: one for truth related to matter, and the other for truth related to human consciousness.

In the case of the former, there is matter and motion, and important parameters are force and energy. In the case of the latter, there is reasoning and feelings, and important parameters are knowledge and happiness.[7]

Science related to matter gives rise to technology; and science related to consciousness gives rise to organization in family, institutions, and society. Together they give rise to civilization![8] Technology, as we know, may be useful or harmful depending on how it is put to use. It must, of course, be sustainable. Choice therefore needs to be exercised in (a) what type of technology to use, and (b) what to use it for. This would require holistic thought with both matter and consciousness, and by implication, regarding production units on the one hand, and social structures and society, on the other.

This understanding has important implications in real life. To illustrate the former, look at the following example: if an engine falls short in power for a machine, we may either put in a more powerful engine, or we can lubricate the machine to reduce friction and the power requirement. The latter is a more efficient design. Similarly, in the case of society if there is disharmony, either we can introduce more police and bigger jails, or we can introduce humane education in schools. The latter is easier, harmonious, and long lasting.

Humane education would address consciousness development as its primary goal (Nagraj, 2001). It would also develop skills and concepts so that students can also earn their livelihood, unlike the current education where the latter is the sole goal (Sangal et al., 2019b). Consciousness development means developing good and strong qualities among students, making them free of fear and temptation; and it would also make them more aware of feelings in others, that is, more mindful of their relationships with others and society (Sangal, 2023; p.301).

It is said that a discrete shift in consciousness takes place in people wherein L1 would have a higher priority than L3, among other things. This shift is called enlightenment. Buddha attaining enlightenment perhaps means, his attaining the highest state of rational thought and feelings (karuna), in other words, mindfulness, which is without any fear and temptation, whatsoever.[9] Whether one accepts the idea of the ultimate discrete shift or not, the observation remains that development of consciousness is a continuous process and takes place.

4 Societal Dimension

What is the role of society vis-a-vis the individual human being, and the laws of consciousness as defined above? The society should be organized so that it is aligned with the innateness in human being. If it is so, people would find that the society supports and nurtures the individual, and in turn, the innate consciousness of individuals supports society. Today, unfortunately it is not so.

4.1 Civilizational Axioms

The current society is designed assuming that the human being is selfish and greedy. These (dis-)qualities in the human being are used to build a so-called prosperous society with efficient production using market. Economic equality would happen eventually, it is said, by the trickle down effect. With these civilizational axioms come a number of beliefs that get ingrained in people:

• Wealth or money is the only sign of success

• Consumption leads to happiness

• Resources are finite, needs are infinite (so everyone cannot be prosperous)

• Competition or cut-throat competition is necessary

• Nobody will help me, I am alone in this world

• Nobody is to be trusted in the market, and in life

With these (false) beliefs, the stage has been set for the world to move in the direction of conflict. This situation has prevailed in one form or another in the Western world for at least the past couple of centuries or more; except now, the pace has quickened and the beliefs have spread to the rest of the world. The result is conflict among nations in the world, and also within the nations. Internally within the nation, the state of family, institutions, and society is pitiable. But some say, this method leads to a lot of material progress, and we do not want to be left behind compared to others. Some ask, what is wrong if the method ignores relationships? After all, it is using the selfishness in human being for the purpose of (material) development. The result is that the wholesome solutions are missing, and in the partial or wrongful solutions, fear and temptation reign supreme.

It is instructive to look at what Gandhiji said about ends and means. Even for the right ends (namely here, material prosperity and happiness of everyone), if the wrong means (selfishness and greed) are used, it defeats the very end to be achieved. Instead of happiness, one will end with unhappiness; one will end up promoting selfishness and greed! How do we determine what is right and wrong? Selfishness and greed are wrong (or asatya) because they violate the laws of consciousness.[10]

The above societal assumptions lead to problems at all the four levels of living of the human being: (1) individual, (2) family, (3) society, and (4) nature. At the individual level, it creates a fundamental dissonance within people; the above beliefs go against the very laws of human consciousness and the person feels inside that something is wrong, but does not know what. To be successful in society, one must do things springing from the above beliefs. When one is in a system which is based on cut-throat competition and not based on relationships, it creates a state of fundamental conflict in every human being who is even slightly aware, or as he/she becomes more aware. Whether or not one carries out any actions based on negative thoughts, one sees them all around oneself and one usually gets affected by them mentally.

Traditional societies or samaj based on swaraj which valued human relationships and were built around autonomous communities (Sahasrabudhey, 2022), have been and are being dismantled, with all the material force at the command of the larger nation state or the global order of powerful nations.

As relationships get undermined, and the restricted options that the current system provides, it naturally leads to individualism and consumerism. You are in the rat race, and whether you win or you lose, you remain a rat. And an unhappy one at that! It is not a surprise therefore, that the societies which have succeeded the most in implementing the system based on the axiom of selfishness and greed, namely the Western world, are themselves the victims of this design. Its people are suffering the most from depression and anxiety.

But what all this means is that in the current system, the people are condemned to be unhappy, whether they are part of exploiters or victims of exploitation!

At the level of nations, the same thought has led to slavery and colonization in the last few centuries, followed by economic imperialism today. In earlier times, the control was mainly through war and direct political subjugation, today it is through economic competition where the machines/robots are being used. This system gives dreams that one can get all the riches, and live happily! Thus, there is a shift from fear (during slavery and colonization) to temptation (competition and riches) today.[11]

4.2 The Way Out

The holistic answer lies in rebuilding society which is based on human consciousness. It means valuing not just economic aspects but combining them with strengthening of communities and co-existence with nature. A community would provide the nurturing environment for the individual, not just economic but also social and family environment. It would have decentralization, empowerment and autonomy, namely, swaraj. But what would work today and how to achieve it, needs to be explored. As a community lives in harmony with other communities, the thought would expand to global community or the whole world as a family (vasudhev kutumbakam). And this would be aligned with human consciousness.

Some might say that no matter what happens in society, the innateness cannot be wiped out or removed in the individual, after all it is the law of consciousness. This is indeed true! But then why are things the way they are? The answer is that a person might have false beliefs; or he might be distracted or isolated to not notice his/her feelings towards others; or he might be under fear or temptation.[12] As a result, the person would remain confused and unhappy or dissatisfied. Whenever he would become aware of the reality of existence including consciousness of the other people, only the right/good things would be acceptable to him.[13]

How does the society, in particular the education system and the living environment, affect an individual human being? True education develops the power of reasoning, of observation, and of experiencing feelings in the student. A proper societal environment, reinforces true beliefs in the individual through its concrete practices, and reinforcement mechanisms.

Using the above powers to examine and evaluate one’s beliefs (whether they have come from education or the living environment), true beliefs are accepted and taken as confirmed, and false beliefs are rejected and therefore discarded. But the process of examination has to start first.

The current society, through its education system and the living environment today, does not develop the individual ability to examine and evaluate existing beliefs or thoughts, and practices. Few people are able to clearly examine their beliefs. A major goal of education in universal human values is to set this process going (Sangal et al., 2019b).

Out of the few people who can examine and discern bad societal practices/laws, even fewer are able to do something about them. An individual thinks “What can I do, my doing would not make any difference."

In education, we teach about reasoning and logic, the teaching of feelings is omitted totally. Indeed, the observation of the self is missing from education, which means character building has no place either. The result is that people are without any larger goals, and without the strength to stand up for their views.

At the level of nature, we do not discuss much in this article because the literature is replete with how man has destroyed nature, and has set in motion the process of climate change. The laws of nature (or ecology), on the other hand, tell us that there is co-existence in nature. Nations are unable to progress on this front because each says that the other should do it first. This puts in doubt the survival of humankind itself (Extinction, 2023)!

5 Conclusions

The three Laws of Robotics in science fiction literature are simple, yet they capture the essence, namely, “do good to others". When human beings are considered with respect to these laws, humans appear to be left wanting. But a closer examination shows that indeed, the innate property of humans, called here the laws of Human Consciousness, are there and far more nuanced. Fortunately, it happens to be an innate property, which cannot be changed or erased. One evolves on this property based on true education and a nurturing environment. It combines rational as well as empathetic aspects of human being, leading to experiencing happiness. All these are observable and verifiable.

Unfortunately, the society we have built is based on elements that are against human consciousness. It tries to use the so called ‘base’ nature of human beings, namely, selfishness and greed, to build a happy society (albeit in the limited material domain). Unfortunately, it can never be successful in either building harmonious society or in having happy individuals, as it goes against the human consciousness. It is not sustainable in the physical domain either, leading to the crisis of climate change and the spectre of human extinction staring at our face.

To bring about a change in the current situation of violence in society and unhappiness among individuals, steps need to be taken to build a society aligned to human consciousness. There is a need therefore to work on alternative social systems based on swaraj, and thereby bring out the best in the human being. Education would have to play a key role in starting the process and get it going in a big way.

Acknowledgement

The ideas in this paper are based on Madhyasth Darshan propounded by Shri A. Nagraj. As an application of this philosophy, the Universal Human Values (UHV) program was implemented as a compulsary course at IIIT Hyderabad. The course is based on dialogue and not on do’s and dont’s. Dialog is around current issues that the students face in the world of show-off and one upmanship, competition, wealth seeking, undermining of relationships, etc.[14] It led to invaluable learnings for the author regarding beliefs the students come with. A debt is owed to the students and faculty mentors of the UHV program with whom the author worked. Student Induction Program at IIT(BHU) spread to engineering colleges across the country through AICTE, and rich experience was gained in training the faculty mentors.

I am grateful to the following for their feedback on the draft of this article: Mukul Sinha, Harsh Satya, Sunil Sahasrabudhe, CN Krishnan, Veena Joshi, and JK Suresh.

Footnotes

[1] Laws are reworded here without changing their meaning, for ease of expression and discussion.

[2] Robots made popular to the previous generation are similar to Artificial Intelligence or AI systems of today. One is reminded of the robot named HAL in Space Odyssey, 2001, where the robot system is shown without hands and legs, like the current AI systems, but with listening cameras and controls in every part of the spacecraft (except one room). I intend to write on whether machines can ever be conscious and the ethical issues that arise with AI systems, in a future article.

[3] In fact, it is no longer a sacrifice, but a natural outcome. In this case, laws L1 and L3 cease to be different, they become the same.

[4] This is part of the more general law of inertia that every body consisting of matter - whether big or small - maintains its state of inertia. Thus, a moving body will maintain motion with the same velocity, and a stationary body will remain stationary. The former aspect relating to moving body is what is counter-intuitive.

[5] Feelings are not the same as emotions. Feelings are things such as trust, respect, affection, love, etc. Emotions are when feelings have a tempest or storm.

[6] To make sure that there are no errors, one can repeat the experiment by oneself. Or one can verify by the matching of experiences of many people placed in similar setting. This is like the repetition of a physical experiment, independently by different people in different settings.

[7] The term ‘knowledge’ used here includes knowing and experiencing both, that is, knowing about physical matter and consciousness, as well as experiencing feelings. Doing experiments to know the consciousness can be called spirituality or spiritual science.

[8] A lack of understanding in applying the two together, namely technology and organization, can lead to a fault in the civilization. And it has happened already - leading to violence to both nature and other human beings!

[9] Besides ‘enlightenment’, the other terms that are used are ‘spiritual growth’ or ‘awakening’ (jagrati). Just as physical evolution leads to a discrete shift, namely appearance of the human being with human body with a developed brain; enlightenment is a result of the evolution of a different kind, namely, of the self or consciousness. How the development of consciousness takes place and how does it connect with human happiness? Happiness pertains to taste for material goods (through senses), to relationships, to purpose in life, where each one is a shift to a higher level. All this requires more research and a separate article on the topic.

[10] Remember Mahatma Gandhi’s inner voice or voice of conscience, see its formalization as human consciousness.

[11] Human society has gone through different stages of control. First it was primarily through faith in the religious leader; then it was through fear of the king or political authority; today it is based on temptation. Final, emancipation would come through understanding by people (based on both rationality and feelings). See Nagraj (2001). There is a need to describe how history can be seen as the evolution of human consciousness, but that requires a separate article.

[12] These are all part of our metaphorical ‘friction’.

[13] This is saying that every human being is a ‘moral man’, in other words, intrinsically he/she is good and noble. In the Indian tradition, the human being may be called as a ‘dharmic man’ who fulfills his/her duties and responsibilities. For this he/she has to understand how to fulfill them in the complex social reality. When the society is aligned with individual human consciousness (as given by laws of consciousness), it results in alignment of svatva, swatantrata, and swaraj. A more detailed explanation of these requires a separate article.

[14] A separate article is needed to describe the process of conducting the UHV classes using dialog, through which the students learn to examine and evaluate their beliefs, and the impact thereof.

References

1. Asimov, Isaac, “Runaround", Astounding Science Fiction, March 1942. (Also in I, Robot, 1950.)

2. “Extinction Rebellion", Wikipedia, accessed 2 October 2023. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_Rebellion)

3. Nagraj, Agrahar, Jeevan Vidya: Ek Parichay (in Hindi), Yugbodh Digital Printers, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India, 2001.

4. Nagraj, Agrahar, Manav Vyavahar Darshan (in Hindi), 2nd edition, Jeevan Vidya Prakashan, Divyapath Sansathan, Amarkantak, MP, India, 2009. (https://madhyasth-darshan.info/)

5. Sahasrabudhey, Chitra, “Lokvidya, Sant Parampara and Swaraj" (in Hindi), in Reimagining Swaraj through Indian Traditions, AV Balasubramanian, G Sivaramakrishnan, JK Suresh (editors), Other India Press, Goa, 2022.

6. Sangal, Rajeev, “Value Education: Relieving Peer Pressure, Addressing Culture and Stimulating Studies", National Convention on Value Education through Jeevan Vidya, IIT Delhi, India, 2007. (http://uhv.iiit.ac.in/publications.html)

7. Sangal, Rajeev, “Between Humans and Machines: Explainable Artificial Intelligence", The Hindu, 2 June 2019a, OpEd Page. (https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/ open-page/between-humans-and-machines/article27399826.ece)

8. Sangal, Rajeev, Transforming Academic Institutions: My Experiments with a Human Touch, Banyan Tree, Indore, 2023.

9. Sangal, Rajeev, Pradeep Ramancharla, and NC Karmakar, Mentors’ Manual for Universal Human Values I, AICTE, December 2019b (updated version). (http://uhv.iiit.ac.in/publications.html)

Prof. Rajeev Sangal is the former Director of IIT(BHU) Varanasi and IIIT Hyderabad. He is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering and of Computer Society of India. His research spans Natural Language Processing, Machine Translation, and Artificial Intelligence. He designed and implemented Universal Human Values course as a regular part of academic curricula in engineering education. He is the architect of the Student Induction Program in technical education. As the Chairman, National Coordination Committee, Student Induction Program, AICTE, he oversaw the implementation of the program in technical institutions in the country.

Prof. Sangal can be reached at sangal@iiit.ac.in.

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