This is Bill Tsutsui with another Postcard from Asia from the Center for East Asian Studies.

In his short story Runaround, Isaac Asimov created his Laws of Robotics: Rule 1: a robot may not injure a human. Rule 2: A robot must obey orders from a human unless they conflict with Rule 1, and Rule 3: A robot must protect himself unless that conflicts with Rules 1 and 2. Now South Korea, hi-tech Mecca, has formed an ethics committee to develop its own ground rules for the use of robots. The government has predicted that every South Korean household will own a robot before 2020. So far, the rules include ensuring human control, protecting data gathered by robots and preventing people from treating robots “as if the machines were their wives.” Isaac Asimov would be proud.

With thanks to Leslie vonHolten for this text, from the Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Bill Tsutsui. Wish you were here.