South Korea is currently drafting an ethical charter that will set clear prescriptions on how robots will function with humans. The charter is inspired by Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, namely:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law;
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.
What this means, dear ladies, is those things we previously considered as purely science fiction are happening — and happening fast.
Not that I’m pretending I’m smarter than Adamson University’s administrators, but if they haven’t done so, these nascent years of increasingly clever robots may give Adamson University a good headstart if they begin planning on how to cover their bases and take the lead in the country’s robotics field. In advanced Asian countries like South Korea, universities commonly partner with IT companies in research and development of new technologies and devices (like ubiquitous computing, colloidal silver you find now in LG or Samsung’s appliances, and home robots). The reason is because the universities have the brains, while business enterprises have the money — and the success of the final product these “streamlined, very efficient” partnerships churn out benefits everybody. In fact, most technologies you’ll find in Samsung or LG appliances were hatched in these “university-industry synergies.”
I believe technical/engineering-oriented universities like Adamson University stand to hugely benefit from these developments if they’d maneuver this early in securing a pivotal role — say, devote a complete division to bullshit-free, non-over-hyped courses in robotics, whose research facilities and equipment could be subsidized by sealing partnerships with certain corporations. I’m pretty sure it’s not impossible to strike a win-win deal there somewhere.
As an aside, Japan and South Korea are often ahead of the USA or anywhere in the West in certain technologies like telecommunications. In Australia, for instance, they’re just beginning to get excited over the “possibility” of “watching TV on their mobile phones,” while South Koreans have been enjoying it (although not without a hitch) since mid-2005. And any Westerner cruising Japan’s Akihabara district will give you wondrous tales of never-before-seen gadgets — it’s common for new stuff to appear there by 1.5 years ahead of the USA.
Asia has been kicking ass, and all this potential is just zipping past the country’s doors. Maybe the academe can take the lead in being proactively decisive, and just let the rest of the country bother with useless political drama. Although Adamson’s clever and timely move to offer nursing courses is a lucrative, profitable decision (and “sexy,” too), it might even be a much more profitable long-term venture if the university’s own people could begin owning and discovering patents to technologies that will power the devices that will dominate our future.
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