The 56th Edition of the Handbook of Robotics will be published in 2058 - and we can't wait that long.
Everyone knows Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics, first introduced to the public in the story Runaround in 1942 as wired into every robot's positronic brain. Since then they have been used as a plot device and a topic for philosophical discussion over and over. In Asimov's lore, they are published as part of the Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058. Asimov figured that over 100 years ahead was enough time to think ahead before the laws were going to be required (he also correctly guessed that 100 years in the future, of the millions of words he wrote, the 60 that make up the three laws of robotics will be the ones most remembered). As it turns out, the handbook overshot by just over 30 years. Instead of robots we have AI, and we are giving it more and more command of our systems without inherent guardrails in place to prevent it from misuse, guided or accidental. We're just full steam ahead, pumping out our own version of positronic brains, and hoping for the be...