In an essay in the 1940s, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov suggested three principles to guide the behavior of robots and intelligent machines. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, as they are called, have survived to the present:

1. Robots may not injure human beings, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. Robots must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. Robots must protect its own existence, except where such protection would conflict with the First or Second Law.