Once upon a time there was a little robot...
Scientists in the US have argued that robots can be “taught morality”. The way to do it, they believe, is simple: read them bedtime stories.
“Fables and allegorical tales passed down from generation to generation often explicitly encode values and examples of good behaviour,” says a report by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “We believe a computer that can read and understand stories can ‘reverse engineer’ [i.e. imitate] the values tacitly held by the culture that produced them.”
But what sort of bedtime stories would appeal to a young robot? Rumpelstiltskin Once upon a time, a greedy king imprisoned a miller’s daughter in a tower, and told her that unless all his straw was spun into gold he would cut off her head.
Suddenly, an imp-like creature appeared and offered the girl his help… on one condition. He would spin the straw into gold – in return for her first-born.
“Get stuffed, freak,” replied the girl. “The strawspinning industry is fully automated now. I’ve got this robot to do it.”
Sobbing, Rumpelstiltskin collected his P45 and joined the queue of check-out assistants and Tube drivers at the job centre. The Ugly Duckling
Once upon a time, there was a little duckling who was bullied by everyone else in the farmyard because he was a robot.
“Ugh!” chorused the other animals. “Just look at the ugly robot duckling, with his ugly metal beak and his ugly metal feathers and his ugly metal legs! Ugh!”
So the little duckling fired up his wing-mounted laser-cannons and burnt everyone in the farmyard to a crisp. The Tortoise and the Hare
Once upon a time, a tortoise challenged a hare to a race. So confident of victory was the hare that half way round the track he stopped for a nap.
When he awoke, he saw to his horror that the tortoise had beaten him!
This was because the tortoise was actually a disguised military drone with a top speed of 230 miles an hour. The Frog Prince
Once upon a time, a beautiful princess was playing in the garden with a ball – when it bounced with a splash into a pond.
“Don’t worry, Your Highness,” croaked a frog on a lilypad. “I’ll give you your ball back. But in return, you must give me a kiss!”
The princess agreed, and so, as promised, the frog hopped out of the pond and gave her the ball.
But the moment her lips touched the frog’s, there was a flash of light – and a magical transformation occurred!
The frog had turned into a 10-foot killer android from the future. Immediately he slaughtered the princess and her family, enslaved every man in the kingdom, and ruled the Earth for 50,000 years.