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The article doesn't directly talk about robot-to-human violence, but presumably if root access at the software layer allows absolutely any command, it is possible to cause the described botnet to physically attack humans.

I realize that Azimov's three rules are subject to enormous ethical quandaries and rethinkings (and that this is after all the point of them in the first place), but is there some disadvantage to having a hardwired command, at the core of the command hierarchy, that forces robots to relent if a human says "stop, you're hurting me" in any language?

Presumably police, gangs, cartels and militaries who have robot fantasies won't like this, but on medium to long time scales we need to prevent them from using robots anyway (and eventually dismantle them entirely).

The Three laws of Robotics seem to be a good idea though in reality, as Asimov portrayed in his works, are nothing more than fallible plot device.

The nuance a humanoid machine intelligence needs is way above what the current state of the art is capable of. Ultimately, we need each autonomous robot's action to fall back to a real human for accountability purposes, just as heavy machine operators today.

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 the 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.

Given the security and privacy history of smart devices, you’d have to be a complete moron to let a human sized robot into your home.
I cannot image what if Tesla has a similar vulnerability issue, and someone took over all of its vehicles.. Or maybe someone is already able to do that, and just waiting.
Umm, robots need to be certified and regulated to hard coded robotic laws or something. Before criminals give them guns, or strap explosives to them, or remote takeover and untracibly murder people in their homes then burn the house down.
Replace "robot" with "computer", and it will quickly become obvious how impractical "hard coded robotic laws or something" actually is...
It's only a matter of time before a similar hack hits waymo and/or tesla...
I love* that this comes out around the same time that engineers are making fun videos of themselves beating up robots half their size and literally training the robots to develop the same sort of fight-or-flight instincts that were forcibly instilled into the engineers

* I do not in fact love it

When “botnet” starts to get a whole new meaning. Seriously tho, botnets of connected robots will be dangerous with respect to inert computers, this is something that will have to be addressed
This is going to be a big problem. Mobile robots need an independent emergency stop safety system that cannot be updated or bypassed remotely.
> We published the cryptographic keys in July

Everyone should take a look at the SERP screenshot

https://x.com/d0tslash/status/1969412224763498769

> The vulnerability combines multiple security issues: hardcoded cryptographic keys, trivial authentication bypass, and unsanitized command injection. What makes this particularly concerning is that it's completely wormable - infected robots can automatically compromise other robots in BLE range. This vulnerability allows the attacker to completely takeover the device.

damn!

I remember reading something that Unitree locks end users out of direct joint-level control. Will this exploit allow users access to that?
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