Philosophy and Sci-fi Fiction...

Before I begin to delve deeper into my post I have to admit that I have a bad habit of devouring books, much like one might devour some fast-food. Where others reading-pace might compare to savouring all of the flavours in a fine cuisine.

Recently I have been reading some Science fiction, (which I have to recommend) and the current book I'm currently reading now is on Philosophy and it got me thinking about Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" and how if these laws/rules were applied to humans and society it might lead to some sort of utopia?

The first law is fairly straight forward, with exception of the second condition "or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." I imagine in practice this law could prove quite difficult to enforce, the closest thing that comes to mind would be criminal negligence.

The second law would need some sort of implied total trust in the ability and guidance of the governing body, in Asimov's example the second law sets the robots in total subservience to humans. However as a law applied to society I'm not so sure it would work in practice...

But lets assume that every single human (including those who gave instructions) had to follow the first law explicitly the outcome of the second law might not be as grim as Orwell paints it...

Now the last of Asimov's laws "A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law." has interesting implications if applied to my Utopian society example...

The first observation is that suicide or self harm would be prohibited (which I believe is an actual law in most modern societies anyway) however given that the first law says "do no harm" and the second law says "follow all instructions unless it might lead to harm" and now the last law says "protect yourself except where instructed to otherwise and where it will lead to harm" ...

Where I'm going with this is I believe that this last law (with the other laws in place) suggests a society of Non-violent resistance, which seems to agree/fit-in quite well with the idea of a Utopian society.

Now that I have committed my thoughts to paper (in essence) I'm certain that this isn't the first time that someone has considered Asimov's 3-Laws in such a manner, I wonder if anyone else has any thoughts or comments on the topic?

tl;dr version

Asimov's 3 laws present an interesting way to govern a utopian society if they could be implemented & enforced fully.