To solve [Norbert] Wiener’s “slave paradox,” inherent in our wanting to build machines with two diametrically opposed traits (independence and subservience, self-directed… rationality and the seeking of someone else’s goals), we would have to construct robots not only with a formal prudential programming, but also with all our specific goals, purposes, and aspirations built into them so that they will not seek anything but these. But even if this type of programming could be coherent, it would require an almost infinite knowledge on our part to construct robots in this way. We could make robots perfectly safe only if we had… an exact knowledge of all our purposes, needs, desires, etc., not only in the present but in all future contingencies which might possibly arise...
This is what led some “roboticists” to propose that robots should be programmed not only prudentially… but also with an overriding semi-Kantian imperative. (For example, Asimov’s first law of robotics, “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm,” overrides the second, “A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings,” which in turn overrides the purely prudential third, “A robot must protect its own existence.” The trouble with this type of programming… is that it will not work as long as we have not also built into the robot an almost infinite knowledge of what is in the long run and in any conceivable situation good or bad, beneficial or harmful to human beings.
It would seem then that the only way to make a free… prudential robot safe for men would be to make it not only morally isomorphic but also wholly identical in structure and programming with human beings. Built of the same organic materials and given the same neurophysiological, psychological, and rational makeup, our android would… know as well as any man what would help and harm human beings and could thus obey the Asimovian first law, the Golden Rule, or any similar directive at least as well as any men can.
Unfortunately such construction and programming, even if it were technologically possible, would severely limit the specific usefulness of the robot.
From Versenyi (1974):