David Nadas

I start every morning with CNBC to get my bearings on the world, but today, my lifelong love for Science Fiction and the reality of 2026 collided. There is something surreal about seeing the literary tropes we grew up with—the stuff of pulp fiction paperbacks and late-night movies—being discussed as serious policy on a financial news network.

Panelist Niki Christoff, CEO of Christoff & Co, a D.C. strategic consultancy, host of the podcast Tech’ed Up. She and Joe Kernen were discussing the high-stakes friction between Anthropic and the government regarding AI in warfare. But the moment that floored me? Hearing Joe and Nikki panelists dive into a serious debate over Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.

The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Isaac Asimov published “Runaround” (the story that introduced the Three Laws) in 1942. For eighty years, they were a philosophical playground; now, they are literally a boardroom agenda item.