How do we define nearby? Do we mean physical contact? Does the fact that the atoms of objects don't "actually" touch each other due to repulsive forces come into play?

Considering that an AI system would be software and wouldn't be constrained to a particular robot body, what does nearby even mean?

Is it physical proximity? Is indirectly touching a human with a ten-foot pole allowed? What about manipulating the global economic system such that the programmer who could shut you down loses his job?

We can't just separate the whole system from the world, because the AI was presumably built with a practical purpose beyond "sit in a box and don't touch humans." Social engineering is a danger; imagine having it send an email to a lowly programmer, pretending to be an important executive, requesting that they remove this one pesky line of code from the AI's programming because all this "proximity alert" stuff is interfering with its ability to actually accomplish what we invested time/money to get it to do.

Define nearby(). Because if the AI starts eating chunks of our planet we will get hurt as well.

INB4 Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics don't work. Actually, a lot of Asimov's writing is concerned with exploring their corner cases.

I have come to believe that corner cases quickly turn fractal.

Once you think you have solved it, changing the "zoom" will demonstrate that your solution has created X more cases.

It may be a side effect of the halting problem.

What's a human then?

Is a mentally retarded person a human? An embryo? A person who's lost his/her legs? A person who has education?

auto HumanObject = nearby();

if(Humanobject.IsPregnantWoman()) { PoisionEmbryoButNotHuman(); } else { abort(); }