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It would technically be the fifth law.
Zeroth Law - A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
But if you’re starting from zeroth it would be the fourth.
and with robots and computers it just makes sense to start with 0
It’s even better because
Tap for spoiler
A robot created the zeroth law to allow the killing of people to save humanity
Only in the shitty movie. Not in the books.
Was there a movie? Mind you it’s been like 15 years since I read robots and empire but
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Allowing the earth to be radiation poisoned would kill people but force the humans off earth
Like I’d love some good robots movies. Robots of Dawn would likely struggle with reception, and honestly so would Under the Naked Sun but Caves of Steel? Less so.
That is the plot of the Will Smith version of I, Robot.
If I remember correctly, it’s actually Daneel who comes up with the zeroth law. And it’s not to justify killing people.
Why would anyone put will smith in this movie, or call it I, Robot, much less I have to assume they combined robots and empire with caves of steel and that’s a shit decision as well‽
May not injure you say. Can’t be injured if you’re dead. (P.S. I’m not a robot)
Sounds like something a robot would say.
Pretty sure death qualifies as “harm”.
The sentence says “…or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.” If they are dead due to the robots action it is technically within the rules.
Oh, I see, you’re saying they can bypass “injure” and go straight to “kill”. Killing someone still qualifies as injuring them - ever heard the term “fatally injured”? So no, it wouldn’t be within the rules.
I think he’s referring to the absolutism of the programmatic “or” statement.
The robot would interpret (cannot cause harm to humanity) or (through inaction allow harm to come to humanity). If either statement is true, then the rule is satisfied.
By taking action in harming humans to death, the robot made true the second statement satisfying the rule as “followed”.
While our meat brains can work out the meaning of the phrase, the computer would take it very literally and therefore, death to all humans!
Furthermore, if a human comes to harm, they may have violated the second half of the first rule, but since the robot didn’t cause harm to the person, the first statement is true, therefore, death to all humans!
That works if you ignore the commas after “or” and “through inaction”, which does sound like a robot thing to do. Damn synths!
Programmatically, if you want it to do both, use “and”
The concept of death may be hard to explain because robots don’t need to run 24\7 in order to keep functioning. Until instructed otherwise,a machine would think a person with a cardiac arrest is safe to boot later.
Who can say that death is the injury? It could be that continued suffering would be an injury worse than death. Life is suffering. Death ends life. Therefore, death ends suffering and stops injury.
I mean, this logic sounds not unlike mister Smith from The Matrix.
couldn’t that be inferred from the first law?
Actually no! Lower numbered laws have priority over higher numbers, meaning that if they come into conflict the higher number law can be broken. While the first law says they can’t allow humans to come to harm, the zeroth law basically says that if it’s for the good of the species, they absolutely can kill or otherwise hurt individual humans.
does that happen in the stories?
Yes! I think it is the second story in the book
Law 0 is also a derived law rather than a programmed one. Robots with both the three laws and sufficient intelligence that are in a position where Law 1 becomes a catch 22 will tend to derive Law 0.
Lower numbered laws have priority over higher numbers
That means this is the negative first law
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I just finished the book today 🥲
This just reminds me I’m mildly irritated that robots in fiction have glowing eyes so often. Light is supposed to go into eyes, not come out of them!
Robots or any part of an automated production line with a camera typically has a light as well to either see in low light conditions or to ensure it always sees with a similar amount of light hitting the lense.
Also, a lot of the machine vision systems I’ve run up against use red light, but it is kind of complex. If they want to detect say blood, I think blue light would actually give better contrast for detection.
They addressed this on the Orville. The glowing dots were not eyes. The droid had sensors that did all the work. The “eyes” were an aesthetic addition.
“The last thing you need is more desert”
“Excuse me?!”
“As I cannot stutter, I must conclude that you heard me”
Isaac is one of the best parts of that show lmao
I really like the design of Assaultron from Fallout 4, they didn’t have such issue because their eye is placed just above the glowy part, and the glowy part is the head laser that will one shot you.
So long as the light isn’t coming from BEHIND the lense then you can think of it being like a camera flash
Or just think of it as the power indication LED being made stylish
To be fair it makes it harder to tell where the cameras are pointed (assuming they’re not wide angle lenses and they’re trying to work similarly to humans)
“Come on, you can trust me. You’re thinking of the old red light Agimus. Blue light Agimus wants to help!”
self.setEyeColor(self.isGood() ? 'blue' : 'red');Could we do that for people too, please?
Ooh imagine the chaos at some executive meetings where everyone’s evil eyes are blinding eachother.
The intensity of the red light should be proportional to the level of evil. You could literally put solar panels in those meetings.
Well, can’t argue that it’s not practical
If they’re evil it presumably means they’re disobeying the first three laws… they may disobey the fourth law too to help cover their other crimes
In the movie the bad ones didn’t exactly disobey the laws, they merely found a loophole where by they can protect humans by taking over completely so “human error” couldn’t harm humans.
I’m all for it. Makes them easier see. FOR SUPER EEEAAARRRTTTHHH
I think it’s supposed to represent errors in the robots code like “I’m evil cuz i’m bugged”
