Three Laws of Robotics

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

They do if that's your duty.

Eh, no.

A -2 point Disadvantage (Sense of Duty to one individual) is not enough to cover being utterly unable to disobey an order from that individual, no matter how unjustified.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Langy

Duty (Follow Orders; 15-; Involuntary) [2nd Law]
Obsession (Follow Orders) [2nd Law]
Reprogrammable [2nd Law]

Why do you need all three? It looks like any one of them should suffice.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Why do you need all three? It looks like any one of them should suffice.

With Involuntary Duty, you can disobey all you want, but it will have negative in-setting consequences. Attaching Obsession to it means that you are psychologically compelled to obey.

Why wouldn't Obsession alone do it? Because being Obsessed with something that comes up rarely is not as disadvantageous as being Obsessed with something that shapes every second of your life.

That's not saying I necessarily think that Obsession is the best model here. But while it might be possible to squeeze 'Has to obey all orders from a wide variety of sources' into a variety of Mental Disadvantages, it will usually be far more severe than the issues that the Disadvantage is meant to cover. Feeling an obligation towards someone (i.e. Sense of Duty) still leaves you free to select the appropriate way to fulfill that obligation without interfering with your own goals. This is much less severe than being forced to follow all orders that stem from that person.

[whswhs]

I'd like to offer a couple of incidental notes:

1. It's not obvious that the Third Law is not worth points as a disadvantage. Taken by itself, it says that a robot may not take actions that endanger its own continued existence. If you magically annihilated every human being in an Asimovian world, its robots would have to behave in a way that minimized threats to their own survival. This is not identical to the behavior of human beings; as living organisms, human beings are ultimately motivated by threats to their own inclusive fitness, that is, to their reproductive success or that of their kin, and this creates psychological mechanisms that can be captured by other behavioral drivers such as religious or political ideologies. Robots would not have that set of mechanisms; they would be compulsively protective of their own survival.

I suggest that the Third Law is representable by something like Cowardice (9) [-15]. The -5 for actual risk of death gives "overridden only on a 4 or less," which gives a chance of the robot's evaluating the risk in some skewed (or insightful!) way.

2. There's a hierarchal relationship among the laws: The Second Law applies only when the First Law is not in force, and the Third Law only when the First and Second Laws are not in force. That needs to be represented. I think that GURPS actually has a mechanism for doing so: the "alternate abilities" system. You have First Law [some number of points], AD: Second Law [some number of points/5], AD: Third Law [some number of points/5]. (I would allow the full point value to the First Law, because the choice among the laws is not free, as it is with normal AAs.)

Bill Stoddard

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by whswhs

2. There's a hierarchal relationship among the laws: The Second Law applies only when the First Law is not in force, and the Third Law only when the First and Second Laws are not in force. That needs to be represented. I think that GURPS actually has a mechanism for doing so: the "alternate abilities" system. You have First Law [some number of points], AD: Second Law [some number of points/5], AD: Third Law [some number of points/5]. (I would allow the full point value to the First Law, because the choice among the laws is not free, as it is with normal AAs.)

While this might look attractive, it suffers in that it is completely unfair.

Having Pacifism Cannot Kill (Humans Only) and Sense of Duty (Humanity) in combination with Duty (Involuntary) and Vow (Obey Human Commands) does not result in the latter two disdvantages being only 1/5 as limiting to a character.

The minimal benefit for the robot's player that it is now impossible for humans to order him to kill other humans is more than negated by the fact that he cannot minimise the harm of the Second Law in the most logical manner, i.e. by killing all humans it encounters before they issue any commands.

I cannot see that the existence of the First Law in any way justifies giving back fewer points for the Disadvantages covered by the Second Law. They are still going to be affecting the character at the usual frequency. There is not going to be any time when they will not apply to the character. Why would you deprive the player of 4/5th of their value?

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Icelander

With Involuntary Duty, you can disobey all you want, but it will have negative in-setting consequences. Attaching Obsession to it means that you are psychologically compelled to obey.

Why wouldn't Obsession alone do it? Because being Obsessed with something that comes up rarely is not as disadvantageous as being Obsessed with something that shapes every second of your life.

That's not saying I necessarily think that Obsession is the best model here. But while it might be possible to squeeze 'Has to obey all orders from a wide variety of sources' into a variety of Mental Disadvantages, it will usually be far more severe than the issues that the Disadvantage is meant to cover. Feeling an obligation towards someone (i.e. Sense of Duty) still leaves you free to select the appropriate way to fulfill that obligation without interfering with your own goals. This is much less severe than being forced to follow all orders that stem from that person.

I'm not keen on the Obsession, anyway. An Involuntary Duty can already resemble mind control, and with Almost Always, it looks like it covers a lot. Reprogrammable should fill in the rest, I think.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

I'm not keen on the Obsession, anyway. An Involuntary Duty can already resemble mind control, and with Almost Always, it looks like it covers a lot. Reprogrammable should fill in the rest, I think.

So you think that anyone coming up to you and saying 'Please kill yourself', and then you are forced to kill yourself, is only worth -30 points? That seems too low to me.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

In the original thread I commented on jacobmuller's comment that that disadvantage wasn't part of the three laws, here is why...

If I was a robot with jacobmuller's law then I could attack humans to defend myself. The original three laws expressly forbid that, thus my comment that his disadvantage as written wasn't really part of the three laws.

Not guilty - wasn't me that wrote them up. More likely to have been Kromm or some other SJG genius. Would they have been in Robots?
But all I can find is:
Pacifism: Self-Defence Only (Species Specific -20%) [-12];
Duty: Always On (Involuntary) [-20];
Major Vow (allow no harm to owners’ property) [-10].
The specific species depending on who built them and you could replace that with uniforms or badge holders or IFF...
What about the Zeroth Law: "a robot must not harm humanity."?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Langy

So you think that anyone coming up to you and saying 'Please kill yourself', and then you are forced to kill yourself, is only worth -30 points? That seems too low to me.

Note, though, that just telling an Asimovian Robot to destroy itself may not be enough. The first words are probably going to be, "Sir, have I done something to warrant that? Is there another way to get rid of me?" The Robot isn't ignoring the Second Law in this case, but because the simple statement may or may not be a direct order the Third is still in effect. Any good sapient robot will probably ask for confirmation; this won't be disregarding the Second Law, just making sure the human giving the order understands what it is he's doing.

Of course, if the human says, "Kill yourself, because with you here I can't kill myself (or another human you're protecting)!" then the First Law goes into effect. The human just indicated that he'd harm another human, and the Robot cannot through inaction do anything that would cause harm to a human, and the order to terminate the Robot's own existence is rendered null and void.

Now, in cases of "I order you, in no uncertain terms, to cease your operations and perform a positronic lobotomy on yourself because you're a useless waste of space!" (and who among those that watched the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy didn't want to say that to the battle droids? ^_^), then the Robot would have no choice but to do as ordered.

Part of what makes the decision - as noted in one of the short stories in I, Robot - is the emphasis on the order. A mere "go kill yourself" could be construed as just a "go away" - unless you also have No Sense of Humor, the tone of voice when the order is given may determine whether the order was a genuine order for positronic suicide or just a request to leave the area. No Sense of Humor makes comments 100% literal - tell a robot with No Sense of Humor to "shake a leg", and he'll shake one of his locomotion limbs, not start moving faster. "Go take a long walk off a short pier" would have a Robot with NSoH looking for that short pier to walk off of; one without that disad would just leave the area until called for.

Also, note that Reprogrammable is also implied in the Asimovian Three Laws. Giving a Robot that you don't own an order to destroy itself would likely have the robot seeking confirmation from its owner, not the person giving the order.

</ramble>

[pawsplay]

Basically, you have what the robot must do (Duty), and how it must do it (Pacifism, also self-preservation clause).

Duty (Obey the Laws of Robotics, all the time, extremely hazardous, involuntary) [-25]
Pacifism (Total) (Humans only, -20%) [-24]
Selfless (15 or less; Toward Humans, +0%) [-10]
Careful [-1]

Total: -60