Goddamn Teenagers (Worm, AU/time travel)

[FaerieKnight79]

Well, yeah. His 3 Laws of Robotics on the surface appear reasonable and sane. It's only in how they interact with each other that the conflicting natures manifest to interesting results. And by interesting I mean anything ranging from the android going insane to an android discovering religion.

 

[dc2008]

Well, yeah. His 3 Laws of Robotics on the surface appear reasonable and sane. It's only in how they interact with each other that the conflicting natures manifest to interesting results. And by interesting I mean anything ranging from the android going insane to an android discovering religion.

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Yep! I'm reminded of the standard proof of uncountability for mathematics—here, which would be expressed as "any situation not nearly described by your three laws"

 

[grommile]

It's only in how they interact with each other

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Heck, the standard formulation of the First Law is sufficient, in and of itself, to make a robot go mad and ultimately think itself to death in suitable circumstances.

(The story where it's believed one of two professors is committing academic fraud and the robot worked with both of them.)

 

[Ace Dreamer]

I'm guessing that's something like "a robot shall not cause, or by inaction allow to be caused, the destruction of the universe"?

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That's probably the -2th Law.

No, it was about sapient life - backstory of the Robots & Empire bit was the robots had sent alien-genocide robot waves, that wiped the galaxy of any (sapient) alien lifeforms that might threaten humanity... And hidden all evidence of such. The robot's attitude to the Entities of 'Worm'... less than positive.

One reason the Three Laws are interesting was it was suggested they might be good guidelines for a 'good human' (implied homo sap., but...). Also, making them literal and axiomatic, not regarded as wise. So, something 'pings' the Laws, really strong suggestion there's a problem there that needs solving.

Azimov's Laws, yes, at least got people thinking about moral/ethical systems in non-humans. Use after use of 'rampaging robots', 'AI's will of course enslave/subvert/destroy humanity', and nothing else, really tedious past a certain point. Now... Self-driving vehicles need careful 'ethical engineering' work (in how they behave)...

In this story? Whether you can get non-human intelligences to 'play nice' with humanity - rather an important point...
(Some might claim teenagers are 'trainee humanity', though. )

((Big 3 Laws issue? How do robots recognise a human???))

 

[Whitewings]

One book I read pointed out that a Three Laws robot, if the First Law were removed or modified, would be incredibly dangerous because the First Law required the robot to know exactly what harms a human and how and how badly.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

One book I read pointed out that a Three Laws robot, if the First Law were removed or modified, would be incredibly dangerous because the First Law required the robot to know exactly what harms a human and how and how badly.

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Even with all 3 laws being intact and unaltered, said robot can potentially be extremely dangerous. The conflicts generated by the three laws interacting with the real world could lead to suicidal depression, homicidal insanity, finding religion, or any number of other results.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

Even with all 3 laws being intact and unaltered, said robot can potentially be extremely dangerous. The conflicts generated by the three laws interacting with the real world could lead to suicidal depression, homicidal insanity, finding religion, or any number of other results.

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If you want to see a fun re-mangling of the 3 Laws, look at the robots in the (tt-RPG) game 'Paranoia'... Once they figured-out they were the property of Friend Computer, they could basically do what they liked...

...

Trouble Shooting Troubleshooter (Omake)

"Excuse me? What are you doing in the Out-patients Ward, Brockton General, this time of night? I'm Panacea, by the way."

"I think... I just came through an experimental World Gate. We were just checking out... a lab where there'd been strange disappearances. I figure I just found out why."

"You seem to be bleeding, a little, can I help you?"

"Are you a medic, too? Sure."

"You... do realise that you've an amazingly accurate flesh body over a non-living endoskeleton? That should fix that injury, and a few of those nasty bruises you had. And, those old burns."

"Thanks! I feel a lot better. I know I'm wearing a red jumpsuit, but the blood does make a mess after a while. Thanks for fixing the old laser burns. My skeleton is laser-resistant, of course."

"Have you... always been like this?"

"No. I was originally a surgical-practice droid, laser-resistant skeleton because the trainees aren't always as careful as they should be, with their laser scalpels. But, I was drafted. They always need more Troubleshooters.

This place looks... rather lower-tech than what I'm familiar with. Is that... Outdoors, out that window? I've never been Outdoors..."

"You... said you were a medic? Are all... droids medics?"

"No. They downloaded full medical skills in me, so I could support my Troubleshooter squad. I've not had need... to use my laser scalpel. Yet..."

"Right. Are you... hungry, or anything? It looked a long time since you last ate."

"Yes. Some food would be good. I've heard of these things called 'hamburgers'. Any chance of getting one of those?"

"The hospital food... isn't ideal, but it is hot and filling. Yes, I think they're serving hamburgers. I could use some food, myself."

"Excellent! Just one thing... This world isn't run by... an All Powerful... Artificial Intelligence, is it?"

---

AN: Would a recycled 'surgical practice droid', in a red Troubleshooter jumpsuit, armed with a red laser pistol, and... advanced medical skills, count as a teenager? How would they fit in Brockton Bay?

 

[dc2008]

Snip

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Have a thread mark! Never played the game but sounds like a fun crossover idea!

 

[Whitewings]

an android discovering religion.

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And doing an excellent job in accordance with the Will of the Master.

 

[BethofDeath]

The First Law of Robotics took precedence over the other two and all commands given, as I recall. So, if I remember correctly, there weren't any issues of them conflicting (beyond requiring a longer time to process situations where conflicts arose unless the positronic brain itself was damaged or defective?)

I only had the chance to read *one* of the actual Robot novels tho, the rest were the later-written crossovers with the Foundation series, when Asimov was retroactively making nearly everything part of the same timeline. Even that much was when I was like 10-12 years old; I've only re-read Foundation and Second Foundation, soooo..... take with grain of salt.

WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE NON-ASIMOV ROBOT NOVELS.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

No BethofDeath, the 3 laws of robotics were created specifically to be flawed and to conflict with each other while seeming on the surface to be sensible.

EDIT:
As an example of how the 3 laws of robotics are in conflict, let's say a city gets all it's power from a single nuclear power plant. This plant needs maintenance, or it will suffer a meltdown in the near future. To preform said maintenance, the reactor needs to be shut down. The only way to shut it down is to have a robot do the shutdown sequence, since the control room is in a highly irradiated location. Seems simple, right? Order a robot to go into the control room and initiate the shutdown sequence. This will prevent a meltdown, and save human lives. And yet, the hospital is also powered by that reactor. When the reactor gets shut down, everyone currently on life support will die. Traffic control will go down, leading to accidents. Some of which will be fatal. Even more, entering the control room and initiating the shutdown sequence will also result in said robot's circuits frying. What happens?

The three laws of robotics are

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

All three are of equal priority. All three must be maintained at all times. The robot is required to obey orders given to it by a human, except this would lead to other humans coming to harm so is in conflict with the first law. The third law dictates that it can't put it's self in a situation to be destroyed, but it's just been ordered to do so by a human and NOT acting will lead to humans getting hurt. Thus the third law is in conflict with the first and second law. And even if the conflict regarding the order violating the 1st and 3rd law was resolved in favor of following orders, both acting and NOT acting will lead to humans getting hurt. Thus the first law is also in conflict with it's self.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

All three are of equal priority.

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Sorry, but 1st Law, as always, takes priority.

So robot says, "Get those backup power systems running for the hospital, broadcast a warning about traffic safety, if you can't provide backup power for the traffic systems, and I'll go in and shut-down the reactor. Doing anything else would be utterly stupid. I'd appreciate if you fix things so a situation like this doesn't occur again. I don't care about blame, fix the problems."

You're going to have to work harder to produce a Three Laws 'trolley problem'...

Also, Williamson's chilling novel The Humanoids (1949) deals with robots that prioritise human safety.

It might be... interesting to see what some Three Laws robots would do in Brockton Bay... I suspect it would very much depend on how deeply their briefing 'goes down the rabbit holes(s)'...

 

[grommile]

You're going to have to work harder to produce a Three Laws 'trolley problem'...

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First and Second Law each have self-contained roblock potential.

 

[dc2008]

"… accordingly," continued the retired British civil servant, "while her majesty Valkyrie I is sadly detained with matters of state, she has empowered me to liaise as a diplomat plenipotentiary with esteemed persons, such as yourself, who represent our neighbors, near and far, from any Earth of origin."

Tagg forced himself to keep a straight face as the Aleph US representative bristled. Sadly, a political appointee. Dealing with a professional would have been much easier.

"We have been assured for months that your Wandering Court greatly valued relations," the man blustered. "What could possibly be more important?"

"After considerable deliberation as to the degree of transparency appropriate to demonstrate on this subject with our friends, allies, prospective allies, neighbors and other polities and parties of interest, the decision has been taken at the highest levels, after all due consideration as befits a matter of such importance, that the seriousness of the situation, not that other situations lack seriousness, argues in favor of a path of clarity rather than a path of obfuscation, notwithstanding the internal, rather than external, nature of the events in issue, most particularly as the matter relates to matters of core interest to Her Majesty and those of us privileged to serve in her government, specifically, that of the Truce as relates to Her Majesty's demesne as a matter of domestic policy, separate and apart from its enforcement as a matter of treaty and international and indeed interplanetary and inter-dimensional custom and practice, such as has emerged, and the need to abide by ordinary and customary rules and customs of order during such trying times."

The American turned to Tagg, frustration apparent.

Tagg summarized in a level tone. "It's a purely internal matter. However, they are going to tell you anyway because it relates to their laws around the Endbringer Truce."

---

Note: Brits and Americans. Divided by a common language.

 

[Eewec]

As a person who is a native born national to this fine nation of Britain I must forthwith and with great seriousness espouse to you that this representation of our fine and upstanding (*cough* *erg* they're anything but) political personages as may have bestowed upon them the great responsibilities of representing our great nation to others of various elevations both greater and smaller than our own, it behoves me to make quite clear in the most strenuous of tones that such dialogue as has been indicated in this most recent of postings upon this great forum is of a similarity and diction that many within and without our great institutions would with ease of long rapport recognise within that same posting a resemblance most uncanny to that within which the language our personages of authority both great and small may avail themselves.

EDIT: Translation for non-brits: You nailed the British civil servant speak.

EDIT 2: I'm suddenly and vividly reminded why our English teacher ceased making a requirement of her essays be a minimum word count. When multiple students handed in essays that were many multiples of that minimum yet said barely anything of substance while others handed in almost terse essays simply answering the questions posed yet without all the extra prose and waffle. It apparently took her hours to get through the marking for the waffle laden essays while the almost terse short form answers took her hardly any time at all. If you're a teacher and setting a Brit a minimum word count expect a long marking session. Multiple essays she had to go back to the authors and get clarification that she even understood the answers correctly... that was hilarious. Though the detentions set to help her mark the next set of essays may have also gone towards toning things down a bit.

 

[William Stepp]

"After considerable deliberation as to the degree of transparency appropriate to demonstrate on this subject with our friends, allies, prospective allies, neighbors and other polities and parties of interest, the decision has been taken at the highest levels, after all due consideration as befits a matter of such importance, that the seriousness of the situation, not that other situations lack seriousness, argues in favor of a path of clarity rather than a path of obfuscation, notwithstanding the internal, rather than external, nature of the events in issue, most particularly as the matter relates to matters of core interest to Her Majesty and those of us privileged to serve in her government, specifically, that of the Truce as relates to Her Majesty's demesne as a matter of domestic policy, separate and apart from its enforcement as a matter of treaty and international and indeed interplanetary and inter-dimensional custom and practice, such as has emerged, and the need to abide by ordinary and customary rules and customs of order during such trying times."

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This gave me flashbacks or reruns of "Yes, Minister". You nailed it.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

[All the Worlds' Stage, Part 3]

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I believe the phrase, "Qualifies to waffle for England" (*) might apply.

Certainly fails the 'Clear English' measure...

Good job!

BTW...
All the Worlds' Stage
All the Worlds' Stage, Part 2
might it be kind to provide these sorts of back-links when the previous bits were so far back? Or, am I missing some piece of logic, here?

I can see one big problem, here, that posting stories on multiple sites would require back-links for each site - that'd be real pain to craft by hand.

Improves the argument for a 'Writer's Assistant' personal AI???


* - should be 'Britain', but 'Home Counties' is a more common source

 

[dc2008]

This gave me flashbacks or reruns of "Yes, Minister". You nailed it.

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Have a cookie, character is directly based on Sir H. Took me a couple tries before me better half declared I gave him enough clauses.

Ed: As I wrote these I also had to keep going back and make the Aleph US guy more obnoxious—Aleph US is highly suspicious of Bet and Valkyrie, and from the outside US diplomacy can be incredibly obnoxious at the best of times.

I believe the phrase, "Qualifies to waffle for England" (*) might apply.

Certainly fails the 'Clear English' measure...

Good job!

BTW...
All the Worlds' Stage
All the Worlds' Stage, Part 2
might it be kind to provide these sorts of back-links when the previous bits were so far back? Or, am I missing some piece of logic, here?


* - should be 'Britain', but 'Home Counties' is a more common source

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It is a good idea and something I might explore. Depends on if I can figure out a good way to do it quickly posting across all four platforms.

 

[grommile]

The funny thing is, apparently the Indian judiciary have taken our example and built on it.

Luxuriate in the Octopoid Embrace of These Legal Postulations

Invigilate your eyes on the quintessence of this dispute.

www.loweringthebar.net

 

[Ace Dreamer]

It is a good idea and something I might explore. Depends on if I can figure out a good way to do it quickly posting across all four platforms.

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Not necessarily a good way but a start would be having a table of Title with the URL for each site? Populated when the post with that title is made? The existing tool for this would be a spreadsheet (or database), but the rest of the logic to make it all work... sounds non-trivial.

The funny thing is, apparently the Indian judiciary have taken our example and built on it.

Luxuriate in the Octopoid Embrace of These Legal Postulations

Invigilate your eyes on the quintessence of this dispute.

www.loweringthebar.net

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You can see why phrases might be constructed involving 'lawyers', 'come the revolution', and swift forms of execution...

 

[dc2008]

Not necessarily a good way but a start would be having a table of Title with the URL for each site? Populated when the post with that title is made? The existing tool for this would be a spreadsheet (or database), but the rest of the logic to make it all work... sounds non-trivial.

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Yep, problem of non trivial scope. Particularly since, as this is my commute project, it is posted almost exclusively from phone while I am in transit.

 

[dc2008]

"What even is this Truce?" The Aleph US representative pressed. "There's plenty in the Protocols about relief efforts but you're talking about something domestic."

"Varies by jurisdiction," Tagg said. "For us, the Europeans, Australia and so forth, it is generally an aggravating factor. Harsher sentencing, that sort of thing."

"Similarly," Tagg continued, "we generally don't execute warrants, or run stings. You'll find few formal policies expressly stating that, it's all framed in terms of public order and marshaling or resources. The crux of it is that nobody much rocks the boat until the all-clear."

Tagg leaned back, and gestured to the former British civil servant.

"Mutual aid is the cornerstone of Her Majesty's ruling philosophy," the man said in a tone that was somehow simultaneously friendly, severe, condescending and pompous, "and response to tragedies such as that which we have just observed, whether parahuman, tectonic, meteorological, hydrologic, celestial, radio-chemical or otherwise, and whether happening within her demesne or within that of a co-signer of the Protocols, is treated with the utmost seriousness, as is right and proper, which in turn naturally, indeed inevitably, leads to Her Majesty's most merciful conclusion that actions undermining collective relief efforts, however they may be framed and without regard to how clever the purported justification, are treated with the utmost seriousness in all respects, with all due consideration for the intent of the instigators and participants of course, as with Her Majesty's personal involvement the usual considerations which can muddy the waters most expeditiously cease to be of concern."

The Aleph representative looked to Tagg.

"Treason," Tagg summarized. "For Her, breach of Her peace during a Truce is treason."

"Her majesty," the pompous official added, "takes what one might call a very traditional view of such things."

 

[Ace Dreamer]

Mutual aide

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'aid' (unless he's being really archaic, which the rest of his text doesn't fit)

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In Britain, Arson in Royal Dockyards could still carry the death penalty, even though abolished for just about everything else, including murder... (There was a popular belief this continued for quite a long while.)

'Treason' is... not a smart thing to risk being convicted for...

I'm guessing this is about... consequences for the CUI...

 

[dc2008]

'aid' (unless he's being really archaic, which the rest of his text doesn't fit)

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Typo fixed in text!

To be clear, Valkyrie takes a harsher line on this that most. One of the reasons is as was said here—she is still establishing her legitimacy as a ruler and "we take disaster response very seriously" is a part of that.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

To be clear, Valkyrie takes a harsher line on this that most.

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This sounds like "Looters get shot, no exceptions", because in a disaster there's little resources for anything else... Comes under the heading of justice depends on a society having the resources for it?