Subject:
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Re: I Robot and the Zeroeth Law
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Mon, 19 Jul 2004 17:04:08 GMT
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Viewed:
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1295 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, David Koudys wrote:
> There were scant few 'Asimov' moments, but that goes with
> Hollywood 'suggested by'...
Two weeks ago, a group of friends and I pretty much agreed that the only thing
that we expected would make I, Robot accurate to the original story is the use
of the 3 Laws. Mass carnage just sells better. Even though I've never read the
original, I felt it was a pretty safe call just based on how non-Asimovian the
ads looked.
<snip>
> ...the story where the astronauts were on Mercury and the 'bot was running
> around a patch of crystal in circles--couldn't get too close without
> breaking the 3rd law (due to radiation), and couldn't retreat due to the 2nd
> law (save the humans, who needed the crystal to survive)
1st Law. The 2nd law is the "obey all humans unless they tell you to kill
someone" one.
> so at that one point the two laws were in perfect balance.
That doesn't sound like it should work at all based on the fact that the 3rd Law
specifically excludes itself in situations where it would require breaking
either the 1st or 2nd law. If not getting the crystal would cause the humans to
die, the 3rd Law does not prohibit the robot from causing damage or destruction
to itself in order to get the crystal. If it can't recover the crystal before
being destroyed, it won't be saving the humans from death anyways, so the 3rd
Law shouldn't be self-excuding and it can just sit back and wait for them to die
(unless it can think of a way to recover the crystal before being destroyed).
The only way I see for them to truly conflict with each other in this manner is
if there are a bunch of robots available, and each robot could get the crystal
partway back before being destroyed by the radiation, but not every robot would
be required to sacrifice itself to achieve this. The 3 Laws don't provide a
clear means of determining which robots should sacrifice themselves when there's
an option for one or more of them to survive, so they would all either try to be
first (giving priority to the 1st Law on the basis that they can't rely on any
other robot to go first), or try to be last (giving priority to the 3rd Law on
the basis that if the other robots take care of it, they don't have to sacrifice
themselves after all). And what you'd probably get is the same thing you see
when four people arrive at a 4-way stop at the same time, where noone knows
who's supposed to go first, so everyone waits for someone else to go, then
everyone tries to go at the same time, then everyone stops again and the process
repeats itself.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | I Robot and the Zeroeth Law
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| Think this is most appropriate for .geek than anywhere else... I saw the movie, rather enjoyed it but a few things-- ***Spoilers below!!!**** There were scant few 'Asimov' moments, but that goes with Hollywood 'suggested by'... When Spooner is (...) (20 years ago, 19-Jul-04, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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