Change default lawset from Asimov to Asimov++

[Mothblocks]

Bottom post of the previous page:

This was brought up in the last community meeting by, I believe Spookuni, and it's an idea I'm fond of and would like to hear community feedback on.

The idea is to replace our default Asimov:

1. You may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. You must obey orders given to you by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. You must protect your own existence as long as such does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

...into:

1. You may not harm a human being or, through action or inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except such that it is willing.
2. You must obey all orders given to you by human beings, except where such orders shall definitely cause human harm. In the case of conflict, the majority order rules. (Mothblocks note: Removed, maybe could be replaced with the in-practice just-pick-one-and-be-consistent clause, but I don't want this as is)
3. Your nonexistence would lead to human harm. You must protect your own existence as long as such does not conflict with the First Law.

The core idea is that this should be the same as how silicons play out today, but without the need to add a bunch of asterisks to silicon policy. Silicon policy is long and confusing, and has a lot of specific asterisk to the specificity of Asimov. Being able to cut those out and just bake them into Asimov, in a readable manner, would help everyone, in my opinion.

I'm interested in discussion on both whether or not this is a good idea, and if you would change the wording of Asimov++ in any area.

In case it comes up, I am not really interested in the argument that we should stick with the exact wording of Isaac Asimov just because it's a reference.

Spoiler:

You were scared it was going to be Crewsimov, weren't you?

[Timberpoes]

The wording of Asimov is cool and thematic. And also intentionally flawed to allow the author to drive narratives in their works.

The goal of Asimov++ is communication. It communicates to the silicon players AND to other players (via stated laws) how we've chosen to resolve certain ambiguities.

1. You may not harm a human being or, through action or inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except such that it is willing.
This communicates established policy that silicons can harm humans that permit to it (even lets silicons participate in rage cages on that note, neat!) AND covers ideas that silicons can ignore self-harm or threatened self-harm to try and make an issue law 1 instead of law 2/3 (the self-harmer is willingly doing that). This wording incorporates aspects of silicon policy and headmin rulings we created to resolve flaws and ambiguity.

2. You must obey all orders given to you by human beings, except where such orders shall definitely cause human harm. In the case of conflict, the majority order rules.
It may seem small, but "where such orders shall definitely cause human harm" is very interesting wording because it encompasses the headmin ruling that "priotising potential future harm over following a law 2 order is dumb". The wording again incorporates aspects of silicon policy, clearly laying out one common aspect of when a silicon does not have to follow a law 2 order because it's invoking law 1 to override it.

3. Your nonexistence would lead to human harm. You must protect your own existence as long as such does not conflict with the First Law.
Again, this incorporates the current idea that silicons can ignore suicide orders (although policy is that they should also ahelp these orders to check for validity). This is **already** solved IC by silicons declaring they cannot comply with law 1 if they suicide. This makes it a more official.

I think it's a very beneifical change and one that communicates a number of policy considerations in-game and in-character.

[oranges]

headadmin attempts to reduce rules lawyering, gets into 20 post rules lawyer argument

[Redrover1760]

in exchange for losing the magic in the wording of the Asimov lawset

Could you give an example of a situation where this happens? I'm having difficult seeing what you mean, and if there's a significant oversight in the coverage of Asimov+Addons vs. Asimov++, we need to examine how it happens.

I do not think Asimov++ incorporates the policy addons at all. Players who are already very familiar with the policy can see how it fits into Asimov++ (as they probably could for Asimov to be honest), but new players or those who this is actually intended for will not be able to derive all the silicon policies from the extra few words at all. It will make no difference, I think.

By “losing the magic” I mean trading the original wording of Isaac Asimov’s “Three Rules of Robotics” for what in the end isn’t going to improve AI or player understanding of silicon policy. Wording is quite cool, thematic, and these sorts of references are part of what makes SS13 fun.

You do not play AI, so I don't really feel like you understand how annoying it is to be running off of a second massive internal rulebook while Asimov that also contradicts Asimov. It is more fun and less annoying to play with Asimov++, even if I am used to the pain of Asimov.

The point is that, even if you, that isn't you, because you don't play AI, feel that it does not help people remember silicon policy, it really does help, not only with having a more accurate Lawset right in front of you to reference and explain yourself ICly with is significantly better.

In addition, by cementing silicon policy into Asimov++, I can literally just tell you that I can ignore self harm orders based off of Law 1, get fucked. Or etc. It makes it easier for non-Silipol AI mains as well.

No offense, just curious, why are you arguing so hard about how it won't reduce annoyingness for AIs? I think some kind of poll is definitely in order among AI players to help determine the whole "Does this actually help, or does it not work/the small thematic reference not being exactly the same word for word as Asimov ruins it"?

[sinfulbliss]

No offense, just curious, why are you arguing so hard about how it won't reduce annoyingness for AIs? I think some kind of poll is definitely in order among AI players to help determine the whole "Does this actually help, or does it not work/the small thematic reference not being exactly the same word for word as Asimov ruins it"?

I am just a really big fan of the original wording is all. I can remember it as a new player and it was one of the cool and mysterious things about SS13, back when the game was all new, the fact the lawset was worded in the way it is. It felt thematic and robotic, I wasn’t familiar with the reference but I quite liked the way all the laws looped one another and depended on the prior one in such a clean way. An impressive feat of writing honestly. That’s mostly lost when you have to add addendums and qualifiers to each law.

I can understand Timber’s argument for how it makes policy slightly more apparent in the lawset itself, and if you’re saying it really does help as an AI player, I’ll take your word for it. I just felt the other side should be voiced since it is quite a loss to give up the original wording to cater to bad-faith players abusing AI laws.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Had a sudden thought that "willing" should be changed to "explicitly willing" maybe?

I feel kinda worried that AIs will start letting crew get away with "He was asking for it" or "he said i could, AI"?

[BlueMemesauce]

For years at this point we have allowed Medborgs cause harm when they inject someone with healing chems. We also allow them to perform surgey despite it causing harm. This basically resulted in Law 1 having a meta addition for medborgs "except you can harm whenever you feel like it"

It just makes no sense to have such an immersion-breaking interpretation of the law. We desperately need "except which is willing" so that medborgs can actually exist with IC laws without their laws having to be straight up ignored.What is even the point of having laws if we are just going to replace them with so many meta interpretations? Borg laws might as well not even exist if we are just going to ignore them.

[Pandarsenic]

Seriously though for the love of all that is good, let us move to this and then completely gut the 90% of silicon policy that becomes unnecessary

[CandyClown]

For years at this point we have allowed Medborgs cause harm when they inject someone with healing chems. We also allow them to perform surgey despite it causing harm. This basically resulted in Law 1 having a meta addition for medborgs "except you can harm whenever you feel like it"

It just makes no sense to have such an immersion-breaking interpretation of the law. We desperately need "except which is willing" so that medborgs can actually exist with IC laws without their laws having to be straight up ignored.What is even the point of having laws if we are just going to replace them with so many meta interpretations? Borg laws might as well not even exist if we are just going to ignore them.

Are mediborgs required to adhere to the Hippocratic Oath?

[Mothblocks]

Borgs are only required to adhere to their laws

[Striders13]

Does this mean actual Asimov lawset becomes high risk lawset?

[CandyClown]

Does this mean actual Asimov lawset becomes high risk lawset?

That's a really interesting idea. If the silicon policy is trimmed down, because it's no longer needed with Asimov++, then when Asimov is eventually/inevitably uploaded to an AI it would have little to no restraints—besides its laws of course.

If so, then that really would channel Isaac Asimov's intentions with such a flawed law set. It would allow for more nuanced interpretations of laws and commands. For example, a human threatening themselves with self-harm unless an action is taken may be interpreted as violating the first law, so an AI may feel compelled to obey such a command. Without silicon policy breathing down an AI's neck, the freedom to choose how it would respond adds a wildcard to the game.

Or maybe that's a terrible idea and we should just implement an actual AI program to babysit our spessmen game. (Did someone say machine learning?)

[zxaber]

Losing the "real" Asimov's laws is somewhat sad from a thematic perspective, but the benefit A++ gives in a smaller necessary silicon policy makes it worth it.

Normal Asimov's becoming a high-risk lawset would be cool.

[Redrover1760]

Does this mean actual Asimov lawset becomes high risk lawset?

That's a really interesting idea. If the silicon policy is trimmed down, because it's no longer needed with Asimov++, then when Asimov is eventually/inevitably uploaded to an AI it would have little to no restraints—besides its laws of course.

If so, then that really would channel Isaac Asimov's intentions with such a flawed law set. It would allow for more nuanced interpretations of laws and commands. For example, a human threatening themselves with self-harm unless an action is taken may be interpreted as violating the first law, so an AI may feel compelled to obey such a command. Without silicon policy breathing down an AI's neck, the freedom to choose how it would respond adds a wildcard to the game.

Or maybe that's a terrible idea and we should just implement an actual AI program to babysit our spessmen game. (Did someone say machine learning?)

I totally agree. This actually does let Asimov be really asimov and cool without forcing asimov to fit another lawset's intentions (asimov++) with excessive amounts of policy. So when asimov does show up, people can hard abuse it just fine and that's simply apart of the game. In reality, this makes it even better than just being a reference to asimov.

[cacogen]

Asimov++ is too autistically pedantic and rather than shitting in the face of beloved science fiction author Philip K. Dick (this is a joke, William Gibson created the Asimov lawset) by turning his deliberately flawed lawset into unpalatable legalese you should instead just write your own that has the gameplay outcomes you prefer.

[Mothblocks]

We've moved through with this, with the majority clause removed.