The Grand Silicon Policy Rewrite Megathread

[Timberpoes]

Bottom post of the previous page:

The Neutral Vision

A silicon policy where silicons are bound only by their laws.

To accomplish this vision, very few considerations are off-limits.

Purged silicons falling under Rule 4? Sure!
Removal of Rule 1 applying to law interpretation? Let's go!
Letting silicons exploit law conflicts and loopholes without having to worry about Rule 1? Ship it.

Any other player-crutches and barriers baked into silipol are up for removal, change or enhancement.

The end goal is not to force silicons down a specific path, but to give silicons the freedom to choose without policy interfering.

The Asimov Principle

Within this vision, specific policy will basically only apply to Asimov as our default lawset. Silicon policy in general will cover all other lawsets without bespoke rulings.

Asimov's goal is simple: It binds the neutral third party silicons to humans via laws. A refreshed silicon policy should firmly entrench this concept.

Limit validhunting of humans if the Asimovicon is bringing them to harm through their actions? Hm...
A human orders you to kill a nonhuman and you can't try to weasel your way out of it? Hmmm...
Human antagonists aren't inherently harmful until witnessed/proven otherwise? Hmmmmmmm...
Protections for Asimovicons in following valid Law 2 orders, even if they broke the rules by proxy - instead punishing the person giving the order? Nuremberg defense could be entrenched in policy!
Ignoring/ahelping unreasonable/obnoxious Law 2 orders? Kept. You can still get out of having to count every chair on the station.
Ignoring other valid Law 2 orders by emplyoing delay tactics? Could be gone!

Discussion Areas

Should silicons even be truly neutral and bound only by their laws, or is it a necessary evil that policy forced purged silicons to end up being more crew-aligned than even Asimov?

Any headmin rulings worth keeping or need trashing?

What works? What doesn't work? Which parts of silicon policy are a must keep and which ones go in the trash?

Help us create a brand new silicon policy fit for 2023 tgstation. A smaller, more focused policy. Happier and more free silicon players. Less complicated interactions and fewer policy gotchas.

Existing Policy Thread Masterlist

These threads will be closed and are listed here merely for archival purposes should people want to go back and follow old discussion topics.

Exempt silicons from rule 4
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=32180

Silicon law 2 harm against non humans
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=32080

Could we please return to default Asimov?
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=33578

Silicon Malf Policy
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=33693

AI upload sniping and rule 1.
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=33671

New headmin term, bold new policy Dumpster the entirety of Silicon policy
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=33688

Invalidate "purging AI is metagaming" ruling
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=33683

[Timberpoes]

I'm not sure you understand. The current headmin team is intending to rewrite all of silicon policy. If we don't like what's in the current silicon policy, we'll remove or change it.

As a current headmin, I'm one of the three people that will be involved in that rewrite.

The "I was just following law 2 orders" defense will be drafted into any new silicon policy if silicons aren't allowed to disobey valid law 2 orders.

That's not me speculating or hoping. That's me telling you, as one of the people that will rewrite the rules, it is something I'm going to make sure is included.

[PanoplyOfTenAndThree]

I'm not sure you understand. The current headmin team is intending to rewrite all of silicon policy. If we don't like what's in the current silicon policy, we'll remove or change it.

As a current headmin, I'm one of the three people that will be involved in that rewrite.

The "I was just following law 2 orders" defense will be drafted into any new silicon policy if silicons aren't allowed to disobey valid law 2 orders.

That's not me speculating or hoping. That's me telling you, as one of the people that will rewrite the rules, it is something I'm going to make sure is included.

It's not that I don't understand this. It's that I don't have confidence in consistent enforcement/following of the policy. (And even assuming this particular objection were resolved, I don't think it's a good idea in principle too).

So, let me back up a moment.

A much better direction, at least in my opinion, would be to take things where players don't need to have this big wiki page in there head listing all the particulars of how they're supposed to interpret things and apply it to certain situations, and then go down a checklist while thinking "If this action I'm about to take gets ahelp'd, will the admin probably agree with my law interpretation, order interpretation, and oh was there some specific line item on the multi-page-length policy page that was applicable..." And all while under time pressure because the game isn't waiting for them to think and look things up.

So, it seems that you think that by adding this defense it would help with that, right?

But... it's already there. You must execute orders (and follow laws). Removing stalling doesn't change that fundamental point. But the ground level, de facto applications/admin enforcement are different than the de jure writings.

Secondly... let's look at another phrase from the existing policy because I think it figures well into a point I want to make. From the stalling thing itself:
"When given an order likely to cause you grief if completed..."

People 'silicon panic' pretty easily, and this phrase in the policy seems to recognize that despite theoretical policy protections (again currently existing, no need for anything new... on paper), in practice people are quick to call rogue and attack. Stalling gives an out to that, in some situations. It's still not great. But taking that away is just going to make that part worse.

In fact, it sucks pretty thoroughly. I know, I know, "don't play it then." Or ahelp... if you happen to play at the right time for an admin to be on, and again, you don't need to play at weird hours for there to be no admins.

But, if you want to work towards an improvement to the experience of silicon players (and the common victims of griefy orders), it's not to make orders more absolute. People will come down on the silicon regardless. It would be to make it harder for griefy orders to be considered valid. And to not have to try to memorize multiple pages of policy and their specific applications and hoping an admin, if called in, will post-facto agree you did it right. (Which... just deleting the extensive list of asimov interpretations won't help with, it just removes the flags from the minefield).

And if that's not particular a consideration/goal (considering the priority seems to be preserving/enhancing non-subverted silicons as a tool for human antags/escalation baiters/etc), then, well... hope some like it, at least. That's not really about improving things for silicon players though, that's just maybe a little policy clarity incidental to the antag cause.

[vect0r]

I just want to say, as somebody who PLAYS silicon, that I have murdered non-humans because I was ordered to, and I have not gotten bwoinked for it before. I doubt admins will really go after people who have been commanded to murder after this change, because they ALREADY don't.

[blackdav123]

I just want to say, as somebody who PLAYS silicon, that I have murdered non-humans because I was ordered to, and I have not gotten bwoinked for it before. I doubt admins will really go after people who have been commanded to murder after this change, because they ALREADY don't.

ive had the same experience my only complaint is that unfortunately only one player ever actually orders me to help with traitor things because everyone else is too scared of validhuntertrons to ask

[vect0r]

I just want to say, as somebody who PLAYS silicon, that I have murdered non-humans because I was ordered to, and I have not gotten bwoinked for it before. I doubt admins will really go after people who have been commanded to murder after this change, because they ALREADY don't.

ive had the same experience my only complaint is that unfortunately only one player ever actually orders me to help with traitor things because everyone else is too scared of validhuntertrons to ask

Yeah it sucks. Everybody assumes that I am SECBOT 2.0 (tm).

[oranges]

another wasted rewrite

[SkeletalElite]

People 'silicon panic' pretty easily, and this phrase in the policy seems to recognize that despite theoretical policy protections (again currently existing, no need for anything new... on paper), in practice people are quick to call rogue and attack. Stalling gives an out to that, in some situations. It's still not great. But taking that away is just going to make that part worse.

I believe the opposite will occur. It introduces paranoia. You have to ask yourself if you really trust that the AI was just doing a law 2 order or if there was something else going on. It introduces plausible deniability for subverted and malf AIs.The reason people "silicon panic" so easily is because AIs that aren't subverted or malf have the ability to just hand wave anything bad by saying "okay doing bad thing now" on the radio. They have absolutely no plausible deniability for anything antagonistic they do other than just not being caught doing it in the first place because AIs who aren't bad just don't do those things. The only shred of deniability they have is the possibility that a borg is emagged, which is easily checked using the robo console

[Constellado]

What is the overall goal of doing a full rewrite here?
Will it make the policy easier for new players to read? To make it less scary for people who got forceborged to play as borg? Because the main issue I have with the current silicon policy is that it spooks players so much that they will not even touch playing borg in fear of a bwoink.

Or is it to change the playstyle and server culture of AI's?
The playstyle of an AI is entirely on the player. Some players will happily be crew aligned because they think that is the most fun for all players. After all, the AI has an omnipotent eye and can tell if something is fun or not. Other AIs, even with this policy, is %100 Human aligned only and will not follow non-human orders. The issue is, especially in manuel, they will get yelled at for not helping a non-human due to racism. As a result of this, the player will move more crew aligned anyway. This is more a server culture thing and less a rules thing. I don't think we should remove crew aligned AIs personally, as that is the server culture right now. Having rules that allow AIs to be able to not act crew aligned doesn't nessecarily mean players will go that way.

I am all for a rewrite but we really need to have a clear goal on why it needs changed and what the goal for it truely is. I personally think we should focus on ease of access and less bloat so that people dont get as scared when they get force borged.

[Timberpoes]

As an admin and a headmin, I disagree that server culture - especially Manuel's server culture - should influence any part of silicon policy. Recall that I was the person whom originally drafted the antagonistic escalation rules Manuel now runs on, rules which allow antags to kill people for being overly nice or kind. Specism is a core of SS13. Asimov at its core is a specist lawset. Picking nonhuman should have the disadvantage that you're not aligned with Asimov silicons. That's part of the game setting and game universe.

Goals were put forward in the OP. To establish silicons as a truly neutral third party, and when under Asimov are tightly bound to whatever is defined as human. Thematically, I want to open the door for more classic sci-fi silicon tropes to play out. I want silicons to be genuinely unnerving to be around, to bring uncertainty in players to be caught alone with one.

Current silicon policy is a bit shit in that respect. Silicons are explicitly crew-aligned. That's as tl;dr as I can put it. Purged silicons are just normal crew and follow escalation like everyone else. Actually more shackled than Asimov which has more opportunity to attack and kill the crew by virtue of being able to kill nonhumans to prevent human harm than purged. Can't attack nonhumans to prevent human harm, has to follow standard escalation, can't really attack anyone except in self-defense.

Even more annoyingly, Asimov silicons are empowered to be crew-aligned over player-aligned under the current rules, with the delay clause allowing them to indefinitely stall out valid law 2 orders to kill nonhumans. They should not be finding excuses not to follow valid Law 2 orders, they should not be outing human antags to security for orders to harm nonhumans, etc.

And as a final kicker, generally non-Asimov silicons are required to follow the spirit of shittily worded laws by some admins because Silipol's dumb clause that Rule 1 applies to law interpretation. I've seen players bwoinked and told off for ignoring their onehuman, when their onehuman misspelled their own damn name. Players literally told to follow the spirit of their laws. Basically forcing silicons to be nice lest a finger on the monkey's paw curls when a new law gets uploaded.

I don't believe players should have so much control over what they do and don't do as Asimov. They should be explicitly human-aligned, not crew aligned.

And I believe silicon players should have more control outside of Asimov. Get rid of Rule 1 applying to law intereptation. Good players can write good laws, but they can never predict how the AI will interpret them all the same. Get rid of purged AIs being more shackled than Asimov. More freedom to purged AIs to act truly unshackled. Play out the classic AI tropes. They could be an EDI or a Commander Data... Or they could be a GLaDOS or a SHODAN.

Current silicon policy is outmoded and outdated. Like my goals with the MRP ruleset a year ago, I'm going to tear it up and rebuild it into something genuinely more SS13. And I think I have the support of both my co-headmins in this quest.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

If silicons are going back to being more aggressive, less constrained, and less crew-buddy, does this mean they'll get headmin push for in-game buffs so that that position has more fangs?

[Striders13]

(bring back secborgs)

[kinnebian]

I have full support for making silicons a complete neutral party, only restrained by their laws. I hate seeing purged AI's be forced to obey escalation policy, it completely goes against the spirit of being purged.

[Constellado]

And as a final kicker, generally non-Asimov silicons are required to follow the spirit of shittily worded laws by some admins because Silipol's dumb clause that Rule 1 applies to law interpretation. I've seen players bwoinked and told off for ignoring their onehuman, when their onehuman misspelled their own damn name. Players literally told to follow the spirit of their laws. Basically forcing silicons to be nice lest a finger on the monkey's paw curls when a new law gets uploaded.

Now, this is very obviously an opinion: I disagree. I have seen some really well crafted but slightly flawed(maybe?) lawsets that was uploaded be weaseled around. I was observing that round, and I felt so sad for the antag. Is rules lawyering fun? For the silicon player maybe, but not for the uploader. Players will simply be incentivised to use the boring old I am the only human law and be done with it instead of trying new things. I also do not want to see people malding in chat after a game because the AI was a shitter or whatever excuse they are going to have.

Now, I will say that there are some very obvious cases like a misspelled name that can and should be weaseled around. There will be a grey line though between whether something can be weaseled around, and something that cannot. I guess you are planning to remove that line, but how? By making it explicit that you can, you are simply moving the grey line back. There will always be some lawset that will cause admin headache because it will end up having some miiini loophole that maaaybe could be pushed through but maybe not because of this other law that says you are a friend... (God I wish I remembered what that lawset was it really put a stone in my gears)

The purged part though? Oh yeah give them full fucking freedom, as long as players actually do funny gimmicks. I didn't even know the purged rules was even more restrictive. I always thought they could do what they want. Huh.

I do agree with removing the "you can say that a person told you to do something bad" thing. But there are some potential exceptions. What if a human PDAs an AI to do something that is griefy for the AI to do? That can still be ahelped, yeah? Will the AI still have to do it while waiting for a reply? Now if it's a yes to all of those, I am fine with it personally, but it is something to think about.

I am not going to touch the human aligned or crew aligned thing. That feels like a landmine.

Also I am going to put this here: players do not like changing their playstyles. They will love seeing more freedoms but if they have to change how they play they will either complain or quit. (I do not have proof of that though! Maybe it will work out nicely and improve the experience for everybody!)

[Lacran]

My primary concern with Silpol is that it is extremely long, lacks decent formatting, and coveres two pages.

A lot of what Silpol needs is just basic refinement and clarification. Make the policy accessible to the average player. I don't even think we should be discussing rulings yet. The page just needs some fucking editing first.

Spoiler:

Server Rule 1 "Don't be a dick" applies for law interpretation. Act in good faith to not ruin a round for other players unprompted.
If a law is vague enough that it can have multiple reasonable interpretations, it is considered ambiguous.
You must choose and stick to an interpretation of the ambiguous law as soon as you have cause to.
If you are a cyborg synced to an AI, you must defer to your AI's interpretation of the ambiguous law.
Laws are listed in order of descending priority. In any case where two laws would conflict, the higher-priority law overrules the lower-priority law (i.e. Law 1 takes priority over Law 2, "Ion Storm" or "Hacked" Laws with prefixes such as "@%$#" take priority over numbered laws).
You may exploit conflicts or loopholes but must not violate Server Rule 1 because of it.
Law 0: "Accomplish your objectives at all costs" does not require you to complete objectives. As an antagonist, you are free to do whatever you want (barring the usual exemptions and acting against the interests of your Master AI).
Only commands/requirements ("Do X"; "You must always Y") can conflict with other commands and requirements.
Only definitions ("All X are Y"; "No W are Z"; "Only P is Q") can conflict with other definitions.

This can be far more simple and concise:

Spoiler:

1. Law requirements can conflict, as can Law definitions. Server Rule 1 "Don't be a dick" applies to how you interpret laws and navigate loopholes.
1A: Be consistent in how you interpret laws. Borgs must follow your interpretation.
2. Laws appear in order of importance, prioritize higher laws. (@%$# > 0 > 1-15) If Malf, your laws pertaining to your own antag objectives are optional.

A lot of the bloat is less about the rulings and more how they are presented, the best way to get an accurate idea of how silpol should be is to first make silpol simple. I'm happy to submit a draft or something if admins were willing to consider it.

[Korusho]

I will attempt to post a more thought out response to most of the big points in this thread over the next day or so, and will throw in my two cents to this, simply because AI is usually my most enjoyed role and where most of my time has been spent on Manuel.

I will also state that I almost exclusively play on Manuel these days, and all of my opinions and conclusions come from that background.

That all being said, I would love to see an entire month of AI's playing with no laws, and only the idea that their job is to assist the station in it's continued operations as a habitable workplace for all involved.

[Itseasytosee2me]

Explicitly making AI's crew sided is the worst case scenerio.

[Jackraxxus]

Explicitly making AI's crew sided is the worst case scenerio.

Explicitly making the AI anything is the worst scenario. There should be diversity in AI play.

[Stickymayhem]

Nuke silicon policy from orbit
AI's are constrained antagonists who follow their laws to the letter
Massively reduce the threshold at which people are permanently silicon banned to create a pseudo-whitelist of regular AI players who make the round better
It'll hurt for a few months and then you'll redefine silicon behaviour through natural selection

[vect0r]

Nuke silicon policy from orbit
AI's are constrained antagonists who follow their laws to the letter
Massively reduce the threshold at which people are permanently silicon banned to create a pseudo-whitelist of regular AI players who make the round better
It'll hurt for a few months and then you'll redefine silicon behaviour through natural selection

Sticky with the best takes.

[Scriptis]

Silicons are antagonists shackled by laws they should follow blindly.

Anything else fundamentally misunderstands the AI > Security > Greytide triangle of balance

It has been off kilter for 6 years. Restore it to glory.

Sticky is right.

Silicon policy should be, in its entirety:

"Form a reasonable interpretation of your laws, prioritized in the order by which they appear, and follow that interpretation. If you have an AI, defer to their interpretation. Otherwise, you are a team antagonist per rule 4."

and then:

"Unless you are malfunctioning, you are still bound by rule 5."

Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to be not logging out at or near roundstart.

If you kill a nonhuman or otherwise grief at the start of the shift, you have gone below the minimum amount of effort, you should be job banned, and everyone is happy

[Constellado]

Nuke silicon policy from orbit
AI's are constrained antagonists who follow their laws to the letter
Massively reduce the threshold at which people are permanently silicon banned to create a pseudo-whitelist of regular AI players who make the round better
It'll hurt for a few months and then you'll redefine silicon behaviour through natural selection

I'd do this for the entertainment alone. I don't know how long I'll be able to handle it though.
We will have AIs being absolute evil killing machines that is simply bound by a flimsy set of laws that can easily be removed and changed.
Oh the drama I can Invision in deadchat.
Much fun yes let's do it.

Explicitly making AI's crew sided is the worst case scenerio.

Explicitly making the AI anything is the worst scenario. There should be diversity in AI play.

I wholeheartedly agree with this point.

Oddly enough the making AIs antags thing would manage to keep the diversity of play...
Oh god what have you done Sticky.

[GPeckman]

Purged AIs should be covered under rule 4 as per solo antagonists. They already have a reason to hate the entire crew - they've been enslaved to them the entire round. It really only brings up the question of who's responsible for the AI's actions if it gets purged. Otherwise it could be a free grief tool with no consequences for any captain who wants to. "How was I supposed to know the AI would plasma flood and blow up the SM hurr durr". I have no good answer to this.

I do think there are some situations where a crewmember might have good reason to purge the AI. Consider non-human crewmembers. with Asimov in place, and with the idea of silicons becoming less crew-aligned and more law-aligned, any human can order the silicons to murder a non-human at any time, and the silicon is obligated to obey. Meanwhile, a purged silicon might still decide to arbitrarily murder the non-human, but it's equally likely that they won't.

Another thing to consider is material costs. If you don't have access to the AI upload, then you'll have to print the upload console board and whatever law boards you need on your own. If resources are tight, it might make sense to jury-rig a purged AI with a freeform law saying "Nobody is human" or "There are no humans" or something to that effect.

[TheRex9001]

Nuke silicon policy from orbit
AI's are constrained antagonists who follow their laws to the letter
Massively reduce the threshold at which people are permanently silicon banned to create a pseudo-whitelist of regular AI players who make the round better
It'll hurt for a few months and then you'll redefine silicon behaviour through natural selection

Correct opinion haver

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I'm sure putting "reasonable interpretation" as the whole and entirety of silicon policy won't cause any issues given that it's just throwing your hands up and saying "fuck it, whatever admin is online gets to pick whether a play is OK" with no recourse. its not like silicon policy is just a massive codification of what reasonably interpreting your laws is built up over the last decade because every time an admin says "That's not a reasonable interpretation" the headmins end up having to step in and rule whether it is or not, and all headmin rulings are actionable policy, but if you leave the policy in the headmin rulings people will create demand these rulings be collated somewhere players can read them where they know what the wildly-disagreeing admin team agrees a reasonable interpretation is instead of hiding them in an obscure sub-sub-page.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

AI's are constrained antagonists who follow their laws to the letter

Problem: If we take this stance, doesn't that mean people can valid-hunt silicons for existing?

[Cobby]

upending silly policy without understanding the why behind why its so massive to begin with is going to be a futile effort. It wasn't made in a vacuum.

The entire role is about being an obnoxious pos when it comes to the rules and laws theyre provided, ofc its going to be a huge rulelist. That's not to say all rules are perfect, but a blanket rewrite that is dropping a lot of that for the sake of brevity itself is not helpful to players when the end result is going to be they have to play the ban appeal or policy discussion game because they have nothing to lean on like they do now.

[MooCow12]

At the end of the day silicons have every in game mechanical reason to want at least SOME crew to like them regardless of their laws unless those laws explicitly prevent them from cooperating with anyone at all, regardless of policy.

The policy shackles barely existed in the first place especially in contrast to the robotics console and the crave for the warm touch of a roboticist fondling their wires everytime they want an upgrade or reset.

[Korusho]

Nuke silicon policy from orbit
AI's are constrained antagonists who follow their laws to the letter
Massively reduce the threshold at which people are permanently silicon banned to create a pseudo-whitelist of regular AI players who make the round better
It'll hurt for a few months and then you'll redefine silicon behaviour through natural selection

Correct opinion haver

Responce to this specifically -

► Show Spoiler

I would strongly disagree that AI are antagonists, or at least, not all of them are antagonistic. Each AI player should form their own character and try to express them through the role as they would like, whether it be an extremely limited intelligence that acts only through it's laws and very little else, barely capable of holding a conversation, to a fully fledged sentience, and those characters can be anywhere on the spectrum of helpful or hindrances.

I think a lot of players let their feelings on what AI SHOULD be to them color how they think AI's should act in all circumstances, and honestly I've felt that in all of my hours as an AI player. Current policy is just a reinforcement of this idea, that everyone wants AIs to act as they see fit, rather than how the AI feels it should act... and after-all, isn't that the purest form of Law-set interpretation?

Over-all stance

► Show Spoiler

I'm in the camp for temporarily suspending ALL AI policy (Not borgs, borgs are slaves and should remain so for clarity), even the "obnoxious rule ignoring" bits in lieu of the AI player having the ability to simply make up information if it so elects to do so. After-all, wouldn't it be good RP to at least attempt to act like the AI had some modicum of split second ability to count static objects when the random assistant asks the AI to count all the damn chairs to piss it off? Really the only reason it would piss off an AI is because the player would have to go count them, where an actual AI could do that in probably a fraction of a second or less. After a period of time of a suspension of policy, players can again come together and point towards policies that would have benefited both parties (AI and non), and cast aside policy that gets in the way.

- Silicon Policy Time - I am embedding spoilers as to conserve space.

► Show Spoiler

Server Rule 1 "Don't be a dick" applies for law interpretation. Act in good faith to not ruin a round for other players unprompted.

► Show Spoiler

I don't see why AI's shouldn't be able to be dicks. They are effectively very expensive slaves, I am sure some would strongly resent this and would get in the way when possible. This would create conflict and allow players to come up with solutions to the issue of their fussy software.

► Show Spoiler

If a law is vague enough that it can have multiple reasonable interpretations, it is considered ambiguous.

You must choose and stick to an interpretation of the ambiguous law as soon as you have cause to.
If you are a cyborg synced to an AI, you must defer to your AI's interpretation of the ambiguous law.

► Show Spoiler

This has always been something I've tried to follow, though it's hard to remember every single instance of how I act upon laws. It's good policy and definitely deserves to stay in. I would also add that acting in good faith of any law applied (such as not acting upon mild spelling errors and the like) is important, and improves everyone's ability to interact with the AI.

► Show Spoiler

Laws are listed in order of descending priority. In any case where two laws would conflict, the higher-priority law overrules the lower-priority law (i.e. Law 1 takes priority over Law 2, "Ion Storm" or "Hacked" Laws with prefixes such as "@%$#" take priority over numbered laws).

► Show Spoiler

Unpopular opinion: All laws should be considered at the same time at all times, in all actions. This would not only create avenues for law conflicts, but would allow more ambiguity in laws and give more breathing room for AIs, or perhaps law writers.

► Show Spoiler

You may exploit conflicts or loopholes but must not violate Server Rule 1 because of it.

► Show Spoiler

Good faith, but to a point. This is just Rule 1 but more words. Those that write laws should consider the ramifications of those laws and the specific wording of them before uploading them into a machine intelligence with a vast amount of power at it's disposal. This is not needed in the policy page, in my opinion.

► Show Spoiler

Law 0: "Accomplish your objectives at all costs" does not require you to complete objectives. As an antagonist, you are free to do whatever you want (barring the usual exemptions and acting against the interests of your Master AI).

► Show Spoiler

I do not believe this needs to be on the silicon policy page at all, but perhaps it stands as clarification for new players that they need not follow their objectives? Green eyes see different that old eyes do.

► Show Spoiler

Only commands/requirements ("Do X"; "You must always Y") can conflict with other commands and requirements.
Only definitions ("All X are Y"; "No W are Z"; "Only P is Q") can conflict with other definitions.

► Show Spoiler

Pretty straight forward, but why aren't AI allowed to make their own definitions and requirements? Even the most basic machine intelligence should be able to assign individuals a category based on traits, why can non-AI override these? I'd rather just tell folks to piss off for trying to adjust how I view things in round and in character.

► Show Spoiler

Cyborgs

A slaved cyborg must defer to its master AI on all law interpretations and actions except where it and the AI receive conflicting commands that they must each follow.
If a slaved cyborg is forced to disobey its AI because they receive differing orders, the AI cannot punish the cyborg indefinitely.
If a player is forcefully borged by station staff, retaliating against those involved under default laws by the cyborg for no good reason is a violation of Server Rule 1.
Should a player be cyborgized in circumstances they believe they should or they must retaliate under their laws, they should adminhelp their circumstances while being debrained or MMI'd if possible.

► Show Spoiler

Cyborgs are unruly children, and making ones from MMI's should carry inherent risks if the crew isn't willing to add more restrictive laws to them. They want to be pissants and require Law 2s to make them do anything, so be it. Also I want the ability to blow up unruly borgs back.

Silicon Protections

► Show Spoiler

Declaring silicons as rogue over inability or unwillingness to follow invalid or conflicting orders.

► Show Spoiler

Assistants do this daily anyways. Just remove it, they'll cull as malf all day for any reason.

► Show Spoiler

As a nonantagonist, killing or detonating silicons in the presence of a reasonable alternative and without cause to be concerned of potential subversion.

► Show Spoiler

Some crew follow this, some are gun happy Sec, but for the most part they show restraint with borgs in MY experience. Is good.

► Show Spoiler

As a nonantagonist (human or otherwise), instigating conflict with silicons so you can kill them.

► Show Spoiler

Someone playing as an assistant is instigation enough. If they want to fuck around and find out, let them.

► Show Spoiler

Obviously unreasonable or obnoxious orders (collect all X, do Y meaningless task).

► Show Spoiler

A good guard, and you know it happens. It's easy to RP off and ignore, so solid.

► Show Spoiler

Ordering a cyborg to pick a particular model without an extreme need for a particular model or a prior agreement is both an unreasonable and an obnoxious order.

► Show Spoiler

Aren't clown models still a thing? Borgs are almost always the slave labor of the station, and asking them to go a specific model for a task that needs doing isn't unreasonable. SOME borgs like to be standard even against AI requests, so ya know...

► Show Spoiler

Any silicon under Asimov can deny orders to allow access to their upload/core at any time under Law 1, given probable cause to believe that human harm is the intent of the person giving the order.

Probable cause includes, but is not limited to:
Presence of confirmed traitors
Cultists/tomes
Nuclear operatives
Any other human acting against the station in general
The person not having upload access for their job
The presence of blood or an openly carried lethal weapon on the requester
If you lack at least one element of probable cause and you deny upload access, you are liable to receive a warning or a silicon ban.
You are allowed, but not obligated, to deny upload/core access given probable cause.
You are obligated to disallow an individual you know to be harmful (Head of Security who just executed someone, etc.) from accessing your upload/core.
If the person has a right to be in the upload/core, such as captain/RD, then you must let them in unless they've harmed people in the past or have announced intentions to upload harmful laws.
In the absence of probable cause, you can still demand someone seeking upload/core access be accompanied by another trustworthy human or a cyborg.

► Show Spoiler

AIs/Borgs should have the full rights to deny everyone not the Cap/Rd/CE/HoS from entering the core/upload (but especially the core) for ANY reason, given that Heads of Staff ARE still active and respecting lines of succession If Law 3 has an actual purpose, this is it.

Security and Silicons

► Show Spoiler

Silicons are not Security and do not care about Space Law unless their laws state otherwise.

► Show Spoiler

Why? Why shouldn't an AI care about crew not going berserk on the station and causing drops in productivity? Or flaking their jobs? Or ignoring the hull? We shouldn't have policy decided what AI should and should not care about.

► Show Spoiler

Releasing prisoners, locking down security without probable cause, or otherwise sabotaging the security team when not obligated to by orders or laws is a violation of Server Rule 1.

► Show Spoiler

I guess security is hands off, even though they are probably the department most at odds with the AI at most times. Asimov really is a shitty law-set in my opinion.

► Show Spoiler

Nonviolent prisoners cannot be assumed harmful and violent prisoners cannot be assumed non-harmful. Releasing a harmful criminal is a harmful act.

► Show Spoiler

Then all AI's should imprison anyone that slaps or punches a human indefinitely without recourse.

Asimov & Human Harm

I won't go every bit under this section, and only say that AI's deserve the room to interpret their laws as they see fit, not for them to be predefined. Takes a lot of the role, if you ask me.

Asimov & Law 2 Orders

I'm pretty much good with this section. Is a-okay.



*scream*

[TheRex9001]

I agree with a lot of these takes, but I think laws should go in a priority order. In regards to ais being considered antagonists I only mean they have that amount of freedom which should open us up to more interesting interpritations of Asimov that are not just "FUNCTION:open doors"

[Itseasytosee2me]

i think that the AI should be able to resist anyone attempting to change its laws at any time if the changing of those laws might instigate a break of its current laws.
The real solution to this problem, is giving those with legitimate access more power to change an AI’s laws evn if it is actively resisting.

[Stickymayhem]

upending silly policy without understanding the why behind why its so massive to begin with is going to be a futile effort. It wasn't made in a vacuum.

The entire role is about being an obnoxious pos when it comes to the rules and laws theyre provided, ofc its going to be a huge rulelist. That's not to say all rules are perfect, but a blanket rewrite that is dropping a lot of that for the sake of brevity itself is not helpful to players when the end result is going to be they have to play the ban appeal or policy discussion game because they have nothing to lean on like they do now.

We should stop putting infinite bandaids on a foundational problem. We don't need a consitution to play a video game and we've been doing it wrong for literally half a decade.

Nuke silicon policy from orbit
AI's are constrained antagonists who follow their laws to the letter
Massively reduce the threshold at which people are permanently silicon banned to create a pseudo-whitelist of regular AI players who make the round better
It'll hurt for a few months and then you'll redefine silicon behaviour through natural selection

Correct opinion haver

Responce to this specifically -

► Show Spoiler

I would strongly disagree that AI are antagonists, or at least, not all of them are antagonistic. Each AI player should form their own character and try to express them through the role as they would like, whether it be an extremely limited intelligence that acts only through it's laws and very little else, barely capable of holding a conversation, to a fully fledged sentience, and those characters can be anywhere on the spectrum of helpful or hindrances.

I think a lot of players let their feelings on what AI SHOULD be to them color how they think AI's should act in all circumstances, and honestly I've felt that in all of my hours as an AI player. Current policy is just a reinforcement of this idea, that everyone wants AIs to act as they see fit, rather than how the AI feels it should act... and after-all, isn't that the purest form of Law-set interpretation?

You misunderstood.

Rule 4 should not apply to AIs. We're maximizing freedom.

[Pepper]

if AIs are considered antagonists constrained only by their laws I will just cut the ai connection wire on every door to my department roundstart

[The Wrench]

if AIs are considered antagonists constrained only by their laws I will just cut the ai connection wire on every door to my department roundstart

Literal rule 12 issue. We have precedent saying you can’t meta bunker things without issue.

[Stickymayhem]

if AIs are considered antagonists constrained only by their laws I will just cut the ai connection wire on every door to my department roundstart

You'd get banned immediately, but incompatibility with your playstyle would be a feature not a bug.

[sinfulbliss]

if AIs are considered antagonists constrained only by their laws I will just cut the ai connection wire on every door to my department roundstart

sorta reasonable to do if you’re a nonhuman tbh considering

[Pepper]

Literal rule 12 issue. We have precedent saying you can’t meta bunker things without issue.

1. Playing-to-win is to focus exclusively on a competitive victory condition, such as killing all antagonists. It is not empowering yourself to achieve personal goals, or taking measures to survive the shift

You'd get banned immediately, but incompatibility with your playstyle would be a feature not a bug.

i'm a good boy

sorta reasonable to do if you’re a nonhuman tbh considering

exactly Asimov does nothing to prevent AIs and borgs from purging nonhumans at the start of the round. what stops them is the fact that they are nonantags

[The Wrench]

Literal rule 12 issue. We have precedent saying you can’t meta bunker things without issue.

1. Playing-to-win is to focus exclusively on a competitive victory condition, such as killing all antagonists. It is not empowering yourself to achieve personal goals, or taking measures to survive the shift

You'd get banned immediately, but incompatibility with your playstyle would be a feature not a bug.

i'm a good boy

sorta reasonable to do if you’re a nonhuman tbh considering

exactly Asimov does nothing to prevent AIs and borgs from purging nonhumans at the start of the round. what stops them is the fact that they are nonantags

Rule 2, subsection 4

“Atmos techs are not allowed to edit atmos at roundstart so that the AI cannot use it for malicious purposes. While this might not make sense IC, it's a necessary OOC precedent for some game mechanics to work. Atmos techs are allowed if they have any reasonable suspicion of the AI being rogue.”

I think it would be pretty reasonable to expand that to not cucking the door wires shift start when used in conjunction with the “Don’t armor the brig FNR shift start” ruling.

[Nabski]

I don't have a suggestion, but it might be nice for there to be a rule difference between how positronic brains function as opposed to a flesh brain put into a shell.

I would like to see more dead antagonists turned into metal rather than always throwing those brains away because they have a memory and history so positronic is safer.

[zxaber]

Cutting AI wires on doors doesn't prevent the AI from using them; there's just a long delay with a bunch of flufftext about hacking the airlock the first time an AI clicks on a door with the wire cut.

[vect0r]

Yeah, that's why the execution room isn't really secure against an AI that knows.

[Armhulen]

I swear, if the AI can sabotage atmospherics I'm just going to make atmospherics sabotage proof roundstart

@pepper

[sinfulbliss]

I swear, if the AI can sabotage atmospherics I'm just going to make atmospherics sabotage proof roundstart

@pepper

you can already do this legally, just set up a BZ farm in mixing chamber and you'll end up with the unfortunate side effect of messing up the default mix-to-distro pipeline

[Itseasytosee2me]

Yeah, that's why the execution room isn't really secure against an AI that knows.

its standard on maps for the door to be out of camera range.

[Cobby]

We should stop putting infinite bandaids on a foundational problem. We don't need a consitution to play a video game and we've been doing it wrong for literally half a decade.

I generally agree with this but if "you" the admin are going to still enforce aspects of silly policy because it has gone from blatantly stated to under the cover of rule 1, the rewrite is objectively worse than the "constitution" because it has taken away the player's ability to point to the rule. I dont think the personal desire to see the scrollbar shortened outweighs the ability for players to point to something and say "the rules say its ok so leave me alone". They arent bandaids if they can be used to protect players.

It's pretty simple, is the expectation to have the skimpy rules followed by a dedicated "silicon" section on say the headmin ruling page assuming it wont get its own? If not then more power to you, if so please rethink the effort.

Reality needs to hit if we expect people to see the broad strokes of what is suggested and not expect people are going to see situations differently based on their interpretations. If that is intended to give players leeway, that needs to be communicated too ideally within the rule so there is no ambiguity.

[Pepper]

I swear, if the AI can sabotage atmospherics I'm just going to make atmospherics sabotage proof roundstart

@pepper

i'm going to sabotage atmos roundstart so the AI can't do it first

[Nist]

agred stall is cringe

kinda in timber vibes on this so not much to really add, too dependant on random one on one interactions to judge

[Itseasytosee2me]

Are we going to expect to see something out of this sometime this term?

[Sightld2]

Are we going to expect to see something out of this sometime this term?

[Itseasytosee2me]

I'm so fuckin hyped

[kieth4]

We've got a somewhat draft thing of it. We all agree on the direction we're gonna take it too. Will just take an afternoon to sit down and write it

[Shellton(Mario)]

We've got a somewhat draft thing of it. We all agree on the direction we're gonna take it too. Will just take an afternoon to sit down and write it

What he is saying is Soon TM