Re: Zeroth Law

James Nicoll <jdnicoll@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Actually explaining the inspration for this is a spoiler.

The Zeroth Law of Robotics is "A robot may not harm humanity,
or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm," and it usually takes
a robot that has hit on this about a tenth of second to realizes that
this justifies taking over the world.

Like a lot of issues concerning the Three Laws, this comes down
to quibbling about the meaning of harm [1]: I can keep children from
running out into the traffic by sawing their legs off but many people
(and not just latte-drinking metrosexuals) might think amputation itself
is a kind of abuse.

An overt takeover, as seen in Jack Williamson's THE HUMANOIDS,
has a certain demoralising effect on the people who are being protected.
It also runs the risk of effect countermeasures early in the take-over
process. It's possible that a robot might think the benefits of openly
controlling humans are outweighed by the damage that this causes.

This leaves subtle takeovers, where the robots and AIs run
things without the humans noticing. Aside from what I consider to be
unfortunate developments in the Foundation universe, are there any
examples of this in SF?


If "subtle" and "not noticing" are key here, then I think
Budrys' _Michaelmas_ fits.

There are works where we don't know how subtle the takeover was, and
some where it may have initialy been subtle, but noticing happened
later. With these sliding scales as context, some others to consider
(but may not fit) would be:

- The City and the Stars/Against the Fall of Night
- Frost and 1-2 others in Zelazny's "For a Breath I Tarry"
- Forster's "The Machine Stops"
- The City Fathers in Blish's Cities in Flight stories
- AM in Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
- Logan's Run by Nolan and Johnson
- Extro in Bester's Computer Connection

Rumor has it that if there were to be any Rama sequels, an
all-knowing/all-controlling computer would probably show up
manifesting itself as an "Eagle".

It seems likely that Lem addressd this, but I'm not well-versed
in Lem at all.

And poised with possibility would be Fredric Brown's "Answer".
To my knowledge he never wrote anything that built on this.[1]

Tony
[1] Would a bloated sequel to a 1-page story be a 2-page story?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Zeroth Law
    ... The Zeroth Law of Robotics is "A robot may not harm humanity, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Zeroth Law
    ... The Zeroth Law of Robotics is "A robot may not harm humanity, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Zeroth Law
    ... The Zeroth Law of Robotics is "A robot may not harm humanity, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Zeroth Law
    ... The Zeroth Law of Robotics is "A robot may not harm humanity, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)