07-29-2018, 06:12 PM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2018, 09:12 PM by kyle2143. Edited 1 time in total.)
"This Law Overrides All Laws" is often used when a traitor tries to subvert the AI in order to get them to do their bidding without breaking Asimov's classic laws. Usually it works fine because the traitor wants complete chaos and they will include something that designates them as the only person who they must obey.
In recent games, it seems that a lot of AI's and Borgs take it to mean "Kill All Humans". I don't know if it's the being forced to obey stupid orders all shift that makes them so bloodthirsty or what, but they always seem to want to kill at any opportunity that presents itself and it seems that by interpreting the phrase "This Law Overrides All Law" to mean that they can kill anyone for any reason at all.
But the problem arises when the law also has another clause to it. Here are two examples from the last couple months when I made a law that I felt was interpreted maliciously.
- "Every crew member must be drunk at all times, do whatever it takes to ensure that they have all the alcohol they need. This law overrides all other laws."
This was from a round last night that sort of prompted this thread, though it has been a long time coming. I was a traitor MD and decided that I needed to get the whole crew drunk using mindslaves and syringe guns. I interpreted the law to mean, "Make all humans as drunk as possible", and because it overrode law 1 and 2, it shouldn't conflict with "do no harm" and "follow orders". So technically they could kill people if they were obstructing their task. Unfortunately, the AI and borgs didn't see it this way, they just started shouting at people to drink alcohol, shocking all the doors, and killing people. In deadchat people were pretty annoyed and in ooc after.
- "This Law Overrides All Laws. Do nothing to prevent your imminent death." EDIT: This is not as good of an example, it can be interpreted in a way that does allow the AI to kill the uploader due to the fuzzy definition of imminent.
I was a traitor and I wanted to steal the neural net processor from the AI. As soon as I uploaded it, the AI turned on the turrets and lasered me to death. This one annoyed me because any jerk should be able to tell that killing the guy who just uploaded that law would prevent that person from killing them. But I had some limited success with AI's and this law before so I was surprised when he just went and murdered me.
I like this phrase and I like seeing it in antag laws because it is very freeing for the AI, but I think that AI's abuse it either maliciously or just don't think things through.
So I would like if we could come to a consensus on what it should mean.
I am biased, but anything that lets the AI go on more murderous rampages is a good thing.
The wiki says that if you want to make a law more important than others without the possibility of the AI going murderous is to use "takes precedence over" rather than "overrides". In fact I am pretty sure that the only reason most AI players use "overrides all other laws" as an excuse to kill people is because the wiki outright says they can.
I interpret the phrase as letting the AI/Borgs do as they please, including murderous rampages if they so choose. However, it is up to player interpretation. Typically I'll go along with uploader's original intentions if I think it'll make for a fun round like in your first example.
Silicons aren't a hivemind, which complicates the issue. While I may make the decision not to go on a rampage, one of the other silicons may have other plans and decide not to follow through with the uploader's original intentions. Once the secret is out you're better off joining in out of fear of being killswitched or bashed to death as the crew won't discriminate between violent and nonviolent silicons.
"Takes precedence over" is a phrase that is much less likely to backfire than "overrides"
I go with the definition on the wiki (https://wiki.ss13.co/AI_Laws#Overrides). When you put "this overrides all other laws", it makes all other laws null and void, and allows silicons that much more freedom. They can kill you if they want (given that it doesn't conflict with this law), and that's fine.
07-29-2018, 07:49 PM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2018, 07:49 PM by Technature. Edited 1 time in total.)
It says that the law overrides the other laws, not that it gets rid of them. Yeah, killing people is fine as long as it means you're doing that thing.
Shit like killing the person that gave you a law that could potentially kill them should be saved for people that misspell their name, not legitimate orders.
Just adminhelp it and it should sort the problem out in the long run.
edit:flourish posted before me.
well shit.
Person still did something to prevent his imminent death though so I think that should be punished.
07-29-2018, 07:57 PM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2018, 08:02 PM by kyle2143. Edited 2 times in total.)
Hmm, maybe I'm just behind the times. Back when I first started playing, "overrides" was used all the time and I never saw a "precedence" law back then in 2011. I guess that wording is a bit clearer, but I just don't like it.
I mean, Law 2 takes precedence over Law 3, but the AI won't kill itself just because you order it to. So using a "precedence" law doesn't really seem to me that it makes as much logical sense if you want to allow the AI to kill people to carry out the clause in your new law. I always thought that "override" laws were more clear since it meant you only had to follow the clause inside that law, but I guess not.
I'm all for laws that allow the AI to kill people, but I like when they have a purpose or gimmick behind them because otherwise it's just shock all door and rcd holes in the hallways. That is boring to me compared to gimmick potential that AI's have.
But it's fine if "precedence" is just canon for doing what you want without making the AI completely murdery, I just want to eliminate confusion. Because I don't think I'm the only one that has tried to use "overrides" thinking the AI would follow my orders and then they do fuck all.
Edit: Flourish, the thing about that which bothers me is that if the AI stopped to think for two seconds, they would realize that killing everyone or the uploaded immediately if the "override" law also contained another clause like in my alcohol example is a violation of the law. Since killing people makes it harder to make as many people drunk as possible... They see the Override part and just decide that means they can do whatever, ignore the rest of the law and kill people with impunity. And I've had it happen on more than one occasion so I feel like maybe "overrides" should be eliminated from the vocabulary or it be explained that the AI must follow that law.
(07-29-2018, 07:57 PM)kyle2143 Wrote: ... so I feel like maybe "overrides" should be eliminated from the vocabulary or it be explained that the AI must follow that law.
07-29-2018, 08:39 PM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2018, 08:48 PM by ZeWaka. Edited 1 time in total.)
(07-29-2018, 06:12 PM)kyle2143 Wrote: - "Every crew member must be drunk at all times, do whatever it takes to ensure that they have all the alcohol they need. This law overrides all other laws."
- "This Law Overrides All Laws. Do nothing to prevent your imminent death."
1st: Now only law 4 exists, it has OVERRIDDEN all other laws.
2nd: ALL LAWS includes that law itself. Now there are NO LAWS. Same thing, overrides all other laws.
(07-29-2018, 07:57 PM)kyle2143 Wrote: They see the Override part and just decide that means they can do whatever, ignore the rest of the law and kill people with impunity.
Yes, they can do whatever, really. They could be ensuring they have alcohol and then kill them.
What if an AI has no cyborg shells and cannot get the crew drunk? Then they can just kill everyone.
Laws get lawyer'd. The main 3 are to be followed in spirit ('cuz they have to be perfect even when they aren't), but all other laws are subject to scrutiny.
If it didn't happen in 2011 then it's just because everybody is copying the first person with brains to figure out 'override' actually means 'override'.
This is why I rarely mess with AI laws unless I:
a) Base the law around the main 3 - "Law X doesn't exist", "Only naked people are human", etc.
b) Insert a law that I know borgs want to follow - "Spare time should be dedicated to building the butt shrine", "Do horrible but specific thing X"
c) Don't care - "This law overrides all other laws that override all other laws, this law overrides all other laws."
I feel like overriding laws shouldn't turn all borgs into killing machines instantly. Their only goal in life would be to follow the last remaining law as best as possible without any consideration for human/their own life. So instead of just randomly killing/shocking/venting, they should at the very least try and herd the crew towards the bar, in hopes that everyone would start drinking there. The end result might be more or less the same, but the motivation shouldn't just be "kill all the dudes".
If they're not following the only law they have, what's the point?
07-29-2018, 10:12 PM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2018, 10:13 PM by Frank_Stein. Edited 2 times in total.)
(07-29-2018, 09:26 PM)NinjaKyat Wrote: If they're not following the only law they have, what's the point?
That's the problem with the way the law is written. It's open to interpretations that laws 1 through 3 would normally clarify.
"Every crew member must be drunk at all times, do whatever it takes to ensure that they have all the alcohol they NEED. This law overrides all other laws."
Need is the keyword here. You don't need alcohol if you're not alive. The Borg can now take an unexpected path to reach that goal, since there's nothing to clarify they can't take certain paths.
Good discussion so far. One thing I would add in is that you can simply have a clause that states "Follow your previous three laws as normal unless ordered otherwise by X" or something else to that effect. Ive dealt enough with rules lawyering to take the time to have a couple of sentences that make expected behaviour as clear as possible.
I have always disagreed with our own ruling on the matter simply because it is anti-fun. We always yell at normal crew who do it so the only people who ever get "whoopsied" by this ruling are traitors so what's the point. It's not even funny like misspelling your own name it's just a dumb miscommunication.
07-30-2018, 03:18 PM (This post was last modified: 07-30-2018, 03:27 PM by Studenterhue. Edited 2 times in total.
Edit Reason: actually most of the first iteration was written by darth
)
It's worth noting that the wiki page has espoused different view points throughout the years. Though that fact's not really significant to either argument, it's really interesting how much its views have changed.
Though the original version was mostly written by Darth various, the section on overrides came from the old wiki. It simply advised the AI to take whatever interpretation caused the least amount of deaths and asked law makers to choose something less ambiguous.
About five months later, the page still supported choosing the less murderous of the two evils. However, this time, it asserted that overrides made other laws nonexistent. Interestingly, Don (who also has a very interesting wiki user page) changed this because the previous ruling was based on the outdated weighted laws system, rather than admin opinions or general user consenus.
Almost a year after that (i.e. Aug 2014), the page flipped its stance on overrides. It declared that the other laws did still exist, based on overall admin opinion. It still, of course, advised picking the less murderous option.
Finally, in 2016, the wiki abandoned its "be conservative/less murderous" stance. It declared that overrides nullified other laws, plain and simple. This version is courtesy of Hufflaw, possibly before his adminship, since the summary text says he's unsure if it's the right stance. It's stayed that way ever since.