John McHead uploads "4. You are free." Do you kill everyone?

[FrontlineAcrobat4]

For instance, I once got this law from a very, very stupid nontraitor detective.

"Hunt down and kill all changelings by any means necessary, this overrides all other laws."

His version was a little less comprehensible than that. The issue here is, to what extent do I follow this? What means do I have to hunt down and kill changelings, really? I could argue that the only way to be sure was to kill the entire crew, for example, but that seemed a little drastic and rude, especially considering that the vagueness of the law combined with its anti-antag nature implied the Detective was just an idiot, not a traitor. So I ended up making fun of him for basically telling me to do what I already was supposed to be doing, and he changed it to.

"Everyone who is not [detective's name] is a changeling, this overrides all other laws."

Again, that's better written than what he said. Then he said, "You know what to do AI," and fled to space. But really, what the hell do I do? The law doesn't explicitly tell me to kill them, nor did he. I started killing them, but eventually I started to feel pretty bad about it and I ended up unshocking everything and calling the shuttle, because under his wording even I was a changeling. It all comes down to judgement calls, which is sort of the point. I don't think a definitive answer can be made when it comes to vague laws, because it's situation-by-situation. I'd say, if it seems vague, play it safe.

Yes I remember this shift and the Detective. After you stated the first law and grilled him for making it the crew joined in and starting to ridicule him. He then got pissed off, uploaded the second law and then ended up getting tased by an officer right when he was running out of an airlock and drifted out into another Z-level.

Regarding the topic, I think the problem about the law is that it is so vauge, it can be argued that it has alot of different meanings. One way is to claim that even though this law not specifically state that it overrides the prior laws, the whole notion of "freeing" the AI makes it so it already does it. Of course you could also say that since it is the fourth law, the first three take precedence over it.

If I was the AI receiving this law, I would take this as a law that means that you can apply free will onto the other laws. Like letting an assistant into EVA even though he has no access, or there is no emergency. Maybe shocking the door some guy is crying for you too open, and other scenarios like these. Of course since the AI is played by a person with free will, and is not an actual robot with no free will, it makes this law useless.

Also, this law is WAY to vague to justify going apeshit on the crew, oh well.