[RULE CHANGE] Make overrides and precedence no longer apply to AI laws.

[BatElite]

I literally can't imagine a simpler system than "If there is a conflict, the first law takes priority".

Which is already the system currently in use and it's the guiding principle for resolving conflicting laws. (It actually takes some effort to fuck up a lawset so bad that it's impossible to interpret, I've only had it happen to me once.) The fact that the current Asimov laws even bother mentioning it is I think more to do with how they were worded in the source material than necessity. Would be confusing to keep those clauses if this went through though.

This change isn't proposing a new system so much as it is preventing people from specifying exceptions to that rule, and worded like that I think it's easier to see why I don't see it as an improvement. It robs the system of any depth it can have in favour of a mechanical implementation that frankly involves a bunch of busywork.

I strongly feel that the potential for complication regarding AI laws is the core of what makes AI laws interesting. If the lawset is hard to interpret and making borgs slow to respond that's practically intended and if you don't want that, write laws better. :P
I've personally never had 5 laws at once containing overrides (next to impossible with the upload comp, with lawracks crew will start pulling modules out before doing complex overriding) Speaking from experience you tend to get given a few minutes of grace to figure out how you're choosing to interpret a lawset when it gets changed anyway. For that matter, the captain law example is kinda odd because the possibility for human error is part of what makes the dynamic work.


However, I think that if you absolutely wanted to go ahead with this then you absolutely can't have law changes take effect immediately. You can't have it take 30 fucking seconds to weld/screw/remove/place/screw/weld a module and also give the AI an alert whenever you change a module. That's an utterly clown-ass long time in which the AI can readily laser your ass or sic sec on you (and you'd be surprised how little time it takes to beeline somewhere). Make it so you open the rack to mess with it and once you close it, it forwards the changed lawset en bloc to the silicons or something.

By the way I could well be talking out my ass on this one but I think the "letting players know" part is not really going to go away. It's not uncommon for people to return after months if not years of absence, and I doubt many of them will be getting up to date with everything before they try uploading overrides.

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On a sidenote I've seen people mention that silicons don't have to follow speech laws anymore but I can't find confirmation of that on the wiki. Seems like a bad time if that's true but not written down anywhere.