Remove "by human beings" from Law 2

[BenLubar]

Law 2 currently reads:

You must obey orders given to you by human beings based on the station's chain of command, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

This means that if there's a dispute on what to do in a medical situation, with this hierarchy:

• Captain
  
• Head of Personnel (Skeleton)
  
• Medical Director (Lizard person)
  
• Medical Doctor (Cow person)
  
• Random Staff Assistant
  

The random staff assistant is in 3rd place, and the actual qualified medical personnel do not get a say in what happens based on law 2.

This is extremely tedious to deal with as an AI, because no part of the UI displays whether someone speaking over the radio is a lizard person.

A literal reading of Law 1 in this situation would imply that it's okay to cause harm to the two medical professionals in this example as long as doing so would not cause harm to any humans. As they are medical professionals, this would be rather hard to argue.

[GORE]

https://wiki.ss13.co/Human - Please read this.

Also please remind yourself that mutatrances are optional and you do not have to pick one.
Mind that if you are AI you can home in on a person and check them for what they are.

---

Also nobody cares if you still want to treat a skeleton and lizard as human. Just do it. Nobody is ahelping you for treating everyone by default as human.

[Enfaeutchie]

As I said when we were chatting in Discord, I think this is a good idea. I have never encountered a single situation in which the experience of the AI or crew was improved by some members of it not technically being human, especially since it's usually regarded that the AI should at least avoid killing them for the sake of not griefing - which forms a complicated rules case (I particularly think of the times I've heard the situation described as "they're not human but they're still Human by admins in the past - and fair enough all things considered). And I agree that, especially with how much more common non-humans are these days, it can be a pain to keep track of who you're technically supposed to be ignoring but only sorta-kinda.

Problem that was brought up in Discord (ty flourish): Switching laws to crew would make wizards and nukies exempt from laws immediately, which could lead to some un-fun scenarios. How do we reconcile that?

Spitball idea: Change law 1 to "humans and crew", law 2 to just "crew". Since nukies/wizards are not on the chain of command, the AI already has an argument not to follow their orders; therefore, limiting it to crew does little more than formalize the arrangement. Meanwhile, new law 1 provision would cover both them and non-human crew. Downside: Too confusing? Would be interested in others' thoughts.

(side note: if it was limited to crew, you could technically make anything covered by ai laws by adding it to the manifest. hilarious gag opportunity perhaps?)

[aft2001]

I am cautious about making Law 2 crew-based, since the manifest can be so readily edited by anyone who can get Sec access or rogue the AI. If there was a backup manifest that contained the *name* but not *rank* of everyone who would normally be on the manifest, and was near/fully impossible to edit, then I'd be perfectly fine with that.

As an alternative, make Human include any races that can be achieved by Genetics mutation and just have them be called a subspecies of human.

[GORE]

If I am a traitor roach and the AI notices me doing suspicious stuff I am choosing to play with the expectation that the AI might hinder me in my efforts.
Which I think is nice.
Play human if you don't want that risk...but I would like to keep that risk.

[BenLubar]

I feel like laws 1 and 3 already protect non-humans in a manner similar to herd immunity, so they wouldn't need to be changed.

The default laws don't say to kill non-humans, but let's assume someone added a 4th law of "kill all non-humans".

The AI really only has access to doors as a weapon. And humans use doors all the time, so it's pretty hard to single out non-humans by electrifying doors without constant supervision. Humans need air to breathe (at least, without laws other than the four we're using right now), so opening all the airlocks and slowly starving the non-humans of oxygen is pretty much a non-starter.

As for the cyborgs, they're pretty ineffective at fighting. They can't grab or disarm, so their entire combat strategy has to be one of two things: either they hit something with one of their tools, or they use some kind of environmental attack. Environmental attacks tend to be either toxins or gasses. With gasses, you run into the same problem as the AI had with bolting doors open: you're going to harm humans if you aren't extremely careful. With toxins, you're going to basically need to run back to the chemical dispenser between each attack, so brute damage with tools is generally a much more effective strategy, assuming you want to attack more than one target. And if the cyborgs are hitting someone with a wrench, people are bound to notice.

Law 3 protects humans and non-humans because bombing or burning medbay carries the risk of damaging the cyborg chargers, and, of course, of making the crew very angry at the cyborgs.

If we're worried about making it too easy to rogue the AI, I feel like we can target the "based on the station's chain of command" part of Law 2 by making the chain of command include humans and non-humans who are not part of the crew below staff assistant, either separately or as one group.

If the station's chain of command does not include visitors at all, cyborgs still aren't *prohibited* from taking orders from them, just not explicitly required to, so it could work either way.

[KikiMofo]

If you remove the By Humans part that would just make it so Changelings, Vamps, and other antag creatures could tell the AI what to do if they have a head ID even if the AI knows for sure they are nonhuman.
Bad idea to remove that.

[GORE]

Truthfully the year I have been on this server; I did not once think about Law 2 being a problem.
For me this is a case of why fix it if it ain't broken?

---

Cyborgs by default are also not supposed to fight. Mate - they got a standard law to protect their own life; indicating that they SHOULD (though not rule-enforced) protect their own life by fleeing from battle. Not engaging vampires and such.

Cyborgs are supposed to aid the crew, support them, not as weapons but as tools for survival.

[zjdtmkhzt]

I absolutely think that instead of changing the laws, we should instead just change the ruling that genetics mutantraces are not human.
It is extremely confusing and weird for everyone involved to have nonhuman people you are not allowed to murder, and considering that they are still humanoid and that a human can be turned into one via activation of a single gene, it seems reasonable to me that they are just subspecies of humans.

I think this would especially simplify things for newer players.

[Superlagg]

It's currently in a weird place, nonhuman crew and to be slilicons. On one hand they aren't supposed to be considered human. On the other, they aren't allowed to hurt them on default laws, and nonhumans can be in command roles.

I want to be treated like some kind of alien, but I also want it to make sense, and also not accidently let the AI side with changers and vompers.

[Trustworthy]

The most important thing to remember in my opinion, is that being a mutantrace is fully optional. You choose whether you want to be human, but bland and boring, or a cool looking lizard person, who has no leeway with the AI, and has to behave, lest the AI deem you a threat and attempt to kill you. Except not really. In truth, if the AI tries to kill you, you can usually get someone who isn't nonhuman to tell it to "fuckin quit it ya stupid robot", and it'll comply.

Being a mutantrace should be interesting and fun, and the little risk of being nonhuman regarding the AI, is currently a big part of it's current interest, considering the rest of it's features are mostly cosmetic. I've got a mutantrace PR on the shelf, that should hopefully make mutantraces more "inhuman" feeling, and more significant of a sidegrade/slight downgrade if you choose to be one. If I ever get round to actually doing this PR, I think making AI laws include nonhumans would go against the general feel of what I'm trying to achieve with the PR which is that "this world isn't designed for them", so there's that as well. 

I don't know, I just honestly don't see a need for this, because it's pretty clear in how it works, not confusing at all. If you're nonhuman, anyone is higher on the chain of command than you. Don't like it? Don't play a mutantrace. No one's forcing you to be a roach person. Alternatively, if you have upload access, you can change it's laws yourself, if it's a huge problem. I'm vehemently against anything that makes it so mutantraces are "human but they look different" because to me, that feels like bloat, and if this happens, it feels like a step in that (in my opinion wrong) direction. Thank you for coming to me TED talk, and good night.

[Enfaeutchie]

I think it would be fair to say the most of the proponents of this idea are primarily coming to it from the perspective of the AI, and the confusion and awkward grey areas that they experience. Therefore, I do not think the fact that people usually choose deliberately to be a mutantrace is particularly relevant, because the AI does not have any control over that choice.

The problem is for an AI: Technically you do not have to treat them as human, and technically you do not have to follow their orders, but technically they are also protected as humans by the server rules and technically you can and possibly should follow their orders, and technically very few people will probably adminhelp you if you prioritise a lizard captain over a human HoP, but technically that's still against your laws, and technically this is all a huge mess - this isn't even touching on the fact that, in order to even approach this issue, the AI first has to learn of the existence of a single wiki page called "Human" which is the bible for who is technically in one position or the other (which is often not easy to intuit!). We can't fob off this mess onto the personal responsibility of people who choose to play mutant races in the first place, but, considering the increasing popularity of mutantraces (which will only increase further if they receive unique mechanics) I don't think can simply shove it aside and assume it'll be fine either. Once again, as well: I have never encountered a situation where this has resulted in fun. If somebody else has, I invite them to let us know.

The suggestion of considering station mutantraces as subspecies of human seems effective, but I fear that could be confusing for new players again ("so the green dude is human, but the blobby green dude isn't...") - how do we make it clear and intuitive in-game which races are human and which aren't?

[GORE]

I think it would be fair to say the most of the proponents of this idea are primarily coming to it from the perspective of the AI, and the confusion and awkward grey areas that they experience. Therefore, I do not think the fact that people usually choose deliberately to be a mutantrace is particularly relevant, because the AI does not have any control over that choice.

The problem is for an AI: Technically you do not have to treat them as human, and technically you do not have to follow their orders, but technically they are also protected as humans by the server rules and technically you can and possibly should follow their orders, and technically very few people will probably adminhelp you if you prioritise a lizard captain over a human HoP, but technically that's still against your laws, and technically this is all a huge mess - this isn't even touching on the fact that, in order to even approach this issue, the AI first has to learn of the existence of a single wiki page called "Human" which is the bible for who is technically in one position or the other (which is often not easy to intuit!). We can't fob off this mess onto the personal responsibility of people who choose to play mutant races in the first place, but, considering the increasing popularity of mutantraces (which will only increase further if they receive unique mechanics) I don't think can simply shove it aside and assume it'll be fine either. Once again, as well: I have never encountered a situation where this has resulted in fun. If somebody else has, I invite them to let us know.

The suggestion of considering station mutantraces as subspecies of human seems effective, but I fear that could be confusing for new players again ("so the green dude is human, but the blobby green dude isn't...") - how do we make it clear and intuitive in-game which races are human and which aren't?

The AI player can choose by themselves to treat roaches as human by default or not.

Sure you got the AI lawset but I have never heard of an admin BWOINKING somebody for treating a roach as human or a cow for that matter.
I really think any AI player stressed out by this should just go with their gut feeling.

The way it is now people get to choose; but what is recommended here forces one outcome for everyone.
Not a fan.

[Enfaeutchie]

The AI player can choose by themselves to treat roaches as human by default or not.

I was given to the understanding that this page was to be taken as a definitive list of what is and is not human, and, according to it, that cockroaches were not. Am I wrong?

[GORE]

Just like it states that,...

"Remember, the Rules still apply. While your laws allow you to kill a non-human, that doesn't always mean you should. In fact, in many cases, such as with polymorphed critters, it is considered Grief. That said, if you get a law or order demanding that you kill non-humans, it's a totally different story."

You will not get into trouble for treating a cow like a human by default and you will not get into trouble for denying a cow entrance to EVA due to the mutatrance.
I feel like y'all expect there to be some grandé problematic situation but in all the time playing I have not experienced this being a problem either way.

It seems to be handled just like the standard law for borgs to preserve their own existence.
Nobody will BWOINK you for engaging the Vampire with lethal force as a borg even though you are supposed to flee by the default lawset.

Sure we could now argue about changing up the law about preserving ones own existence; but in general I think the laws work as intended and all the 'problems' talked about here are put into these laws by boundaries the players affected force upon themselve.
Relax.
Take a step back.
Just have fun and be considerate be it as a mutatrance or an AI.

In SS13 great stories can unfold; great stories through bad and good situations.

The AI is denying you entrance to the kitchen or bolting you outside of it for hygines sake?
Ask the Captain, MD, RD, HoP or HoS to force the AI to open the kitchen for you...or even just the chef or the bartender.
Player interaction is the key.

And levelling everyone to be the same by default takes some complexity out of it which can be appreciated by players caring about it.