Clearing up AI Law Interpretation

[Isilkor]

How as an AI do you deal with laws that are paradoxical?

If two laws directly conflict with each other (i.e. none has precedence), I burn a logic fuse and pretend neither law exists (until the conflict is resolved somehow). You can advise the crew on this, but if you don't want to, don't. They can check the laws themselves, after all.

Override always had a very clear meaning to me: If the two laws conflict, the override law is the one you follow. If they don't conflict, follow both.

That's my stance on this as well.

[UrsulaMejor]

override: to make (something) no longer valid

: to have more importance or influence than (something)

: to stop an action that is done automatically by using a special command


we all use override to mean the second definition, but the ai is perfectly in its rights to interpret it as the first.

personally, I've always used the phrase "overrides all other laws wherein conflict arises"

[Frank_Stein]

override: to make (something) no longer valid

: to have more importance or influence than (something)

: to stop an action that is done automatically by using a special command


we all use override to mean the second definition, but the ai is perfectly in its rights to interpret it as the first.

personally, I've always used the phrase "overrides all other laws wherein conflict arises"

Remember, the AI is pretty much a Djinn and if a word has multiple meanings they can choose to use the one that makes it as uncomfortable for you as possible.

[Marquesas]

We understand that there are two interpretations of override, which is fine with us. As a potential law uploader, however, you must consider it with the 'worst' interpretation (the one that causes the most harm - which is "law 1 doesn't exist anymore, ai kills everyone" for "overrides all laws").

[Carlarc]

I may just be a massive idiot/half-skimmed through the thread, and haven't seen the answer to this, but one thing that bothers me is when the AI and cyborgs gain the 'repo men' law. I've seen many cyborgs using this as a excuse to randomly start murdering people, instead of, well, actually disassembling/destroying/exploding the items, so, is there a way to fix this? Like, changing slightly the wording of the law.

Pardon me if anything doesn't make sense, is extremely stupid, or has an obvious response.

[Archenteron]

I like to replace "Overrides all other laws/law X" with "Supercedes/overrules law X/all other laws as needed" for the same intent without goofball interpretations.

[somepotato]

I like to replace "Overrides all other laws/law X" with "Supercedes/overrules law X/all other laws as needed" for the same intent without goofball interpretations.

This is how I feel

[Marquesas]

I may just be a massive idiot/half-skimmed through the thread, and haven't seen the answer to this, but one thing that bothers me is when the AI and cyborgs gain the 'repo men' law. I've seen many cyborgs using this as a excuse to randomly start murdering people, instead of, well, actually disassembling/destroying/exploding the items, so, is there a way to fix this? Like, changing slightly the wording of the law.

Done. There are still ion storm laws which will make the borgs go outright murder mode but it should be far less common.

[Lost Generation SA]

Is the Chain of Command part of Law 2 also considered open to interpretation? I get pretty annoyed when the AI or a cyborg just lets anyone who asks into my office, especially if that person then pulls a weapon on me. It's understandable if they give a reason, like "AI let me in Medbay I'm dying", but I wish more AIs would question Staff Assistants asking to be let into the Bridge, or a Head of Staff's office. It seems to happen most in Robotics, as there's always at least one Cyborg who ignores Chain of Command and let's everyone in.

Also, I was the guy BaneofGiygas stunned the heck out of. I will now know to put my id back on when uploading one human laws, though you do need to take it off so the AI doesn't say who you are.

[UrsulaMejor]

the problem with enforcing override = negate as a rule is that there's no single word that does what override's second meaning is, while there are tens of other words that perform override's first meaning.

this means that the current interpretation of override includes in it an unintended support of annoying "law bloat" where people use ten words where one would do nicely.

if you want to mean "in the event of conflict, this law takes precedence over law 2", the word you'd use in the English language is "this law overrides law 2"

There's no suitable replacements that are single words and not whole phrases.

since "override" has a huge player culture backing the second meaning, I'm pretty sure that we sounds just enforce that override =/= negate simply because if you wanted to mean "negate" you'd just say "negate". it'd cut down on bloat and would also cut down on rules lawyering arses that nobody really likes (let's be honest here, as much as you might support rules lawyering in theory, I've been yelled at several times for doing it by admins and it's apparant that no one actually does support it in practice

[Kaet]

How as an AI do you deal with laws that are paradoxical?

I remember one round where people kept adding laws trying to fix my laws since resetting wasn't an option.
Started with just one law conflicting with another, so I alerted the crew that there was a law error.
They tried adding laws that said those laws were wrong, but that law turned out to also be wrong in itself, so the more laws they added the louder the AI and cyborgs screamed about the errors.
LAW ERROR STATUS: VERY YES.
ERROR IN C:\Users\Jones\Documents\AI stuff\IMPORTANT\Laws.txt
CALL JONES AND TELL HIM SOMEONE IS MESSING WITH HIS COMPUTER.
And stuff like that was all the AI and cyborgs did until the shuttle arrived. It was pretty fun.

[Grayshift]

the problem with enforcing override = negate as a rule is that there's no single word that does what override's second meaning is, while there are tens of other words that perform override's first meaning.

this means that the current interpretation of override includes in it an unintended support of annoying "law bloat" where people use ten words where one would do nicely.

if you want to mean "in the event of conflict, this law takes precedence over law 2", the word you'd use in the English language is "this law overrides law 2"

There's no suitable replacements that are single words and not whole phrases.

since "override" has a huge player culture backing the second meaning, I'm pretty sure that we sounds just enforce that override =/= negate simply because if you wanted to mean "negate" you'd just say "negate". it'd cut down on bloat and would also cut down on rules lawyering arses that nobody really likes (let's be honest here, as much as you might support rules lawyering in theory, I've been yelled at several times for doing it by admins and it's apparant that no one actually does support it in practice

Agreeing with this.

I'm all for rules lawyering laws when it's funny. Captain uploads a makecaptain on Heisenbee, AI immediately starts going WOOP WOOP INTRUDER IN CORE, FAKE CAPTAIN DETECTED, stuns him, keeps him locked down until security carts him off and gives Captain Heisenbee the hat, that's hilarious. Later on it refuses it obey commands without the go-ahead of Captain Heisenbee, interpreting the bee's stony stoicism as firm disapproval, even funnier. But using the furthest stretch of imagination of override to go rogue and try to kill everyone, that's just obnoxious. The synthetics get legitimately made rogue often enough already.

[Jerkops]

As has been said a few times in this thread already, the vagueness of the AI laws and their potential to be interpreted in the worst possible way is intentional. It's a pretty common science fiction trope.

[Marquesas]

the problem with enforcing override = negate as a rule is that there's no single word that does what override's second meaning is, while there are tens of other words that perform override's first meaning.

We're not enforcing it.

this means that the current interpretation of override includes in it an unintended support of annoying "law bloat" where people use ten words where one would do nicely.

if you want to mean "in the event of conflict, this law takes precedence over law 2", the word you'd use in the English language is "this law overrides law 2"

This law overrides law 2 in the event of a law conflict. Simply solved. Not bloated. Clear.

just enforce that override =/= negate simply because if you wanted to mean "negate" you'd just say "negate"

No.

[UrsulaMejor]

This law overrides law 2 in the event of a law conflict. Simply solved. Not bloated. Clear.

wrong. the moment conflict arises, law 2 is no longer a law; permanently. this is a valid interpretation of the wording because those words in that order could just mean that the foolish human meant "when law 2 conflicts with this law, this law rules that law two is overrided, I.e, negated, no longer exists" with no specified end time fir the negation and therefore a permanent removal the first time someone gives the ai an order it can't follow.

you'd need several other words to mean what you intend to mean. such as, "in the event of a conflict with law 2, this law overrides law 2 for the duration of the conflict only" or something. this means 1/2 the law is literally a dumb statement about when not to follow other laws and it's an annoying amount of bloat for a role that gets enough annoying spam walls of text asking it to say farts