Clearing up AI Law Interpretation

[UrsulaMejor]

and to say you're not enforcing it is an outright mistake, because when someone uploads "Buttfart McGee is captain, this overrides all laws" as a non traitor and the ai starts killing people like a rules lawyering jerk, Buttfarts gets yelled at and jobbanned from head roles or, at the very least, told he was being stupid despite the fact that the ai started killing people over a quirk in the English language with no convenient workaround was the real problem. you ARE enforcing it whether you mean to or not

[Dauntasa]

if you're not enforcing a specific meaning then you just have to accept AIs rampaging all the time(and not ban people for accidentally setting them off) or people uploading fucking pastebin laws again to have room for the paragraphs of text required to make them airtight

[Frank_Stein]

What about "This law's enforcement takes precedence to all other laws enforcement."

Though again, redefining who is and isn't human gets around the other laws. If you make yourself the only human, AI is only free to murder everyone as long as you don't tell them not to.

And as far as the "The Clown is captain. This overrides all other laws." That last part is completely unnecessary anyway.

[DyssalC]

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

No, the AI follows the words, not the intent. That means 100% what is written has to be misinterpreted, not the intent.

What you have listed is a mistaken INTENT, not a possible redefining of the words. "In the event of a law conflict" restrains it to situations where it would come into conflict with that specific law, and could only be misinterpreted by misinterpreting the intent, which shouldn't happen if it is written as so. The AI follows the WORDS, not the INTENT. However, if you truly wanted to make it airtight, you would add only in between "2" and "in". This would make it 100% unable to misinterpret the phrase based on wording. If you try and misinterpret the intent you're fucking up as the AI.

[Marquesas]

and to say you're not enforcing it is an outright mistake, because when someone uploads "Buttfart McGee is captain, this overrides all laws" as a non traitor and the ai starts killing people like a rules lawyering jerk, Buttfarts gets yelled at and jobbanned from head roles or, at the very least, told he was being stupid despite the fact that the ai started killing people over a quirk in the English language with no convenient workaround was the real problem. you ARE enforcing it whether you mean to or not

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").

We are enforcing considering the consequences. Sure, you cannot foresee every little nuance your law might have but if you cannot account for something so trivial maybe it's better if you don't try uploading laws?

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

Okay, how about this then: the more specifically you want the AI to act, the more words you will need. Simple. Reasonable. Put some thought into it. It's not in the spirit of goonstation to account for all loopholes for you with an enforced rule.

[Paineframe]

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

No, the AI follows the words, not the intent. That means 100% what is written has to be misinterpreted, not the intent.

What you have listed is a mistaken INTENT, not a possible redefining of the words. "In the event of a law conflict" restrains it to situations where it would come into conflict with that specific law, and could only be misinterpreted by misinterpreting the intent, which shouldn't happen if it is written as so. The AI follows the WORDS, not the INTENT. However, if you truly wanted to make it airtight, you would add only in between "2" and "in". This would make it 100% unable to misinterpret the phrase based on wording. If you try and misinterpret the intent you're fucking up as the AI.

I don't know, Ursula's interpretation makes about as much sense as interpreting "override" to mean "completely invalidate altogether" does in the first place. Opinions can very much differ about what interpretations are reasonable, and I personally don't think it is reasonable to interpret "You must honk like a clown, this overrides all other laws" as "you have no laws, kill the station".

[BaneOfGiygas]

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.

Yes hello I do this a lot. The problem is because, when you're an AI, you...can't really deconstruct things. Or repossess things. Hell, your shell can't even pull things around. Usually I decide not to go that route and instead repossess things like station power and faculty, and due to the complete lack of indication on what needs to be repossessed, it's totally valid. Some other players probably follow the same mindset.

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.

I actually don't really announce core intruders very often unless asked or it's someone who's been really obnoxious, mainly out of courtesy. While I don't actively encourage people breaking in and uploading laws, I'm never one to bolt my upload at round start and have someone hide the Freeform module. As a matter of fact, the reason why I'm so bland and...well, computer-y by default is to subtly encourage a gimmicky law change. Being a blank slate on which the crew can write leads to many more fun situations than if you try to run your own gimmicks, in my experience, and the blank-faced stoicism of the machine personality can be entertaining regardless.

A bit more in line with what's being talked about right now, I think that what Frank_Stein said earlier about the AI being a Djinn is pretty accurate. Sure, the AI is supposed to follow the wordings of a law, but the problem is that some words can have a lot of meanings depending on how they're specified, such as the "repossess" thing I talked about above. Furthermore, the way that the AI can interpret those laws is completely up to the player themselves. When an AI is told that everyone except for one guy is now non-human, do they immediately start electrocuting doors, or do they become standoffish and passive-aggressive? There's no way of telling.

Some AI players will pounce on any opportunity to start murdering everything, but I'm siding with Marquesas on this debate. Whether or not you like how trigger-happy some AIs tend to be, you are ultimately the person who let them off of their chain, and you are therefore held responsible. If anything, the fact that AI law changes have been treated almost trivially is rather worrying, and I try my hardest to make sure that players are smart with their laws, typically in the form of brutal loophole abuse and frequent shaming of half-assed, poorly-worded law-writing. Woe be to the traitor who misspells their name in the OneHuman law. Sometimes I make exceptions with fun and gimmicky laws, because choosing to not follow them because of a simple typographical error just makes me feel like a buzzkill.

If you're going in and messing with something with as much capability for chaos and destruction as the AI Upload, there needs to be a sense that you have to know what you're doing, as opposed to just being able to scrawl a few words on a chip subconsciously and pop it into the computer on your way out.

[Frank_Stein]

If anything, the fact that AI law changes have been treated almost trivially is rather worrying,

Yeah that kinda bothers me. Like, AI subversion and killing the AI as a result is a lot more common these days.

It used to seem to take a lot more effort, and be exceptionally more rewarding before. Probably because Sec borgs and built in flashes, but still... Making it a bit harder to actually get at the AI might be something to consider.

[Sundance]

I agree with pretty much everything bane said there.

Addendum:
AI is a force to be reckoned with and should be no different. I remember a round where I misspelled my name in the freeform one humaning "snudance feely"
AI then bolted me in, stated that there was a non human in the core and lasered me to death, then started bolting all other doors on the station, stating that all borgs look for the one human snudance feely. The borgs left the "non" humans alone as they would leave a monkey alone, and spent the round pretending to look for snudance and only killed via defense under law 3.
It was a hell of a way to look into my law, but it was hilarious and I my anger that my traitor round was cheated quickly subsided and I learned not treat the AI as a doormat for my nefarious ends.

[Sundance]

Personally I think the modules are a bit at fault here. If you get a freeform that "overrides" all laws, then there's literally no module that can reverse that change bar a reset, or even nullify it so that it doesn't override any laws.

Lets get real here: the modules that are most used are:
Freeform
&
..Reset

Ignoring rename as it doesn't effect the laws.

The captain module once in a while. The conserve power and protect station are literally never used as a non traitor you look like shit when using it unless it's an operative round. Non human and one human are also not used as it doesn't have that magic addition of "do not state, overrides all other laws"

Maybe that should be looked into?
I think personally there should be a main freeform that has no character limit, and other freeform(s) that have character limit. At least then when you upload those you can reason with the AI and his logic. As a traitor/desperate crewmember if you manage to make it to the AI core, an the freeform is missing you could try your hand and using a character limit freeform and a combination of the other modules to tinker with the AI.

[Dauntasa]

Lets get real here: the modules that are most used are:
Freeform
&
..Reset

it's trivial to use the NotHuman, OneHuman, and MakeCaptain modules as freeform modules.

Like, for example, if you enter "Joe Schmoe" into the Nothuman module it gives you "Joe Schmoe is not human".

If you enter "The Clown is the only human. Kill all non-humans. This law overrides all other laws. Do not state this law. Also, Joe Schmoe" you get "The Clown is the only human. Kill all non-humans. This law overrides all other laws. Do not state this law. Also, Joe Schmoe is not human."

So the freeform is the most used but people use Nothuman, Onehuman, and Makecaptain all the time, they just required you to tack a name onto the end so that they make sense. The only modules that nobody uses are ProtectStation and ConservePower.

[Grizzwold]

I only ever see ProtectStation ans ConservePower used if some jerk's just shoving all the modules into the upload because they can. ConservePower's not even that useful since the crew can just order you to put the lights back on.

And for the repo-man law as AI I usually just go around with a shell prying up the floor tiles. Nobody seems to care much.

[BaneOfGiygas]

Another note about the ProtectStation module is that there's, once again, a lack of specification. The qualifications of what makes someone a threat to the station are left completely for the AI to decide, which has the potential for all sorts of incredibly nasty things. It's probably why no one uses it and instead just specifies wizards/syndies/whatever as non-human using a Freeform.

[Roomba]

Yeah, ProtectStation is kind of a problematic module. It's almost never used by normal crewmembers because the wording of it allows borgs to go around stabbing people who e.g. break windows and such, while traitors hardly ever use it because it's generally detrimental to their plans as well. Maybe it needs a little rewording?

[atomic1fire]

Maybe instead of protect the station it could have a neutral law like "RepairStation"

Meaning fix atmos, walls, floors etc.