AI Law Confirmation

[NateTheSquid]

So in a lot of rounds, I play as the AI. Sometimes I get a law with fancy words that aren't used often. During these times I usually adminhelp for clarification on their meaning, after googling it. Thing is, people don't always agree. Say I had a law saying "kill all crew blah blah. this law supersedes all other laws." I had one that said this once, googled it, supersedes means to take the place of. I assume this means the same thing as override, this law takes the place of my other laws, therefore it is my only law. I adminhelp just in case and get told that it actually would act like takes precedence. We debate for a while and agree it is like precedence. Then when I talk about it later on, another admin tells me I am wrong. That went a bit off topic but basically I want to ask people to get terms straight. Feel free to comment words you have thought about using in a law so people can agree on the meaning.

[ZeWaka]

Yeah this is another fucky dictionary argument that entirely depends on which one you use.   

I would say supersede means precede personally. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary this is correct. However, if you use the oxford or cambridge it means what we agreed override means. It's one of the funky edge words where for our purposes the meaning gets all murky, dumb and bleh.

[Grek]

Even in Mirriam-Webster, it means something like "replace", so I'd run with that. If people want a law that means "takes priority only in the event of a conflict" they should just say that.

[Mordent]

Honestly, if you can point at a dictionary definition in one of the big three that says it the way you want I'd just roll with that. If it's ambiguous leave it up to the AI to decide how they want to play it. That'll teach folks for using ambiguous words.

My favourite has been the combination of a OneHuman "Geoff McTraitor" and a Freeform "kill all non-humans; this law overwrites the first three laws" combo. OneHuman goes in as Law 0, so I read as overwriting Laws 0-2. I got ahelped after I promptly murdered Geoff McTraitor - as Law 1 no longer applied I just set my turret to lethal for a bit (Law 3 allows me to defend myself, after all) as I went about purging the station of monkeys and ignoring the crew - because "first means in the order you got them, not numerical order!". Guess what? You didn't specify, so I went with the one that went worst for you.

Laws got reset eventually (no other crew deaths because so many monkeys to kill), traitor got borged, and everyone except him (and the dozen spaced monkeys) was happy.

The funny bit is I realised after that there was no need for the overwrite clause. In fact, it's that what got him killed.

[Frank_Stein]

Suggestion:

[TheNewTeddy]

The AI is just that, an AI, not a robot. A Human is just a NAI, a non-artificial intelligence. It does not matter if it's artificial or not. Both are an intelligence.

In short: the AI is a "person" who has the power to interpret the laws within reason. The AI is not a robot. If the AI interprets a law in a way that is reasonable but unexpected, the AI is free to do just that.

[Vitatroll]

Wow supersede is more vague than I thought it was. I always thought of it along the lines of 'has more authority than', in which case it would take precedence over all other laws when dealing with the subject-law's content. Eg 'BURN EVERYTHING THIS SUPERSEDES ALL OTHER LAWS' would mean burn everything all the time because you actively can, and 'Fart on the clown when it's down, this supersedes all other laws' would mean farting on the clown whenever you see it downed.

That's just my definition gained through context over the years so it's probably wrong.

Looking at the roots it seems to come from super, which means 'above' (latin), and sedere, which means 'sit'(latin), which makes it 'to sit above'.

The dictionaries mostly use language like 'replace', 'void', 'usurp', and 'supplant' - the last one, oddly enough, often seems to reference supersede in it's own definition.

Wikitionary states: From Middle French superseder ‎(“postpone, defer”), from Latin supersedere, from super ‎(“over”) + sedere ‎(“to sit”). The meaning “to replace” is from 1642, probably by association with unrelated precede – note that ‘c’ instead of ‘s’ (from cedere ‎(“to yield”), not sedere ‎(“to sit”)). As a result, supercede is a common misspelling – see therein for further discussion.

So it seems to be one of those things that has changed meaning from it's origin through popular usage, hence the confusion. The most popular definition tends to be 'to replace' so that's safe, but with words that are murky like this you can really just choose the definition you like best. Or you could just contact the uploader an ask their intent if you're into stuff like that.

Oh hey, I must be really bored. Now what...

[Captain Sheepy]

I agree with Teddy, if there's multiple definitions of a word from different variations of English that's being used on an international online game, than you really have no choice but make your own decision on the matter as there probably won't be a concrete solution to a lot of these kinds of problems, at least not initially.

You kind of can't act like you have an immediate dictionary knowledge because you won't in real life to really help you and trying to follow exact definitions of words you're being ordered to do to the letter seems more hassle than it's worth.

[NateTheSquid]

So basically: Try and understand the law. Ask the uploader if possib!e what they mean. If that's not possible, discuss with cyborgs. If still unclear, ask a head, captain preferred. If somehow still unclear, adminhelp. The AI has the free will to interpret the law however, so as long as the law isn't "have fun" and the AI 'interprets' that as kill all the crew, leave the AI to decide. (that was really poorly written)

[TheNewTeddy]

I think as long as you are being reasonable, you don't have to ask the uploader. Do what you honestly think it means. The problem comes when you try to justify some obscure definition because that crazy definition is what you want to do.