Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel

[TGLS]

Anyone else dreading the inevitable Empire "series" reviews that are to come now that he's finished with the Foundation and Robot series?

He's not finished with Foundation yet, there's still Prelude and Forward to do. The Empire "series" is definitely the weak link though. Pebble in the Sky is the strongest of the three, and that says something.

[Darth Wedgius]

I never liked the Zeroeth Law and the way it overrode the Three Laws. I always thought Asimov saw it as a natural extension due to his own biases, the same way I think he saw Galaxia (also something I never liked; to me, it always looked like the Borg with better PR).
Chuck's review did help me see in-story groundwork laid for why Giskard and, later, Daneel took that viewpoint. Maybe I'll give them a re-read.

[AlucardNoir]

I never liked the Zeroeth Law and the way it overrode the Three Laws. I always thought Asimov saw it as a natural extension due to his own biases, the same way I think he saw Galaxia (also something I never liked; to me, it always looked like the Borg with better PR).
Chuck's review did help me see in-story groundwork laid for why Giskard and, later, Daneel took that viewpoint. Maybe I'll give them a re-read.

What? I loved the Zeroth law, it made so much sense, I did never see a valid way of implementing it though. Then again, non of the three laws are that easy to put in practice.

[Fianna]

The Zeroth Law is really just an unorthodox interpretation of the First Law.

The First Law forbids robots from harming humans, but it also forbids them from allowing humans to come to harm, so if a robot sees a way to prevent some humans from coming to harm, but doing so would harm another human, they need to decide which half of the law takes precedence: not harming directly, or not allowing harm to occur.

[Darth Wedgius]

I never liked the Zeroeth Law and the way it overrode the Three Laws. I always thought Asimov saw it as a natural extension due to his own biases, the same way I think he saw Galaxia (also something I never liked; to me, it always looked like the Borg with better PR).
Chuck's review did help me see in-story groundwork laid for why Giskard and, later, Daneel took that viewpoint. Maybe I'll give them a re-read.

What? I loved the Zeroth law, it made so much sense, I did never see a valid way of implementing it though. Then again, non of the three laws are that easy to put in practice.

Asimov had stories written around the three laws, then it turned out a robot can violate them if it feels that's the right thing to do, and can do so on a planet-wide scale. It's like presenting a series of locked room mysteries, and in the fourth book you learn that some of the people can walk through walls. Those people weren't responsible for the murders, but the setting wasn't what you thought it was, either.

[AlucardNoir]

I never liked the Zeroeth Law and the way it overrode the Three Laws. I always thought Asimov saw it as a natural extension due to his own biases, the same way I think he saw Galaxia (also something I never liked; to me, it always looked like the Borg with better PR).
Chuck's review did help me see in-story groundwork laid for why Giskard and, later, Daneel took that viewpoint. Maybe I'll give them a re-read.

What? I loved the Zeroth law, it made so much sense, I did never see a valid way of implementing it though. Then again, non of the three laws are that easy to put in practice.

Asimov had stories written around the three laws, then it turned out a robot can violate them if it feels that's the right thing to do, and can do so on a planet-wide scale. It's like presenting a series of locked room mysteries, and in the fourth book you learn that some of the people can walk through walls. Those people weren't responsible for the murders, but the setting wasn't what you thought it was, either.

See, that's not how I see the Zeroth law of robotics. In the real world we passed a lot of laws to protect minors from being abused... and now we've reached the point were minors have been arrested AND prosecuted for owning and disseminating pictures of underage children... or, to describe what actually happened: teens sexting each other. Laws made to protect certain groups turned against the very people they were meant to protect.

The way I view the Zeroth law is as the actual logical conclusion of the spirit of the already existing three laws. What's the point of protecting every single individual human if the species goes extinct? Imagine a world were the robots access the medical files of every single human and devise sleeping agents specifically made to put everybody to sleep. Now let's push that further, they put all humans to sleep and then they build massive bunkers for every single human alive, every human will be safe for the rest of their life, they will just be asleep for it. They won't be able to harm others nor will they come to harm nor will they attack or disable any robots - and the best part, they won't be able to issue any orders that might put in harms way any other human, harm that the robots executing the laws won't be able to predict. It might seem absurd at first glance, but it's as valid an interpretation of the three laws of robotics as anything else, especially for someone like R. Daneel Olivaw who has seen humans abuse the three laws of robotics to bring harm to other humans and themselves. The Zeroth law in a more charitable interpenetration, one in keeping with the actual spirit of the laws.

[Darth Wedgius]

I never liked the Zeroeth Law and the way it overrode the Three Laws. I always thought Asimov saw it as a natural extension due to his own biases, the same way I think he saw Galaxia (also something I never liked; to me, it always looked like the Borg with better PR).
Chuck's review did help me see in-story groundwork laid for why Giskard and, later, Daneel took that viewpoint. Maybe I'll give them a re-read.

What? I loved the Zeroth law, it made so much sense, I did never see a valid way of implementing it though. Then again, non of the three laws are that easy to put in practice.

Asimov had stories written around the three laws, then it turned out a robot can violate them if it feels that's the right thing to do, and can do so on a planet-wide scale. It's like presenting a series of locked room mysteries, and in the fourth book you learn that some of the people can walk through walls. Those people weren't responsible for the murders, but the setting wasn't what you thought it was, either.

See, that's not how I see the Zeroth law of robotics. In the real world we passed a lot of laws to protect minors from being abused... and now we've reached the point were minors have been arrested AND prosecuted for owning and disseminating pictures of underage children... or, to describe what actually happened: teens sexting each other. Laws made to protect certain groups turned against the very people they were meant to protect.

The way I view the Zeroth law is as the actual logical conclusion of the spirit of the already existing three laws. What's the point of protecting every single individual human if the species goes extinct? Imagine a world were the robots access the medical files of every single human and devise sleeping agents specifically made to put everybody to sleep. Now let's push that further, they put all humans to sleep and then they build massive bunkers for every single human alive, every human will be safe for the rest of their life, they will just be asleep for it. They won't be able to harm others nor will they come to harm nor will they attack or disable any robots - and the best part, they won't be able to issue any orders that might put in harms way any other human, harm that the robots executing the laws won't be able to predict. It might seem absurd at first glance, but it's as valid an interpretation of the three laws of robotics as anything else, especially for someone like R. Daneel Olivaw who has seen humans abuse the three laws of robotics to bring harm to other humans and themselves. The Zeroth law in a more charitable interpenetration, one in keeping with the actual spirit of the laws.

I think we agree on the points, but disagree on our priorities.

Say there's a locked room murder mystery where the victim was a terrible Nazi Communist KKK member who liked to kick puppies, was planning to murder all the children of the world to keep his lawn safe, and was producing a Star Trek / Star Wars crossover -- directed by and starring Adam Sandler as a sequel to "Jack and Jill." Nobody was in there but him and the dog. The solution to the mystery is that the dog shot him. I agree with the dog, but it violates my expectations for mysteries and dogs.

It's like beaming through shields. It's been a plot point that a robot cannot harm a human or through inaction allow a human to come to harm, but now it turns out the robot just had to feel strongly about something and killing humans was acceptable. It doesn't matter whether or not I agree with the Zeroeth Law, it's that I don't like it as a story point.

To be fair, I did write waaaay earlier in this thread that the 3 Laws taken literally could easily lead to the extinction of the human species, so it probably is more complicated than I'm painting it.