this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2026
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If you've ever actually read any of the books you'd know that using these laws as actual laws is a dumb move. The paradoxes caused by them are a pretty central theme.
Yeah, the actual purpose of the laws was to produce interesting (when involving Susan Calvin) or amusing (when involving Powell and Donovan) stories.
Still some form of protection for humans is needed.
If a robot (or any other corporate product or activity) causes injury everyone in the corporate chain of responsibility (especially board members and stockholders) should be criminally liable.
Yeah like one of the stories in i Robot, the people were going die because the robot couldn't break one of the three rules and went haywire. Think that was the issue in most of the stories.
Latter stories had Daneel Olivaw lawyering his way around the laws. Then there was a schism where some robots thought he misinterpreted them, went too far. Then the Zeroeth law came around adding more twists.
It's been 20-years since I read all that. Tell me if I'm wrong.