Daneel | Paranoid Android | Public Video

[thezerothlaw]

[Daneel is very calm. His voice is even and neutral, his face expressionless.]

I'm aware that a number of individuals here are not human, as they may have been claiming to be. This concerns me on several levels. The First Law demands that I protect human beings from harm, and this I must do, but those of you who are neither human nor robot are a concern to me. I can't anticipate your actions. I'm forced to see you as a threat to those who are actually human.

[He pauses; some of the thoughts that have been running through his head lately are troubling, and he seems to wobble, almost imperceptibely. Some of this is hard.]

Furthermore, I'm aware that I present a significant obstacle to your intentions. The logical course of action for you to take is to eliminate myself. I'm certain you're planning to take action to deactivate or disassemble me. This, I cannot allow.

If I am deactivated, I can't protect the humans who are here. Furthermore, if I am disassembled, every individual here will be killed. I have yet to identify all individuals who are a threat, but if I suspect any violent intentions towards me, I will have no choice but to respond with lethal force to protect myself. I ask you to rethink your plans before it comes to that.

Thank you for your attention.

Comments

[thezerothlaw]

The laws of society are external. The Laws of Robotics are internal, a part of my nature. It's not quite the same.

[He and Friend Giskard talked about this, sometimes. There has to be something guiding human behaviour, although he can't name what it might be.]

[noblexcompanion]

What about killer robots? Do they break their programming or sommat?

[thezerothlaw]

[He stares. Killer robots are a thing of fiction -- except that he and Giskard did kill someone, but it was for the greater good, to protect many billions of human lives. The Zeroth Law takes precendence, at least for Daneel. And then there was Solaria, with robots with a particularly narrow view of what defined a human being.]

While I have seen robots used to inflict harm upon humans, the robots in question acted without knowledge of what they were doing, and when the situtation was revealed to them completely, it did them serious damage. For a robot to knowingly break the the First Law and harm a human would require a cascade of positronic breakdowns that would cause it to cease functioning long before it could act upon it.

[noblexcompanion]

[ Killer robots are totally real, Daneel. They kill people and blow them up and stuff... ]

So... most robots aren't going to murder folk in their sleep?

[thezerothlaw]

Certainly not. In fact, I must act to prevent harm whenever I can.

[noblexcompanion]

That's reassuring to know.