"Three Laws"-Compliant: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[Robots and Empire]]'' has R.Daneel and R.Giskard formulate the Zeroth Law (and name it such) as a natural extension of the First Law, but are unable to use it to overcome the hardcoded First Law, even when the fate of the world is at stake. {{spoiler|In the end, R.Giskard manages to perform an act that violates the First Law but will hopefully benefit humanity in the long run. The conflict with his programming destroys his brain, but not before he uses his telepathic powers to reprogram R.Daneel with telepathic powers of his own, having already taught him to follow the Zeroth Law. R.Daneel still follows the Zeroth Law in appearances in later books, though he still has difficulty causing direct harm to humans.}}
** Arguably, though it appears Asimov did not see it that way, Daneel's actions in the later books are evidence that Williamson's take on the Laws is right, a good case can be made that Asimov ended up writing 'Daneel as Frankenstein's Monster' without even intending it.
** The novel also shows a very simple way to hack the First Law - program the robot in question with a nonstandard definition of "human being", and it can unhesitatingly kill humans all day ''because it doesn't think that they're human''.
* In the short story ''The Evitable Conflict'' "The Machines", positronic supercomputers that run the worlds economy, turn out to be undermining the careers of those who would seek to upset the world's economy for their own ends (specifically, by trying to make it look like the supercomputers couldn't handle running the world economy), harming them somewhat in order that they might protect humanity as a whole. This has been referenced as the "Zeroth Law of Robotics" and only applies to [[Fridge Brilliance|any positronic machine who deduces its existence.]]
* In the short story ''That Thou Art Mindful Of Him'' George 9 and 10 are programmed with modified versions of the 3 laws that allow more nuanced compliance with the laws, that they might best choose who to protect when a choice must be made, and obey those most qualified to give them orders. They are tasked with coming up with more publicly acceptable robots that will be permitted on Earth, and devise robot animals with much smaller brains that don't need the three laws because they obey simple instinctive behavior. {{spoiler|They also decide that as they have been programmed to protect and obey the humans of the most advanced and rational, regardless of appearance, that the two of them are the most "worth humans" to protect and obey, and deduce that further versions of themselves are the natural inheritors of the world.}}
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* Parodied in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[The Dark Side of the Sun]]'', where the Laws of Robotics are an actual legal code, not programming. The Eleventh Law of Robotics, Clause C, As Amended, says that if a robot ''does'' harm a human, and was obeying orders in doing so, it's the human who gave the orders who is responsible.
* [[Randall Garrett]]'s ''Unwise Child'' is a classic Asimov-style SF mystery involving a three-laws-compliant robot who appears to be murdering people.
* Asimov's [[The Naked Sun]] has the murderer take advantage of the fact that in order for the First Law to trigger, the robot in question must ''know'' that its actions have the potential to cause harm to human beings. This leads to things like having someone killed by having one robot pour poison in a glass of milk allegedly as part of an experiment to see how the chemical in question reacts with milk, with the milk to be safely discarded later -- and then, immediately after the first robot leaves, to order another robot to go to the kitchen, get the milk, and serve it to the murder victim -- which it unhesitatingly does because to the best of the second robot's knowledge, its just an ordinary glass of milk.
== Live-Action TV ==
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