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Second Law, My Ass: Difference between revisions
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A common trope in [[Science Fiction|Sci-fi]] comedies, this is a robot that is the exact opposite of the typical [[Robot Buddy|helpful machine teammate]]. Crude, rude and possibly alcoholic, the Bad Robot exists for the audacity of the situation. The opposite of [[Three Laws Compliant]]. Usually will be the [[Token Evil Teammate]]. Bad robots that can be turned good when the plot demands it have a [[Morality Dial]].
Compare with [[AI Is a Crapshoot]], [[Crush! Kill! Destroy!]], [[Killer Robot]] and [[Robotic Psychopath]]. See also [[Sex Bot]].
{{examples}}
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* In [[Henry Kuttner]]'s short story ''The Proud Robot'', his famous character, [[The Alcoholic]] inventor Gallegher, has built an incredibly egomaniacal robot who constantly trash-talks and belittles him, and can only be shut up by ordering him to do what he was built for.<ref>True, that's not a very practical way to control the robots, but, well, Gallegher was drunk at the time.</ref> Unfortunately, Gallegher was (as usual) roaring drunk when he constructed him, and ''forgot'' what he was built for. {{spoiler|He eventually figures out that the robot was a ''beer can opener'' -- it can even pull tabs hadn't been invented yet.}}
* ''[[Discworld]]''
** There are golems which are fairly similar to Robots and have their own version of the three laws written on their chem, the words that power them, which restrict them on what they can and cannot do except for Dorfl in the City Watch books. He has no chem anymore but continues to move and live and can do things that are could not be done by normal golems. The only reason he has yet to go [[Crush! Kill! Destroy!]] is he chooses not to.
** Mister Pump, a golem owned by the city and employed by Vetinari in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Going Postal|Going Postal]]'' has his own version. "A Golem may not hurt a human unless ordered to do so by a properly constituted authority". A disclaimer that Moist von Lipwig finds out about in the most disquieting way.
* The No-Law robot Caliban is not bound by the Second Law (Or the First or Third, either), so he will only obey an order from a human if he thinks that it serves some purpose. The fact that one of the first orders he ever received was from a drunken hick trying to get him to shoot himself probably contributed to this.
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'''Plato (robot):''' Give me a break. <br />
'''Kat (robot):''' No way! }}
* Orac from ''[[Blake's Seven
* [[Robot Girl|Cameron]] in ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' will follow orders given to her by her human companions, at least until she decides that they are inconvenient or conflicting, at which point she'll do her own thing regardless of what anyone else wants. She makes it very clear that she can selectively obey or disobey the Connors as she wishes.
** It's an odd example of this trope. She generally obeys the Connors, but relatively early on she makes it clear that if orders given by the John Connor on the show conflict with directives from the future John Connor that sent her back in time, she obeys Future John's directives. What those directives actually are were never made clear on the show. Finally, we find out that some reprogrammed terminators occasionally go crazy and revert to their usual [[Crush! Kill! Destroy!]] programming for no apparent reason. So she's Second Law compliant to one John, but not the one on the show, and no one knows exactly what orders she's following, and the possibility is open that she might stop obeying even those directives.
* Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo from ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' are constructed with the capacity to disobey, insult, and disagree with their human companions. It's implied that Joel Robinson built them this way specifically because he desperately needed the intellectual stimulation; when he briefly reprograms them to be ''nice'' to him, he finds their servility tedious and boring.
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* Zeke from ''[[Ctrl Alt Del]]''. {{spoiler|He left when he couldn't back it up}}.
* The Fruit Fucker, an appliance gone wrong from ''[[Penny Arcade]]''.
** For that matter we have Div, the crude bigoted alcoholic media player that exists mainly to verbally abuse his owners. (Based on the long-dead [
*** Or to put it another way, he's based on a machine that was [[Truth in Television|designed from the ground up with this trope in mind]].
** Only Tycho and Gabe's spouses dislike the Fruit Fucker. Gabe and Tycho have no qualms drinking the juice it makes. It even saves their lives when they are trapped in a zombie infested mall...[[Squick|by "juicing" the zombies.]]
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[[Category:Robot Roll Call]]
[[Category:Second Law My Ass]]
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