Second Law, My Ass: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Bender''': Admit it, you all think robots are just machines built by humans to make their lives easier. <br />

'''Fry''': Well, aren't they? <br />

 

[[Three Laws Compliant|Asimov's Second Law of Robotics]] states: "''A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law [which prohibits them from harming humans via action or inaction].''" This trope is when a robot decides he is no longer required to take orders from the stupid, squishy, inefficient, ugly, foolish, arrogant, dim-witted, slow, weak, carbon-based humans just because "they made him."

 

== [[Anime]] & [[Manga]] ==

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* ''[[Nextwave]]'' has Aaron Stack. Though he wasn't like that before ''Nextwave''. Aaron used to be a very nice guy, although even back then he could get very impatient with humans' failings. Then in his [[Darker and Edgier]] series ''X-51,'' he got put through all kinds of hell through no fault of his own; then got taken away by the Celestials only to be returned to Earth with no explanation other than that he'd been somehow found unfit<ref>The Celestials said he was "total ☠☠☠☠"</ref>. Since then, he's been extremely bitter and depressed, and has discovered he's capable of getting drunk.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** "Brain the size of a planet and they tell me to pick up a piece of paper. You call that job satisfaction? 'Cause I don't."

* 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.

* 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.

 

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

* Arguably, Vanessa from ''[[Small Wonder]]''.

{{quote| '''Erica West (human):''' Shouldn't you be programmed to happily sacrifice yourselves for the team?<br />

'''Dante (robot):''' Was that supposed to be funny? <br />

* Bots in ''[[Paranoia]]'' frequently demonstrate this behavior. Even it they have an [[Morality Chip|Asimov Circuit]] installed, they can find creative ways to annoy and harass the fleshy organics who boss them around.

** Worse, the Asimov circuits are differently defined and allow for a ''lot'' more leeway than in their namesake's works. Bots may be able to exercise judgement as to what constitutes an organic ''intelligence'', they may decide that humans are traitors (thus excluded from protection) or not sufficiently worthwhile to The Computer to be worth preserving (as mandated by the "preservation of 'valuable Computer property'"), and they can allow for screwed-up prioritizations such as an autocar protecting its passengers by suddenly deploying airbags and restraints ''instead'' of using the same CPU cycles to keep its nuclear reactor from going critical. In short, Asimov circuits provide [[Plausible Deniability]] at best.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** G0-T0 in the sequel.

* PAL-18 in ''[[Anachronox]]''. His achieving free will comes as a bit of a surprise to the others, although a robotic abolitionist you can encounter says that the potential for free will and self-awareness lies within all robots. PAL-18 is also a heroic variant, and he expresses his free will mostly through lewd remarks and occasionally sneaking off to solve quests his own way.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Pintsize from ''[[Questionable Content]]''. ''[[Memetic Badass|Especially]]'' in the Guest Comics. He likes people, and he ''tries'' to be helpful, but he has a manic, destructive, highly sexualized sense of humor.

* 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 [[wikipedia:DIVX chr(28)Digital Video Expresschr(29)|DIVX]] video format that involved a player that would refuse to replay disks after they had been watched, forcing you to buy them again)