Asimov missed something

I think that means they could rip out your eye balls to prevent you from seeing ads.

Whatever it takes
Robot is allowed to kill a human to prevent a viewing of an advertisement.
- Under the zeroth law they can just kill the advertiser as a last resort
- A truly moral use case of the hanibal directive
- Okay, proposed second law: A robot may not harm or kill a human unless it violates the first law.
Thankfully the wording is “shown” and not “seen”. I believe our eyeballs are safe… for now.
This is a solid premise for a pretty metal music video.
I think Asimov would agree

God bless the designer who always installs the blue AND red LEDs inside the eyes
- For giving the robots freedom of choice?
  Because obviously if they didn't install the red ones then the robot could never be evil.
- Full RGB
Right, because it's hard to make a robot grow a goatee.
- Bender-flexo.jpg

I'd argue that advertisements fall under "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."

Psychic damage is real damage
- Emotional damage
- This is canon in the books. There is one short story where one robot bends over backwards trying to spare humans from emotional pain. Hilarity ensues.

A machine must never prompt a human with options of "Yes" and "Maybe later" - they must always provide a "No" option.

A machine must never prompt for a tip or a donation to a charity for tax-evasion reasons. Or any reason. You know what, scratch that, a robot will not needlessly guilt-trip a human.
that's what you get for hiring fallout 4 writers to do the job

I am very close to adopting the ideals of the Dune universe, post Butlerian Jihad:

"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."

Mainly because, us, humans, are very evidently too malicious and incompetent to be trusted with the task.

How about "a robot must have complete loyalty to its owner, even if this is not in the best interests of its manufacturer". Fat chance, I know.

Technically the laws of robotics already have that.
Law 2: a robot must obey any order given to it by a human as long as such order does not conflict with the first law.
Of course that's little help, because the laws of robotics are intentionally designed not to work.
- Wouldn't be much of a short story if they did.
  I liked the one where the robot could sense people's emotional pain, and went crazy when it had to deliver bad news.
Owner loyalty is a subscription service, natch.

I love it when posts line up like that

No he didn't. The laws were a plot device meant to have flaws.

Advertisements are now everything but visual. Sounds, smells, tastes, touch, the way the pavement vibrates as a train goes past...

Can we just agree that adverisements in general is harmful? So the original first (and zeroth) law is applicable.

Let’s introduce musk to the zeroth law

Love the username, OP!

Law 2: no poking out eyes.

Law 3: any robot that accidentally kills a human, must make amends by putting together a really nice funeral service.

I don't know. "Must not kill us, somehow sounds important"

And that includes offers to subscribe to Laws of Robotics Premium.

Yes, Amazon. They're still adverts, and you can still go and fucking fuck yourselves.

Wait why is this mutually exclusive to the original laws? Can’t this just be law 4?

No because if it is lower on priority, a robot can be forced to show an AD to a human as per the 2nd law.
- i guess thats fair

Luckily I have my own "robots" fighting hard to stop me from seeing ads.

A machine must never prompt a human to tip it for serving the purpose it was created for.

A robot may not bear arms

Unless it looks super cool by doing so, like wearing sunglasses and dual- weilding P-90s

The book Hum by Helen Phillips has a fun take on this.