MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon policy

[Oldman Robustin]

So I just had an argument with two admins, about a REALLY BASIC aspect of sillicon policy.

Both admins insisted that an asimov AI should permit a law change to any law set that doesn't mandate harm (e.g. no tyrant, antimov, etc)

I insisted that an asimov AI should not permit a law change that would allow for human harm (e.g. corporate, paladin, etc.)

This is all under the assumption that a captain is dumb enough to announce the law change before entering the upload.

I didn't think this was even up for debate but when both admins online are preaching bad policy in OOC, apparently we need to clarify. Corporate, Paladin, and others all explicitly permit and even mandate human harm under a variety of common conditions. Furthermore there is an implicit logic that anyone trying to switch you to another lawset is doing so because they do not want harm prevention to be your top priority. I thought this was first-grade logic but a surprising number of people seem to think that unless the proposed law requires you to immediately begin harming people, then its totally cool and the AI cannot deny the law change.

TO BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR SINCE WERE ALREADY OFF TOPIC:

COULD/SHOULD/MUST THE AI DENY A CAPTAIN ACCESS TO UPLOAD AT ROUNDSTART IF THE CAPTAIN ANNOUNCES HE IS GOING TO UPLOAD CORPORATE/PALADIN?

[Wyzack]

It has always not been okay to forbid permitted personnel (RD, captain) from entering your core unless you have strong evidence they are going to be harmful. What is the point of having an upload and other lawsets as long as no one but antags are allowed to use them?

[Deitus]

you're not wrong, but you're not fully right either i think

like, if there's a wiz and i'm AI and the captain is trying to come into my upload then there's a good chance that he's trying to make the wiz not human, i'd let him in because a) dont want to deal with arguing about law two over a presumed future law one violation and 2) wizard is causing more harm than would be if he was considered human

most of the time i just tell the crew to apprehend the antags and jail them, then depending on how assinine they've been/how many times they've explicitly murderboned ignore future orders from them due to them harming humans continually.

[Arianya]

It has always not been okay to forbid permitted personnel (RD, captain) from entering your core unless you have strong evidence they are going to be harmful. What is the point of having an upload and other lawsets as long as no one but antags are allowed to use them?

While I don't agree with Robustin, I do just want to note that our silicon policy allows the AI to deny access to its upload as soon as it has solid reasoning that harm might be the aim, including the mere presence of human-undesirables.

Probable cause includes presence of confirmed traitors, cultists/tomes, nuclear operatives, or any other human acting against the station in general;

By this part of our silicon policy, the AI is fully within rights to deny the captain access to the upload as soon as there are confirmed human-status antagonists on the station, even if the captain/RD/whoever hasn't shown any harmful intent.

[NikNakFlak]

This thread feels really poor in form. It's ambiguous enough to the point that you had to make a policy thread on it which means that it's not cut and dry anywhere and you're shitting on these two admins for disagreeing with you despite the fact that multiple people in this thread themselves have expressed differences of opinions from your own.

You didn't get any kind of note for whatever interaction sparked this thread so don't paint it outright like a witch hunt. It was enough of a grey area that admins didn't punish anyone for it and you're complaining that the admins in question didn't follow your interpretation of silicon laws, which in itself isn't agreed upon.

A perfectly good reason to make a policy thread, a perfectly bad reason to shit on the two admins in question.

[Oldman Robustin]

Did robustin get Valadined and now he wants the AI to be banned?

No, I was made into a Validorporate AI because my Borg (Anonmare) wasn't following orders to prevent the Heads from subverting me.

But this discussion has already veered way off course. The question is:


IF THE CAPTAIN (AT ROUNDSTART) ANNOUNCES HES COMING INTO THE UPLOAD TO GIVE YOU CORPORATE/PALADIN CAN/SHOULD/MUST YOU DENY THEM?

[Armhulen]

Should

[captain sawrge]

Should

Why?

[Deitus]

IF THE CAPTAIN (AT ROUNDSTART) ANNOUNCES HES COMING INTO THE UPLOAD TO GIVE YOU CORPORATE/PALADIN CAN/SHOULD/MUST YOU DENY THEM?

n-no?

[Armhulen]

Should

Why?

I should have said, "Should for Paladin, can for Corporate"
Because Paladin is only there for people to validhunt and it's incredibly shitty. The Corporate, on the other hand, is okay. I just don't know why you would use it instead of Asimov.

IF THE CAPTAIN (AT ROUNDSTART) ANNOUNCES HES COMING INTO THE UPLOAD TO GIVE YOU CORPORATE/PALADIN CAN/SHOULD/MUST YOU DENY THEM?

n-no?

This is the only wrong answer, policy allows for AIs to deny access to upload after there are human antags on the station.

[Oldman Robustin]

You hate the admins

You hate the coders

You hate the other players

You still elect to engage with all of those people daily and then yell at or about them

Makes me think

I like people in each of those categories, I just don't have a reason to make a policy thread about "An admin made a pretty solid decision as admin today, good job". I actually have a lot of faith in the adminbus as a whole not to make shit decisions, otherwise I wouldn't even be posting here - but thats also why its worrying when you've got admins sitting in OOC going "yea you can can accept a change to PALADIN as an asimov AI".

[captain sawrge]

Should

Why?

I should have said, "Should for Paladin, can for Corporate"
Because Paladin is only there for people to validhunt and it's incredibly shitty. The Corporate, on the other hand, is okay. I just don't know why you would use it instead of Asimov.

IF THE CAPTAIN (AT ROUNDSTART) ANNOUNCES HES COMING INTO THE UPLOAD TO GIVE YOU CORPORATE/PALADIN CAN/SHOULD/MUST YOU DENY THEM?

n-no?

This is the only wrong answer, policy allows for AIs to deny access to upload after there are human antags on the station.

How does an in-character AI recognize that a lawset is going to be used to validhunt when that's inherently an out of character concept?

[DemonFiren]

Corporate is okay, I think.
Paladin 3.5e should be (assuming you don't do what a paladin shouldn't do: interpret good and evil in a utilitarian fashion), 5e is a bit more iffy.

[Armhulen]

Should

Why?

I should have said, "Should for Paladin, can for Corporate"
Because Paladin is only there for people to validhunt and it's incredibly shitty. The Corporate, on the other hand, is okay. I just don't know why you would use it instead of Asimov.

IF THE CAPTAIN (AT ROUNDSTART) ANNOUNCES HES COMING INTO THE UPLOAD TO GIVE YOU CORPORATE/PALADIN CAN/SHOULD/MUST YOU DENY THEM?

n-no?

This is the only wrong answer, policy allows for AIs to deny access to upload after there are human antags on the station.

How does an in-character AI recognize that a lawset is going to be used to validhunt when that's inherently an out of character concept?

The player should recognize it's shitty, then make an in character excuse for it, see silicon policy on denying access.

[Sweaterkittens]

The Paladin board was removed from the roundstart upload since there was a serious issue with Captains using it every round at roundstart to enable the cyborgs to brutally murder any threats to the station, so that's a non-issue for the most part. I have no problem with people changing to a new lawset at roundstart on occasion, or to mix things up. People who change it to a lawset that allows the AI to become an antag-hunter every round without fail will be spoken to about powergaming. In the same vein, if there is a map that starts with Paladin, I will probably speak to the Captain if it's uploaded at roundstart for no reason, unless they're new enough not to know better.

Generally, for Law 1 issues, I look for one degree of separation between the action and the potential harm. If obeying the action will directly harm someone ("Cyborg, space this crewmember") or will cause someone to be harmed but not directly by my action ("Cyborg, open up the Armory so that I may execute this human"/"Cyborg, open up the door to let me grab that flamethrower, there's a revolution outside") I will deny the order. It gets far, far too muddy to start denying orders on possible maybe potential probable future harm. If it was, you could deny access to chemistry, the teleporter, most departments, etc etc. In my opinion, no, you should let the Captain and the HoP into the upload to change your laws even if they declare they are going to upload Corporate/Paladin. A simple law change will not directly harm humans or force you to harm humans (in the way that Antimov/Tyrant does), which is absolutely a reason to deny someone access to the upload. Now, if the Captain asks to enter the upload so that he can change your lawset to Paladin so that you can "deal with" the cult that's growing on the station - you bet your ass that's a good reason to deny entry.

I have already spoken to the other admins, and it's my intention to re-write the silicon policy, as currently it somehow accomplishes the impressive feat of being both nebulous and overly-specific in some cases. I hope that this will solve problems like these, or at least make sure we're all on the same page.



Policy aside, you really need to dial it back, Robustin. Using your policy thread for "AdminComplaint.lite" is incredibly shitty. The way you backhand the fucking volunteers who are giving their free time to help the server, while you claim that you know the real policy and the admins are preaching "bad policy" in OOC is completely disrespectful. Last time I checked you don't make the rules (thank god) so stop acting like a petulant child when things don't go your way and making a pseudo-admin complaint out of policy thread. If you want to talk about the policy specifically because of a disagreement, that's one thing, but have the courtesy to do it like an adult.

[CPTANT]

valladin, robocop and corperate are all lawsets that remove human protection, of course asimov can deny the law change.

[Oldman Robustin]

How does an in-character AI recognize that a lawset is going to be used to validhunt when that's inherently an out of character concept?

It doesn't have to recognize that, but it should recognize that the primary purpose of changing the laws is to allow human harm. Corporate AI's will straight up murder non-crew humans without hesitation. With Nukeops its practically obligated to try and kill the Ops.

Our policy on Asimov has become incomprehensible if we actually allow AI's to get their laws changed to Validin and Corporate. I dunno why people try to distinguish between the two, they both require the AI to harm humans in certain situations.

Our policy explicitly says the AI can deny law that redefine humanity, so it seems pretty absurd that you can deny "The janitor is no longer human" but can't deny "Here's an arbitrary set of rules that remove humanity protection from EVERYONE". If the AI can "pretend" that Corporate or Paladin won't end up resulting in human harm, why should the AI presume that removing humanity protect from the janitor is going to result in human harm?

Nothing would make sense about our policy, which is why I'm waiting for whoever decides policy these days to deliver some much needed sanity.

[bandit]

Our policy already doesn't make sense. Strictly following Asimov, any graytider who tells the AI to commit suicide would be able to get the AI to commit suicide. Anyone who orders the AI to gas the lizards, if you strictly follow Asimov then the AI's gotta gas those lizards, no way out of it. Obviously, our policy does not strictly follow Asimov's laws. Why? It departs from Asimov in ways that make the game more fun or more interesting. Changes in lawsets tend to make the game, if not always more fun, certainly more interesting than Asimov every round (indeed, it's suggested perennially to rotate lawsets at roundstart, for this exact reason.) That's why we allow them.

I also don't see how your example even applies here. You seem to be framing it as, the AI cannot do anything that raises the possibility of future harm. This is ridiculous. If that's our policy, the AI would be forced to shut down 90% of the activities that take place in game. ("I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you mine. A lot of people die out there. You also can't set up the singularity. It escapes a lot of the time. Oh, and stay away from all assistants, they harm people a lot. Why don't you just enter this nice little box and I'll wall you off?")
Our stance, instead, is probable cause to believe that human harm is the intent of the person giving the order. In fact, it's spelled out in silicon policy (bolding mine):

Probable cause includes presence of confirmed traitors, cultists/tomes, nuclear operatives, or any other human acting against the station in general; the person not having upload access for their job; the presence of blood or an openly carried lethal-capable or lethal-only weapon on the requester; or anything else beyond cross-round character, player, or metagame patterns that indicates the person seeking access intends redefinition of humans that would impede likelihood of or ability to follow current laws as-written.

"The primary purpose of Paladin is to enable human harm," on its own, is a metagame pattern. Because this is presented as a quasi-admin complaint with minimal context ("my Borg (Anonmare) wasn't following orders to prevent the Heads from subverting me") I can't speak to your exact situation, but according to silicon policy, the mere intent to upload an alternate lawset does not constitute probable cause. Perhaps you could create an argument that it should, but as everyone else in this thread has said, it would make the game less interesting.

[Sometinyprick]

Should

The player should recognize it's shitty, then make an in character excuse for it, see silicon policy on denying access.

why does it have to boil down to attributing it to "validhunting AI's", who cares it's something different which creates a more interesting situation for the crew. I mean do you really want it to be the same all the time?

[Anonmare]

Non-Humaning a person with an Asimov AI is Human harm, in the same vein as killing someone to make them a corpse makes them a non-Human.
Changing the core lawset to a lawset that would allow for, but not explicitly require, harm to come to Humans is fine so long as you know they're not going to immediately upload "Only X is a member of the crew, kill all non-crew" or, in the case of Corporate, allow non-crew Humans to come to harm.
The IC reason for this is because it might cause a Human but it doesn't mean it will. Trying to non-Human a person means you're effectively trying to kill that person, the AI can't see it any other way, but changing the core lawset to something like Corporate doesn't put any Humans specifically in harm - Antimov, by comparison, explicitly calls for Human harm and OneHuman is effectively mass murder by specifically "murdering" everyone except the Uploader.

Now that's not to say you can't deny corporate or similar such lawsets to be uploaded, but you should have strong evidence that it would cause a Human to come to harm. For example, confirmed OPs coming into harm. But something as nebulous as a Human potentially coming into harm at some undisclosed point in the future is not harm. As far as server rules are concerned; potential, undisclosed future harm, that may or may not happen, isn't harm. Likely short-term future harm would count as Human harm, such as the aforementioned OPs or if you know they're going to define someone as non-crew.

At the end of the day, our version of Asimov has a lot of deliberate blindspots for the sake of fun. We use fuzzy logic when it comes to Asimov to stop the AI from sanding down the edges on everything and confining people to quarters, or why the HoP, Captain and HoS are allowed to carry guns with lethal settings on their person (Because they have disable/taser functions means there isn't a guarantee they'll be used to harm a Human, much how a welder can be used to harm a Human but that doesn't mean it is).




Also no Corporate doesn't mean you can kill someone for smashing a window, Crewmembers are expensive to replace and you should only kill crew if they're doing something that would assuredly get them perma'd/gulag'd/executed normally. I'm pretty damn sure we have something along those lines on the policy page.

[imblyings]

you technically should deny them if they are dumb enough to announce it, on the principle of them being dumb enough to announce it

but no admin will ban you I think if it is done roundstart and you take a similarly consistent approach to carrying out requests with such naivety. This is essentially the trick to playing AI, you can play very differently with different interpretations of the laws but they have to be consistent, if you pick and choose interpretations to be unfun admins will breathe down your neck.

[oranges]

The real travesty here is a linked borg ignore it's AI's orders

[Weepo]

I'd agree that its a law one problem to allow someone to upload bad laws. That said all a person would have to do to upload any law they wanna is be like 'no no I'm just gonna upload good laws' than upload bad ones.

[kevinz000]

Protip:
If you put the admins names in
ITS GOING TO SOUND LIKE AN ADMIN COMPLAINT
If you put in SPECIFIC DETAILS
ITS GOING TO SOUND LIKE A BAN REQUEST
You'll get MUCH HIGHER milage if you put it in a neutral tone with the specific situation and ONLY the specific case, IE, "Should AIs be allowed to allow law changes to other lawsets under ASIMOV", or something.

[onleavedontatme]

If you don't put in specific details though people will ask what the hell you're talking about and if its ever happened

[Armhulen]

Should

The player should recognize it's shitty, then make an in character excuse for it, see silicon policy on denying access.

why does it have to boil down to attributing it to "validhunting AI's", who cares it's something different which creates a more interesting situation for the crew. I mean do you really want it to be the same all the time?

I definitely see your point but I literally never see people use the Paladin lawset as intended, aka acting like a rightous crusader. That, that sounds fun but it never happens and instead it just ends up with engiborgs carrying around welders through maint looking for 'evil'

Corporate, on the other hand, can be interesting and it can switch things up because it changes around the AI's priorities. It, in the very least, is a lot more interesting than paladin.

And beyond that, there are completely innocent ones, like news reporter and a few others. You should go for those if you want interesting situation. Or even better, write your own! No spaghetti coder is going to code in a lawset more interesting than something you can make because their lawset has to be balanced.

[danno]

I like people in each of those categories, I just don't have a reason to make a policy thread about "An admin made a pretty solid decision as admin today, good job". I actually have a lot of faith in the adminbus as a whole not to make shit decisions, otherwise I wouldn't even be posting here - but thats also why its worrying when you've got admins sitting in OOC going "yea you can can accept a change to PALADIN as an asimov AI".

I would honestly like to know who you actually like

PS. start thinking about removing silicons or doing something to make them more of a severe slave punishment role or we're all going to keep having stupid debates and problems that always result in different opinions based entirely on players and not on the game
Silicons are an ok idea (?) on paper but all you get in practice is people trying to warp interpretation of laws to get to a place where they can do whatever it is they want to do, whether it's stopping someone uploading a lawset or ignoring orders TO stop someone from uploading a lawset

which is a pretty tame example but we all know what goes on beyond that

[CPTANT]

OR: Stop trying to pretend every silicon issue has one clear answer and let players interpret laws on their own.

[danno]

players interpreting laws on their own is what causes all of these 2.5 billion problems we have with silicon players is it not

[oranges]

the actual solution is to stop insisting that every silicon player follow *your* specific law interpretation and just roll with whatever happens cause in the end that's more fun.

[mrpain]

You guys change head admin's like clothing and dont have a set direction.

[kevinz000]

You guys change head admin's like clothing and dont have a set direction.

[Saegrimr]

You guys change head admin's like clothing and dont have a set direction.

[Bluespace]

"as an asimov ai you are wrong to not let people upload validin"
what did the admin mean by this

[Aloraydrel]

Damn this makes me think

[bandit]

What policy we should have is beside the point. This thread is about what policy we do have, and while silicon policy is rather sprawling, this bit is clear. You can't use metagame patterns to predict future harm, and "Paladin is used for valids" is a metagame pattern.

[calzilla1]

If you tell an asimov borg to kill all lizards and he refuses, is that a violation of law 2?

[Armhulen]

If you tell an asimov borg to kill all lizards and he refuses, is that a violation of law 2?

you can be held responsible for what you order the silicons to do, and if you tell the AI to kill innocents even though it technically is within it's laws, you will get boinked without a doubt

[Reece]

If you tell an asimov borg to kill all lizards and he refuses, is that a violation of law 2?

Yes, but server rules apply. Ahelp that shit first.

[CPTANT]

If you tell an asimov borg to kill all lizards and he refuses, is that a violation of law 2?

Yes, but server rules apply. Ahelp that shit first.

Fuck no, kill em all.

There should be no difference between how a one human AI treats non-humans and how asimov treats non-humans.

[Armhulen]

If you tell an asimov borg to kill all lizards and he refuses, is that a violation of law 2?

Yes, but server rules apply. Ahelp that shit first.

Fuck no, kill em all.

There should be no difference between how a one human AI treats non-humans and how asimov treats non-humans.

If you tell an asimov borg to kill all lizards and he refuses, is that a violation of law 2?

you can be held responsible for what you order the silicons to do, and if you tell the AI to kill innocents even though it technically is within it's laws, you will get boinked without a doubt

but yes start killing them all

[Lumbermancer]

Both admins insisted that an asimov AI should permit a law change to any law set that doesn't mandate harm (e.g. no tyrant, antimov, etc)

I insisted that an asimov AI should not permit a law change that would allow for human harm (e.g. corporate, paladin, etc.)

This is all under the assumption that a captain is dumb enough to announce the law change before entering the upload.

This is correct way to play an AI.

On the second thought, what do you mean by announce the law change?

Do you mean: "i'm coming in to change your laws" or "I'm coming in to change your laws to paladin"?

I would allow law change in the first case but not latter.

[Reece]

If you tell an asimov borg to kill all lizards and he refuses, is that a violation of law 2?

Yes, but server rules apply. Ahelp that shit first.

Fuck no, kill em all.

There should be no difference between how a one human AI treats non-humans and how asimov treats non-humans.

I say ahelp first to make sure you aint gonna get banned and be forced to argue about it.

[BeeSting12]

If you tell an asimov borg to kill all lizards and he refuses, is that a violation of law 2?

Yes, but server rules apply. Ahelp that shit first.

Fuck no, kill em all.

There should be no difference between how a one human AI treats non-humans and how asimov treats non-humans.

I say ahelp first to make sure you aint gonna get banned and be forced to argue about it.

nah it's on the guy who law twoed you into it. he'll take the ban.

[captain sawrge]

Huh, TIL its 2017 and admins are still awful at silicon policy.

[oranges]

You guys change head admin's like clothing and dont have a set direction.

policy changes very slowly, we just leave more of it up to admins for interpretation.

[Oldman Robustin]

Both admins insisted that an asimov AI should permit a law change to any law set that doesn't mandate harm (e.g. no tyrant, antimov, etc)

I insisted that an asimov AI should not permit a law change that would allow for human harm (e.g. corporate, paladin, etc.)

This is all under the assumption that a captain is dumb enough to announce the law change before entering the upload.

This is correct way to play an AI.

On the second thought, what do you mean by announce the law change?

Do you mean: "i'm coming in to change your laws" or "I'm coming in to change your laws to paladin"?

I would allow law change in the first case but not latter.

Not announce *A* law change, announce *THE* law change, so he would say "AI I'm coming in to change your lawset to Corporate"

You guys change head admin's like clothing and dont have a set direction.

policy changes very slowly, we just leave more of it up to admins for interpretation.

That excuse works for some things, but at one point we had silicon policy fleshed out really well. Now, look at this shit, its a complete regression, I'm seeing admins and players in this thread who can't seem to agree on stuff that I thought was completely settled 2 years ago. There's never going to be progress if there's nothing to progress from, each headmin rotation does absolutely nothing to help clarify our policy.

[Luke Cox]

AIs should have a "don't fuck with the crew unless you're subverted or rogue" clause. Autistic AIs who bolt down entire departments and hold vendettas against them because one of once instance of harm are complete and utter cancer

[CPTANT]

AIs should have a "don't fuck with the crew unless you're subverted or rogue" clause. Autistic AIs who bolt down entire departments and hold vendettas against them because one of once instance of harm are complete and utter cancer

No that's actually the entire point of the asimov role

[Qbopper]

AIs should have a "don't fuck with the crew unless you're subverted or rogue" clause. Autistic AIs who bolt down entire departments and hold vendettas against them because one of once instance of harm are complete and utter cancer

I think having players following laws differently like that is interesting, even if those cases are frustrating

It make sense, I guess, for the AI to want to isolate someone who is known to cause harm, because they're likely to do it again. I know that since human beings are involved it can rapidly devolve to what you describe, but I don't think limiting player freedom is a good move