Page 3 of 3
MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon policy
Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 8:42 pm
by Oldman Robustin
Bottom post of the previous page:
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?
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 4:44 pm
by Screemonster
Well, corporate only has one explicit instruction so the order is irrelevant, surely?
It's basically "Minimise destruction or damage to crew, the station, the station's equipment, and yourself."
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 4:50 pm
by Arianya
I want AIs to all follow their vague laws in the same ways
Feel free to rewrite the AI policy in a deterministic, exhaustive way that is also legible and can be enforced without making AI players dissapear.
I want AIs to be independent of the crew
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. Do you mean making the AI laws unchangeable and making it basically a immaterial god who watches over the station? Because you lose a lot of the interesting aspects of the AI by doing this, including killing the AI as an antagonist to get the omnipresent eye off your back.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:02 pm
by Cobby
AIs all doing the same exact thing each time you give them a certain lawset seems unenjoyable and [obviously] monotonous.
However completely ignoring your laws or creating silly excuses in an attempt to bypass the neutrality of the lawset is not cool.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:51 pm
by cedarbridge
Screemonster wrote:Bay and Polaris treat all laws with equal priority unless explicitly stated in the laws, but I'm not sure that's ever been the case on /tg/.
As I mentioned previously. Under current policy, higher order instructions can override lower order instructions and higher order definitions can overwrite lower order definitions. But instructions cannot overwrite definitions and the reverse.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:54 pm
by Cik
arguing about corporate is foolish because corporate is essentially a nonsensical lawset. the wording of it doesn't even really work and it should probably just be removed
but yes add random AI laws at roundstart, thanks
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:57 pm
by Not-Dorsidarf
Corporate's three definitions of expense don't seem to override each other in any way. You cant obey an order to kill a human under Asimov because it would be breaking the higher-priority law, but Corproate just says "This is expensive". You couldn't make a law 5 saying "The crew are not expensive to replace" because that's a contradiction of a higher-priority law, but nowhere does Law 1 say "The crew are *more expensive* to replace than anything else". It just says that they're expensive.
Other things can be expensive, too, like the station and the silicon who has the lawset as defined in the other two laws. The silicon being expensive to replace is not a contradiction of a crewman being expensive.
If you kill a crewman as a silicon in self-defense, you've created an undefined expense to counteract a defined expense. Which of these expenses is greater and must be minimised? Neither is defined, and law priority resolves *conflicts* between laws. Corporate is an overly-vague lawset and its best played as per the silicon guide.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 9:03 pm
by cedarbridge
CosmicScientist wrote:I just wish players could have fun role playing what they can think of without the need to be anal. Silicon or anything else.
I imagine, going back to the original intention of this thread, it's fine if the AI wants to let you change their laws or not. You can justify it with Asimov "Durr, it might cause future harm." and you can justify against it with fun "Yeah but then we never get to play with the toys we have and 99% of rounds are the same because of that."
I'd like to think this could be fixed by removing the AI's control over its upload room since the only use for it is to be a nanny and stop !FUN! which is the sole use of that room that is already guarded, inside reinforced walls and behind several high access rooms that are constantly watched by greys and anyone else in the corridors, at least on box it is. But it might not actually be a problem to be solved. It is player interaction and role play in murky waters you should define by playing. So if the AI says yes, you give them new laws, if the AI says no, you can have fun that round by getting around that. Get some greys to help by distracting the AI, ask the CE to saw down the front door, when the AI notices and depowers the room, grab the lawset you want and fake giving up, grab a radsuit and go into the gravgen with the CE, get them to make a false wall, tell them to go flip the breaker on in the room and plug the law in as the AI has no idea what's going on. Is this not one of the conflicts of spessmens that can be played out that doesn't need to be antag validated to happen?
Some of my favorite interactions as and with/against an AI have come from working out how to get a grouchy silicon and a stubborn crew on the same page like this. The problem is that many command staff players just want the AI to be 100% doorknob and want to remove all interaction and conflict from the role. This loses out on a lot of interesting opportunity for muh are pee. I can't remember the last time an RD stepped away from their console and actually argued with an AI about laws and law interpretation. Thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever seen the RD step up into their role as the AI's caretaker at all. That usually just ends up being the captain because he spawns close and wants to add flavor to a gimmick or dehuman a wizard.
tl:dr "I can't let you do that, Dave." should be a standard function of the game that the crew's designated roles should be in charge of overcoming within the obvious Rule 0 constraints.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 2:32 pm
by Gun Hog
cedarbridge wrote:
Some of my favorite interactions as and with/against an AI have come from working out how to get a grouchy silicon and a stubborn crew on the same page like this. The problem is that many command staff players just want the AI to be 100% doorknob and want to remove all interaction and conflict from the role. This loses out on a lot of interesting opportunity for muh are pee. I can't remember the last time an RD stepped away from their console and actually argued with an AI about laws and law interpretation. Thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever seen the RD step up into their role as the AI's caretaker at all. That usually just ends up being the captain because he spawns close and wants to add flavor to a gimmick or dehuman a wizard.
tl:dr "I can't let you do that, Dave." should be a standard function of the game that the crew's designated roles should be in charge of overcoming within the obvious Rule 0 constraints.
I have stopped trying, as Security players and the Captain get suspicious when I tell the AI that I want to change its laws. Also, the fun lawsets are locked behind Captain only windoors, which enforces the idea that the RD should not be touching the AI's laws, only resetting them.
The RD builds AIs, repairs AIs that have died, and re-laws the AI if the Captain and Sec approve of it.
EDIT: This does make sense, though. The RD can be an antagonist, but the Captain and Sec cannot be. It is a logical trust thing.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 7:42 pm
by cedarbridge
Gun Hog wrote:cedarbridge wrote:
Some of my favorite interactions as and with/against an AI have come from working out how to get a grouchy silicon and a stubborn crew on the same page like this. The problem is that many command staff players just want the AI to be 100% doorknob and want to remove all interaction and conflict from the role. This loses out on a lot of interesting opportunity for muh are pee. I can't remember the last time an RD stepped away from their console and actually argued with an AI about laws and law interpretation. Thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever seen the RD step up into their role as the AI's caretaker at all. That usually just ends up being the captain because he spawns close and wants to add flavor to a gimmick or dehuman a wizard.
tl:dr "I can't let you do that, Dave." should be a standard function of the game that the crew's designated roles should be in charge of overcoming within the obvious Rule 0 constraints.
I have stopped trying, as Security players and the Captain get suspicious when I tell the AI that I want to change its laws. Also, the fun lawsets are locked behind Captain only windoors, which enforces the idea that the RD should not be touching the AI's laws, only resetting them.
The RD builds AIs, repairs AIs that have died, and re-laws the AI if the Captain and Sec approve of it.
EDIT: This does make sense, though. The RD can be an antagonist, but the Captain and Sec cannot be. It is a logical trust thing.
Sounds like poor story-telling though. I don't see a good reason to allow the "cap and sec can't be antags" to bleed into the things the roles, sans antags, would normally and reasonably be doing. Hell, the HoP fucks with AI laws more than the RD does.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 11:12 pm
by Bob Dobbington
The problem with not having law priority is that any time an AI can make a credible argument that their laws contradict themselves, that's enough to effectively purge them. You can derive any conclusion from contradictory premises. With our law priority system, an individual law has to contradict itself in order to enable that.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 11:50 pm
by bandit
Gun Hog wrote:This does make sense, though. The RD can be an antagonist, but the Captain and Sec cannot be. It is a logical trust thing.
Totally irrelevant, the captain and security being antag-protected is a (shitty) change that came after mapping
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2017 12:01 am
by Gun Hog
bandit wrote:Gun Hog wrote:This does make sense, though. The RD can be an antagonist, but the Captain and Sec cannot be. It is a logical trust thing.
Totally irrelevant, the captain and security being antag-protected is a (shitty) change that came after mapping
I agree with this, and I would cast me vote to repeal this change.
Re: MFW its 2017 and admins are still awful at sillicon poli
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2017 6:57 pm
by WarbossLincoln
It's pretty shitty to refuse a law change from authorized persons when there's no immediate human harm caused by it. Even paladin doesn't require you to kill people. If they're trying to change your laws and you know it's specifically to make you kill some antag then sure, stop them.
Here's my logic on Paladin at least:
--They want to change my laws to Paladin, there is no threat and no one they want dead at the time. This isn't a specific attempt by Cap/RD to kill someone.
--Paladin does not *force* me to kill anyone. Only to protect the innocent and punish evil while being honorable.
--Paladin only causes human harm if I decide to valid hunt and vent plasma on evil doers.
--I'm a valid-hunting phagg0t who can't keep his murder boner in check so I should stop them from changing my laws. I'm incapable of acting in good faith and having fun; I know I'll kill everyone who looks at me funny cause lol evil. Plus it will have the added benefit of causing silicon policy thread #12548390293 because I'm a turbo-dick. HUE HUE HUE
Somewhere there's got to be a rule 0 violation here.