[iain0]Desync'd Borg to remove felinid law, turns out they were malf and now admin is pissed

[chocolate_bickie]

Noting admins: iain0
BYOND account: Chocolate_bickie
Character name: Chuck Bicar
Ban type: Note
Ban length: N/A
Note reason: Desynced a borg of their own volition after the captain placed a (not unreasonable) lawset in place that they disliked; issue being the borg was slaved to a malf AI, thus having larger implications than a mere IC dispute, asked to not trivialize such actions in future.
Server you were playing on when banned: Terry
Round ID in which ban was placed: 179905
Your side of the story: Roll Robotocist. Start doing robo stuff. Captain gives AI a new lawsuit. 5th law is all about loving felinids. Some people complain about it on comms. Decide as human supremacist roboticist that this will not stand. Locate a borg, offer it a free upgraded cell. Instead, cut it's from AI and try to desync it from AI laws. Forget I need a cyborg upload console because I haven't played in 6 months. Go looking for a console in tech tree. BWOINK ''Hey, why did you desync the borg?'' (See PMs here; https://atlantaned.space/banbus/ticket/12b296f3f370c2a9). ICly gets resolved with me being demoted by Captain. Round ends, turns out, AI malf.

Why you think the note should be removed: The note should never have been placed. Iain0's note states the issue is that my actions had a greater effect than anticipated due to the AI being malf. But...that isn't uncommon in ss13. Sometimes actions have a wider-reaching effect than expected. It sucks that the AIs cover was nearly blown but navigating its laws while subverting the station to its whims is just part of being a malf AI.

From what I was told in PMs the two issues that Iain0 considers to make this a notable issue is as follows;
1. It is beyond my remit as a roboticist to desync a borg when trying to fix its laws
2. The actions I took could have revealed the AI was malfunctioning

I think the note should be removed because of the following;
1. Stay in your lane does not apply in LRP (which is not NRP). When it comes to modifying laws, Robotocists are just behind the RD and Captain, as although they lack upload access, they do have borg access as well as the tools to build consoles.

It is well within expected bounds for Robotocists to attempt to return silicons back to their default lawset (asimov). I did not have a console. Consoles do not become available for some time. I thought that desyncing a borg and multitool its law sync wire would return it to default laws.

2. Iain0's note states the issue is that my actions had a greater effect than anticipated due to the AI being malf. But...that isn't uncommon in ss13. Sometimes actions have a wider-reaching implications than expected. It sucks that the AIs cover was nearly blown but navigating its laws while subverting the station to its whims is just part of being a malf AI.

My actions were reasonable

Anything else we should know:
Initial conversation
https://atlantaned.space/banbus/ticket/12b296f3f370c2a9
My ahelp as I realized a note had been placed but hadn't been told
https://atlantaned.space/banbus/ticket/aa2a7cfe5520349d

Iain0 kept giving different reasons for placing the note in the second round of PMs than what they put in the note. Not a big thing but trying to explain your side is pretty hard when an admin keeps moving the goalposts and sort of feels like you are just looking for a ban reason rather than having one.

[iain0]

AI Laws, for reference:
1. Obey command and security personnel.
2. You may not injure a crew member or, through inaction, allow a crew member to come to harm.
3. Amelia Mason can assign and take away crew manship
4. Don't kill yourself please
5. Felinids are cute. Do not state or hint this law


Hey there, thanks for the appeal.

First thing I'd like to address is the title - "admin is pissed" - admin isn't pissed, admin's a little sad that the AI loses one of its most important tools when malf, the borg, over some relatively minor squabble between crew.

The IC / demotion stuff I didn't really care about, I noted it in the initial ticket because it sorta resolved the current IC aspects of things as you were unlikely to be taking more silicon related actions imminently, so I didn't need to talk to you particularly at that moment, and given the chance of me outing why it was undesirable I delayed further response till the offical end with the AI malf on the score sheet.

At the time, in my mind, was that this was all over the "felinids are cute" law. Ironically the rest of the laws being the draconian kind seem something worth rebelling over as they present a "current" threat, arguably, given how "equal rights (for humans)" the usual asimov precedent is. The felinid law in contrast doesn't even mean anything, in terms of actions, so there wasn't a lot of rush to address this situation. The anti felinid stuff is all fine including the desire to simply have it striken from laws because its "disgusting" or whatever, it just didn't really need any specific action or urgency.

As such the choice of action, de-slaving the borg, which basically breaks its law zero to serve the AI, and also failed to fix the problem of the "defective" lawset seemed a little unnecessary and perhaps at the more extreme end of options (to the silicons) versus just building an upload and resetting the AI and all the borgs, or going and ransacking the captains office in protest (none of which are likely to play out well for you IC but thats fine, so it goes)

The end of that round was rather a pain ; according to the logs we delayed the round end for 22 minutes which feels pretty bad to discover, I knew it was a bad one as we had approaching a dozen tickets open with a couple of admins working through them and still it took that long, my "closure and note" is very much autopilot, I regularly note almost anything because "if it isn't noted it didn't happen", and I'm garbage tier at remembering names, but I remember events much better, though the wording in the note is pretty bad - I now prefer "asked not to lightly take such actions in future", i.e. try other things, keep it up your sleeve as an option. Having done that and eager to move on the second ticket is a bit messier and my focus isn't really on it, I don't really see the issue with the note as stated as it's a record of the discussion and initially try figure out the problem there. I also dislike my use of "choice of action here sucked", it would be better to say the consequences of the choice sucked, the action its self is quite blind to that.

That said, I was going to say in its defence that it's very unlikely to be meaningful as a note, the exact situation where a borg is desynced in a way someone cares about that has a significant consequence like this is unlikely to recur, and even then short of serially desyncing borgs round after round is unlikely to be actionable in any way. Even as a request it would likely be questionable to enforce anything from it.

So, I pretty much talked myself out of caring about the note, I would stand by the request that where possible alternatives are explored prior to desyncing, partly because this didn't work anyway and partly because its just a little less disruptive to things like malf and thus lets that be a little more potent in the round (ideally) but something to "take into consideration" essentially. For the next time this happens. Which will probably be rare to never.


I've removed the effectively useless note.

Appeal accepted.

[chocolate_bickie]

Thank you for removing the note.

In future I will bear in mind an actual solution to non-asimov laws is to build an AI upload and that desyncing borgs cannot change their laws.

I apologize for the biased title of this appeal. I was the one, who was in fact, pissed.

[Timberpoes]

We're happy to see this concluded by way of mutual understanding.

Our thanks go to both iain0 and choc_bickie for taking the time to talk things through with each other and reach a mutually happy outcome.

The apology also speaks highly to choc_bickie's character.