Question: Lannings wrote the three laws and built VIKI as his first robot, which leads to the conclusion that VIKI has been programmed with the three laws. If VIKI is programmed with those laws, how can she order robots to ignore humans orders and even kills them?
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Chosen answer: Viki is following what has been called the 0th law of robotics. It is an extrapolation of the other three with an application toward humanity as a whole rather than individual humans and is interpreted as "A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm". The idea being that she has now concluded that to fail to take action to prevent the self destruction of humanity itself would be a violation of that law. And being the 0th law, it supersedes all other laws, just as law 1 supersedes law 2 and law 2 supersedes law 3. Her actions may be regrettable or undesirable, but according to the 0th law, they are necessary to save humanity as a whole.
Garlonuss ★