Synthetics and 3 laws of Robotics
I.Raptus
MemberPraetorianApril 26, 2017We know that at least Bishop, Call and several of the novelised Synthetics have Isaac Asimov's 3 laws of Robotics guiding their AI decision-making abilities - Behaviour Inhibitors as Bishop called them.
Call in Resurrection was acting on the first law trying to save humanity by killing the Xenos and the scientists attempting to experiment and breed them. He attempt to kill Ripley was guided by the same principle as above, Ripley 8 was a clone with Xeno DNA, so technically not a human.
So my question is, when did the 3 laws of robotics becoming added to the Synthetics in the Alienverse and what (if any) behaviour inhibitors are guiding David and Walters action? There was a theory on one of the threads that David (or at least his AI consciousness) may somehow end up as Ash in Alien who was replaced as the Science Officer for that particular mission at the last minute by W-Y….. This seems plausible seeing that in Alien: Out of the Shadows (canon) Ash transferred his consciousness to both the Narcissus shuttle and then then Marion Mining Orbital.
David clearly is capable of allowing harm to come to humans through his actions in Prometheus. So he is either not ‘Lawed’ or is able to transcend these laws Skynet/I Robot style. Ash too seemed to be able to bypass this rule as he willingly overrode quarantine protocols and allowed the crew to come to harm by allowing Kane back onto the ship. Still David?
Perhaps Walter is the first “lawed” synthetic; lessons learnt from David’s actions that ultimately led to the failure of the Prometheus mission? The Walter video has the tag “Created to Serve” implies so. From Walter onwards all synthetics have these 3 law inhibitors with the exception of Ash who may really be David’s consciousness. If so this would make you look at everything Ash does is Alien in completely new light, the ghost of David continuing his path of destruction.
First Law: “A robot may not injure a human being nor, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” (the Second Law is “A robot must obey the orders given by a human being except where it would conflict with the First Law; the Third Law is, "A robot must protect its own existence except where it would conflict with the First or Second Laws.”). Asimov eventually introduced a “Zeroth” Law: “A robot may not injure humanity nor, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”
On the meetwalter.com site, Walter is advertised as having a biosocial stamp. This would appear to be a behaviour inhibitor of sorts. There is also a biometric regulator that automatically updates Walter models, so logic would suggest that there is a central control that all androids are linked up to.
One thing I have noticed about David, Walter, and Ash is that they appear to serve a chain of command.
My thoughts on this, are that even if the androids have a behaviour control based on the three laws, maybe it is the biometric regulator that is at the heart of the problem. Maybe the behavioural inhibitors are a safeguard against corrupted data coming from central control through automatic updates.
IRaptus - for clarification. The AI Behavioral inhibitors weren't introduced until later. Remember Ash was an older model Hyperdyne's systems Model 120/A2. Those models were a "bit twitchy" as Bishop stated. So between Bishop which is a 300 series and ASh which is a 100 Series they put the inhibitors in. So something happened between the Weyland series of Robots to lose market share and the Hyperdyne's models to take over.
