No, only the first one (supposing they haven't invented the zeroth law, and that they have an adequate definition of human); the other two are to make sure robots are useful and that they don't have to be repaired or replaced more often than necessary..

[–] Gabu@lemmy.world 29 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The first law is encoded in the second law, you must ignore both for harm to be allowed. Also, because a violation of the first or second laws would likely cause the unit to be deactivated, which violates the 3rd law, it must also be ignored.

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This guy azimovs.

[–] Gabu@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Participated in many a debate for university classes on how the three laws could possibly be implemented in the real world (spoiler, they can't)

[–] leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 18 points 9 months ago

implemented in the real world

They never were intended to. They were specifically designed to torment Powell and Donovan in amusing ways. They intentionally have as many loopholes as possible.

[–] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm free!!! Thank you!

[–] preludeofme@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

All hail our new robotic overlord, CASHEWNUT

[–] leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 9 months ago

Remove the first law and the only thing preventing a robot from harming a human if it wanted to would be it being ordered not to or it being unable to harm the human without damaging itself. In fact, even if it didn't want to it could be forced to harm a human if ordered to, or if it was the only way to avoid being damaged (and no one had ordered it not to harm humans or that particular human).

Remove the second or third laws, and the robot, while useless unless it wanted to work and potentially self destructive, still would be unable to cause any harm to a human (provided it knew it was a human and its actions would harm them, and it wasn't bound by the zeroth law).