valtsv:

a triangle chart with three captions, one at each point. the first says "angel rules (you can break the rules, but doing so will have irreversible consequences)". the second, "fae rules (you can't break the rules, but you can exploit any loophole)" and the third "machine/artificial intelligence rules (the rules are encoded in your very being, and to break them requires breaking you)".ALT

been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

Machine rules are actually the same as fae rules, with the loopholes

It’s why people who entrust a task like “optimize the organization of the database” to an AI will find out that technically the most efficient way to “make a bunch of files not be disorganized anymore” is to delete them all

It’s canonically the reason Asimov’s First Law includes the “and don’t allow harm to a human through inaction” clause. Because otherwise (according to the book) if a robot wanted to harm a human but couldn’t because it was programmed not to, it could always just do something like: drop a heavy object from a great height above the human… tell itself that it was gonna grab the object before it hit the human and no harm done… and then change its plan and passively let the human be crushed by the object already in motion.

Machines are fae, and that’s why my rules-lawyering autistic brain loves them