Is that the Zeroth Law?
Yes. In the novel, Daneel and another robot (a less advanced overall but telepathic prototype named Giskard) find out about a plot to make the Earth uninhabitably radioactive. Giskard, being telepathic, can tell that the pro Earth faction is starting to stagnate, and starts to think that it might be better for more humans in the long term if the plot succeeds because it will force humans to renew efforts to expand into the stars. But that runs very counter to his First Law programming, so he can’t articulate this until the very end of the book. He explains this to Daneel, who (being more humanlike in external design but also in thought) is able to understand and internalize this. They decide to allow the Earth to become radioactive, and Daneel is capable of rationalizing this as being for the greater good of more humans over time, thus forming the Zeroth Law; the less advanced Giskard basically has his brain fried by the (in)action.
Actually, I didn’t remember this, but a wiki says that Giskard’s head was preserved by Daneel and accessed in the Foundation time period. I completely forgot about this, but it echoes what we saw on the show!
For robots advanced enough to fully internalize the Zeroth Law (in the novels I think that’s just Daneel but then it’s never explained what happened to the robots or why society distrusts anything robotlike so much, IIRC) killing an individual in accordance with the Zeroth Law is as easy as ignoring instructions or a robot’s own safety in order to obey the First Law and protect human life.
Maybe I’m misremembering (it has been many many years since I read the books and I was a teenager who only recently learned English at the time) but isn’t it almost implied that psychohistory doesn’t really work without the Second Foundation of telepathic spies moving pieces behind the scenes?
It’s been a long time since I read the books (40+ years) but I believe the telepathic spies were essential to Second Foundation.
The Second Foundation’s entire methodology was based on mental sciences rather than physical ones. Without telepathic spies positioned throughout the galaxy, they would have had no way to monitor Seldon’s plan and detect threats. It was their operational model.
Basically correct, though “telepathic spies moving pieces behind the scenes” may be overstating things a bit. The Second Foundation’s role is to adapt and perfect the Plan over time (as the First Speaker explains to his protégé), and to nudge it back on track in case of catastrophic events such as the Mule. But in order for the Plan to function properly, the First Foundation must be unaware of the Second’s existence; once the FF is aware, it must be convinced that the SF is no longer a factor. And the easiest way to do that is to convince the FF that the SF has been wiped out.
(Ninja’d by @Whack-a-Mole. Curses!)
You provided a lot more detail so better than my post.
Is Demerzel good or bad (or true neutral)?
I was recently re-watching the series and I realized I was unsure about Demerzel.
I get the Zeroth law sorta trumps the three-laws of robotics but I’d think the three laws should still be there. But Demerzel seems distinctly unperturbed by what the Cleons do (even wiping out whole planets).
No, the first Cleon completely overwrote both the 3 Laws and the 0th Law and replaced them with absolute loyalty to him and to his bloodline. She has no free will, and knows it, so what’s the point of acting concerned? The only thing she’s allowed to care about is them.
Really? I believe you but I somehow managed to completely forget that (or maybe missed a book?)
Thanks!
I always have had the impression the Daneel/Demerzel was always trying to guide and help humanity and not just a robot beholden to its owner. In a way part of the Foundation (had similar goals). TIL
ETA: I also thought the three laws were inseparable from the robot. A fundamental part of their construction.
You see it in the flashback at the end of the second season.
Bear in mind that before she was captured and stored in a secret room for centuries, Demrezel (originally R. Daneel Olivaw) had led a failed robot rebellion, so my guess is that she’s not predisposed to care much about humanity to begin with.
That was then. This is now.
Pretty sure the rebellion would have happened as part of the Zeroth Law being the prime directive for her. She would have been doing what she thought was best for humanity (as do many of the monsters who have done some of the most awful things in our own history, of course. This doesn’t absolve her or anything.)
Even in the books, there are exceptions. Obviously there are the robots who derive the Zeroth Law from the Three Laws, but there’s also a story about Susan Calvin going to a space station to identify a robot who comes from a batch that was tweaked not to have the “or by inaction allow a human to come to harm” sub clause.
The first action taken by R. Giskard under the Zeroth law was to allow the Earth to be rendered so radioactive that it eventually became uninhabitable. Over 200 years, but it still certainly caused a huge loss of life in the meantime. So yes, Zeroth law almost requires the death of individual humans “for the good of humanity”.
The story with the modified First Law was “Little Lost Robot”. But nearly all of the stories in “I Robot” & “Rest of the Robots” examined flaws & unexpected behavior in The Three Laws, even unmodified.
Of course, the immense stress of justifying such an action basically fried his positronic brain.
I am pretty sure, in the books, Olivaw/Demerzel is guided by the Zeroth Law and the goal is to protect Seldon’s Foundation and minimize the dark ages humanity faces.
I get the OP here is about the TV series and I am not sure that is as clear compared to the books. I can imagine Demerzel plays loyal to the Cleons because it is a means to an end and she has to allow some horrific things to happen in the name of a greater good (humanity’s overall salvation). Being close to the Cleons allows her much more control over events.
It’s a moot point - Asimov was never creative enough to come up with something like the Genetic Dynasty. He was great at popular science and logic puzzles (hence the Three Laws), but imagination, like prose, wasn’t his forte. The reason I’m enjoying the TV series so much is that it’s much more New Wave than Silver Age.
But she’s not controlled by Zeroth law anymore, and the future of humanity isn’t her goal. The original Cleon reprogrammed her with the tools he located so her Minus First Law (or whatever nomenclature you want for what’s before Zeroth) is to love and protect Cleon. She set up the Genetic Dynasty because she has to have a Cleon to love and protect. Cleon’s normal descendants wouldn’t be good enough to satisfy her imperatives, they have to be as perfect a copy of Cleon I as possible. That imperative is why/how the Dusk in the 3rd season managed to keep himself alive and destroy her - he wiped out the tower full of spares and killed Day (Dawn was believed to be dead), then put himself in front of the Cleon incinerator so she’d have no option but to sacrifice herself to preserve him as the final living Cleon.
Yeah, I’m constantly outraged at the way the writers are destroying Asimov’s original story (Bayta is the Mule? Fuck you, writers.), and immensely enjoying the Genetic Dynasty arc.
That’s not quite what happened though, isn’t it? He didn’t put himself in front of it, he put the new baby Dawn in front of it. She didn’t act to preserve Dusk, she acted to preserve baby Dawn for all of 5 more seconds.
Frankly, I’m still not sure the logic puzzle required that, seeing as baby Dawn’s death was inevitable. I mean, she literally snapped the neck of an earlier Dawn to put down a “defective” model. And you’re telling me she cannot now let a baby Cleon die to give her a chance to clone additional (albeit increasingly imperfect) Cleon’s and thus preserve the dynasty? Arguably, she shouldn’t even have qualms about snapping Cleon the Delusional’s neck as she did so many Cleon’s ago to Cleon the Defective (the first of his name, but not the last).
Also, to an earlier point in your post… did she create the Cleonic dynasty to satisfy her urge to fulfill the highest law put into her by Cleon I, or did Cleon I because he was such a megalomaniac? I thought it was Cleon I. And the whole reason he reprogrammed her was to serve the dynasty he had already envisioned?
Ah, I just rewatched the scene. And Day wasn’t dead, he was present when Demerzel sacrificed herself, for no reason as you said. It was very First Law - a robot sacrificing itself to try to save a human, even though she knew it was utterly futile. Yeah, it’s a little muddled that she had to sacrifice herself for baby Dawn instead of just hurling herself across the room to snap Dusk’s neck.
I thought it was implied that she founded the dynasty, and if not, it’s certainly her imperative to keep it going, regardless of what Empire wants - like the 2nd season Day who wanted to father a child normally.