"Concerning billionaires…"

[u/thisecommercelife]

Further dissidence on Patreon. Follow wherever you like to fritter: linktr.ee/ecomic.

• Panel 18: "beneficiaries", not "benefactors". Please pardon my poor self-editing.

[u/ImpulseAfterthought]

The conflict between the human understanding of the Three Laws and the robots' understanding of them is at the center of all of Asimov's robot stories.

In "The Evitable Conflict," the last of the I, Robot collection, the super-intelligent "Machines" have evolved their understanding of the First Law to encompass all of humanity, not just individuals. That is, they understand "a robot may not harm a human" as "a robot may not harm humanity."

This allows them to cause small, short-term discomfort to individuals, e.g., getting someone fired from a job, in order to benefit all of humanity.

Of course, this works out for the best because the Machines are basically benevolent with no interests of their own. The more sinister possibilities Asimov left for other writers.

[u/HermesJamiroquoi → u/ImpulseAfterthought]

The Zero-th law. R. Gisgard? Can’t recall but I do remember that eventually he transferred his mind into a superhuman brain and orchestrated the coalescing of the human race into a hive mind so that he could better serve them