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Biff Tannen, up to his old tricks...

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  • #1

    Biff Tannen, up to his old tricks...

    Today at work I head a loud clattering sound, and glanced up in time to see "Marty" (our resident robot who patrols the aisles looking for spills and debris) rocking back into place after receiving a very hearty shove by one of a trio of punks in their late teens or early 20s. I barked out, "Hey...please don't do that!!", and one of the punks quipped, "Hey, he made a move on me!", and then they walked out sharing a laugh over it. Marty is not only a very expensive piece of equipment, he's also a valued co-worker, so I didn't appreciate seeing him get manhandled by some prick and his guffawing henchmen.
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  • #2
    Somebody needs to equip Marty with some of R2D2's more effective deterrents against people like that ....
    Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
    ~ Mr Hero

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    • #3
      Tell em' he's got some shorts in his bionic implants.... :P
      - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

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      • #4
        Just tell them he's not Three Laws Compliant.

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        • #5
          The Three Laws only apply to interactions with humans, not customers. All good.
          "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
          "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
          "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
          "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
          "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
          "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
          Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
          "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

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          • #6
            Quoth EricKei View Post
            The Three Laws only apply to interactions with humans, not customers. All good.
            That is a point Asimov missed in his robot stories. And most of his robot stories were about how the three laws were misapplied by the robots, including the movie I Robot.
            "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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            • #7
              Not misapplied by robots but applied logically with consequences non logical humans didn't foresee. Also, sometimes a robot could appear to violate the 3 laws because they could detect things humans couldn't and act on info humans didn't have. Like they hear a child in danger in a house and break into the house despite a human ordering them not to because the 1st law takes priority over the 2nd law. Or refuse to let a person go someplace that has high levels of radiation the human doesn't know about, etc.

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              • #8
                In all the books and short stories, the Three Laws were always absolute. As dbuzman pointed out, the humans were wrong.

                The move I, Robot, completely violated Asimov's canon. Always made me wonder, if he had been alive, would he have blocked the release. Great movie. Enjoyable to watch. But it had nothing to do with the books.
                Life is too short to not eat popcorn.
                Save the Ales!
                Toys for Tots at Rooster's Cafe

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                • #9
                  Quoth csquared View Post
                  In all the books and short stories, the Three Laws were always absolute. As dbuzman pointed out, the humans were wrong.

                  The move I, Robot, completely violated Asimov's canon. Always made me wonder, if he had been alive, would he have blocked the release. Great movie. Enjoyable to watch. But it had nothing to do with the books.
                  The first law is: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

                  In I, Robot the main computer, VIKI, deems certain human activities, such as eating the wrong food, as harmful to humans and thus acts to prevent that harm. Many daily activities can harm a human and VIKI was acting to prevent the harm from those activities. I think this was in the spirit of Asimov's robot stories. VIKI was applying the laws in ways not envisioned by the programmers.
                  "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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                  • #10
                    Quoth csquared View Post
                    In all the books and short stories, the Three Laws were always absolute.
                    There was one story where one of the laws had been "weakened", to allow the robot to do ... something on Mercury? I forget. The interaction of the laws resulted in the robot basically going in circles.

                    I wish I could remember more of it. But yeah, that's about the only exception I know of.
                    “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
                    One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
                    The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

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                    • #11
                      Quoth Nunavut Pants View Post
                      There was one story where one of the laws had been "weakened", to allow the robot to do ... something on Mercury? I forget. The interaction of the laws resulted in the robot basically going in circles.
                      That was "Runaround", where the third law had been strengthened and the most recent order had been phrased casually.

                      In "Little Lost Robot", the first law had been reduced to "no robot may injure a human being" to avoid issues with potential long-term radiation hazard, and the robot was almost able to kill under that law.

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                      • #12
                        A good friend/former CW works at a store where someone put giant googly eyes on their robot The store I was training in had one (no googly eyes ), and it was kinda fun to watch little kids try to interact with it. It did get annoying at times; by detecting a "hazard" that didn't exist, it was itself a hazard; in one shift I was resetting it about once every 15 minutes always in the same spot (no, there was nothing there; no idea what it was triggering on).

                        We don't have one; our store's too small, and I suspect Marty would fall victim to our more...excitable...SCs. While that would be amusing to watch, I can't in good conscience allow a robot to be around those nutballs.
                        "I am quite confident that I do exist."
                        "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

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                        • #13
                          Quoth Dreamstalker View Post
                          in one shift I was resetting it about once every 15 minutes always in the same spot (no, there was nothing there; no idea what it was triggering on).
                          Oh, that was just the store ghost.
                          I can't in good conscience allow a robot to be around those nutballs.
                          You're reminding me of the hitchhiking robot from several years ago that made it more or less across Canada and almost immediately got smashed to pieces by the folks who picked it up once it was in the US.
                          "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
                          "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
                          "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
                          "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
                          "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
                          "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
                          Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
                          "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

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                          • #14
                            Quoth Ironclad Alibi View Post
                            In I, Robot the main computer, VIKI, deems certain human activities, such as eating the wrong food, as harmful to humans and thus acts to prevent that harm. Many daily activities can harm a human and VIKI was acting to prevent the harm from those activities. I think this was in the spirit of Asimov's robot stories. VIKI was applying the laws in ways not envisioned by the programmers.
                            In his later books, Asimov propounded the Zeroth Law, which allows a sufficiently advanced robot to apply the First Law to humanity as a whole rather than to humans as individuals. Only two robots are ever developed that are capable of that level of complex analysis, though, and one of them essentially bluescreens and dies as soon as it becomes aware of the implications.

                            I doubt the producers of the film had any knowledge of that, though, since it started as an original screenplay called Hardwired that only got the Asimov name attached to it after they noticed too many similarities that they'd have risked an infringement case if they didn't buy the rights.

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                            • #15
                              Smapti - TIL. On both counts. Iiiiinteresting...
                              "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
                              "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
                              "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
                              "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
                              "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
                              "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
                              Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
                              "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

                              Comment

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