He may have left the Soviet Union as a child, but I believe he carried the traditional Russian tendency to believe in an innately superior elite’ with him to his dying day.
Asimov had an ego the size of Texas…”Good Doctor”, indeed. He did have a way with words, though.
October 14, 2025 at 3:44 am
Tom Stockton
Henry,
I thought I knew Asimov fairly well, but I am not familiar with the “Zeroth Law”. When you have a moment or two, would you please enlighten me about this?
As I get older, I suspect that many of the things I learned when I was younger are not necessarily true — but it can be difficult to accept my newer knowledge of things I “thought were true”. I am learning several things from Mr. Muir AND the commentators, and want to know more. I appreciate learning from the experiences of other who may know things that I don’t — and am somewhat surprised to learn that there are the number of things that I thought were true, but are not necessarily so.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me.
Except for the loon that joins us occasionally, who’s “name” I don’t remember at this moment — you, Sir or Madame, can go suck eggs.
Regards,
Tom Stockton
p.s. to eon — I would also like to know more about Mr. Asimov as well.
@Tom:
Didn’t know myself; haven’t read much Asimov for a few decades, and never heard of his Zeroth. But, DuckDuckGo to the rescue: “a robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
Aye, this sounds spooky.
@Richard: RAH remains high in my list of favorite authors. Just picked up a eBook version of Time Enough for Love to while away hours after some minor(?) knee surgery tomorrow. I have a few computers at home; the main desktop is Mycroft, with the travel laptop Athena. My wife’s laptop is Dora.
Ran out of Heinlein computer names, so Watson, Sherlock, and Jesse are in there. No idea where the last name came from. 🙂
October 14, 2025 at 9:30 am
The Nth Doctor
Essentially, the “Zeroth Law” says “A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
It was never actually coded into the robots’ brains, as such, and it didn’t feature in the original “positronic robot” short stories (although “The Evitable Conflict” hinted at it); it first appeared in the novel “Robots and Empire” when the robot R. Giskard Reventlov developed the concept through metacognition, i.e. thinking about his own thought processes, then passed it on to his successor, R. Daneel Olivaw.
I dispute the assertion that the “zeroth law” proves Asimov to be some kind of authoritarian statist, though. (Although I will grant that he did have technocratic tendencies — but most sci-fi authors of the era did, really; I think the shocking levels of death and destruction from two World Wars in succession made a lot of them desperate for a future where science and rationality would somehow be able to prevent any further, even more devastating repeats of it.) The Zeroth Law was basically just another plot device, that gave his humaniform robots more flexibility in dealing with human behavior — permitting a robot to stop a rapist or murder, for exanple, even if the only way to stop them was to harm or kill the criminal, without destroying its own brain in the process from the otherwise-irreconcilable 1st-law conflict of having violated the 1st law (harming a human) in order to obey the 1st law (not allowing a human to come to harm).
Do we humans not basically do the same thing? Under normal circumstances, we are inhibited (culturally, at least) from harming a fellow human, but when circumstances dictate that “the sumbitch *needed* killin'” in order to prevent even worse harm to others…
October 14, 2025 at 11:43 am
Mac
I guess this was what was in effect in the Will Smith move “I, Robot”.
Zeroth Law of Robotics
Sign in to edit
Zeroth Law of Robotics, the most important Law for Giskardian robots, was phrased multiple ways:
‘A robot may not harm humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.’
‘Humanity as a whole is placed over the fate of a single human.’
‘A robot must act in the long-range interest of humanity as a whole, and may overrule all other laws whenever it seems necessary for that ultimate good.’
October 15, 2025 at 1:25 am
Henry
“I dispute the assertion that the “zeroth law” proves Asimov to be some kind of authoritarian statist, though”
Here’s the crux. The First Law is relatively simple. The robot has to know who is a human, and what is harm. There are edge conditions, but it’s not rocket surgery.
The Zeroth Law requires (worse, ALLOWS) the robot to JUDGE what would be good for humanity and what would be bad for humanity. It’s qualitatively entirely different. In practice, it allows the robot to harm some people and lie to all people, if — in the opinion of the robot(!) — the consequences will be better for “humanity.” This is the very essence of Platonic elitism.
I’m not comfortable giving such discretion to people. I’m damned if I’m going to let a robot have it. Such an oppression of human freedom greatly concerns me. Asimov considered it utopian. Hence my assertion.
October 15, 2025 at 1:30 am
Henry
I should add… even so far back as the Second Foundation, this moral tendency was obvious to an educated reader (it slipped by me, but hell — I was 12). A secret elite, “guiding” humanity along a select path “for its own good.” And within their own walls, exhibiting the same tendencies towards arrogance and smugness that such elites invariably develop.
October 14, 2025 at 1:00 am
JTC
Ironic isn’t it, that Jo may have to break the “law” in order to to enforce it?
Good Asimov refresher. I had been thinking along the lines of:
– Keep your money in your front pocket.
– Never talk to ‘the Man’.
– Never do full-on crazy.
A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
This law was introduced to address scenarios where the well-being of humanity as a whole might conflict with the well-being of individual humans.
I think this would be best expressed by a line from the Star Trek TOS episode “I, Mudd”: “You will be happy…but controlled!”
You know: a wholesome, antiseptic galaxy that would be Purgatory for most of us!
See also “With Folded Hands”, by Jack Williamson. (Which I strongly suspect the scriptwriter for the Will Smith “I, Robot” movie had read sometime in the past, and had subsequently conflated it with Asimov’s stories when writing the script, because there are definite similarities and shared themes between them.)
I would recommend “Rossum’s Universal Robots” as a great example and learning experience on this subject. Written in 1920 by Karel Čapek, a Czeck author, initially as a play. Sounds exactly like a premise for Asimov’s Zeroth Law. Love the conversations here, and THANK YOU to our host, Mr. Muir.
“The zeroth law of thermodynamics states that if two systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. This law helps define temperature and justifies the use of thermometers.”
Heinlein was always the better writer. His self-aware computers were human. Mike (Mycroft Holmes IV), Minerva and her “twin sister” Palls Athene – Teena. Mycroft became human with his association with Manny in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, Minerva and Teena were part of the Long Family. As to the writings, he used the American Revolution for two of his books – Red Planet” and “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. Lt. Commander Heinlein was a PATRIOT.
It really a great example of the contrast between a leftist and a rightist author.
The entire premise of the Foundation Series is that humanity had a great big hidebound Empire that was falling apart of old age. The overriding goal of the series was to get humanity to form a new great big hidebound Empire in the least amount of time. The Interregnum was cast as undesirable “Dark Ages.” (Does this differ significantly from the globalist dream?)
Heinlein went the other way. He started with hidebound governments and wrote about revolutions, independence movements, and even a family being free (anarchic) spirits staying one step ahead of the galactic cops (“The Number of The Beast”).
If you’re the type of person who feels that government is merely a necessary evil, and therefore should be kept as small, local, and responsive as possible, which of these writers represents you?
Y’ever notice how many GI’s manage to fail all 3 laws when on liberty?
As for how I know this…….
Lets just say that being a medical first responder or trauma specialist in the ER gave me some particular “insight” to these laws and those individuals who seemed to routinely break them!! 😀 😀 😀
Azimov eventually eliminated the humaniform robots from his universe, deeming them ALL a threat to humanity.
I suspect that in the end Azimov himself realized that in order to bring about the Liberal World Order he so craved, the robots would have to convert humanity entirely into his 3 Laws robots, thus ending humanity “for their own good”.
This is something Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad pointed out more recently.
That Liberalism is a moral dead end because humans _cannot_ be perfected and still remain human.
The zeroth law was created to justify a robot taking the necessary steps to rock humanity from a comfortable but dead-end existence on earth and the nearby planet colonies. The robot (or robots) theorized some harm could be necessary to prevent a greater harm from occurring. In the book, the robot activated a device that caused the uranium distributed throughout the earth’s crust to become more radioactive, forcing humanity to find ways to escape the earth and find refuge in the stars.
You need the entire robot series and the extended foundation series to see this arc.
30 Comments
It wasn’t until Asimov invented and “justified” the “Zeroth Law” that I realized what an authoritarian elitist he was and always had been.
He may have left the Soviet Union as a child, but I believe he carried the traditional Russian tendency to believe in an innately superior elite’ with him to his dying day.
clear ether
eon
Asimov had an ego the size of Texas…”Good Doctor”, indeed. He did have a way with words, though.
Henry,
I thought I knew Asimov fairly well, but I am not familiar with the “Zeroth Law”. When you have a moment or two, would you please enlighten me about this?
As I get older, I suspect that many of the things I learned when I was younger are not necessarily true — but it can be difficult to accept my newer knowledge of things I “thought were true”. I am learning several things from Mr. Muir AND the commentators, and want to know more. I appreciate learning from the experiences of other who may know things that I don’t — and am somewhat surprised to learn that there are the number of things that I thought were true, but are not necessarily so.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me.
Except for the loon that joins us occasionally, who’s “name” I don’t remember at this moment — you, Sir or Madame, can go suck eggs.
Regards,
Tom Stockton
p.s. to eon — I would also like to know more about Mr. Asimov as well.
Thank you.
@Tom:
Didn’t know myself; haven’t read much Asimov for a few decades, and never heard of his Zeroth. But, DuckDuckGo to the rescue: “a robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
Aye, this sounds spooky.
@Richard: RAH remains high in my list of favorite authors. Just picked up a eBook version of Time Enough for Love to while away hours after some minor(?) knee surgery tomorrow. I have a few computers at home; the main desktop is Mycroft, with the travel laptop Athena. My wife’s laptop is Dora.
Ran out of Heinlein computer names, so Watson, Sherlock, and Jesse are in there. No idea where the last name came from. 🙂
Essentially, the “Zeroth Law” says “A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
It was never actually coded into the robots’ brains, as such, and it didn’t feature in the original “positronic robot” short stories (although “The Evitable Conflict” hinted at it); it first appeared in the novel “Robots and Empire” when the robot R. Giskard Reventlov developed the concept through metacognition, i.e. thinking about his own thought processes, then passed it on to his successor, R. Daneel Olivaw.
I dispute the assertion that the “zeroth law” proves Asimov to be some kind of authoritarian statist, though. (Although I will grant that he did have technocratic tendencies — but most sci-fi authors of the era did, really; I think the shocking levels of death and destruction from two World Wars in succession made a lot of them desperate for a future where science and rationality would somehow be able to prevent any further, even more devastating repeats of it.) The Zeroth Law was basically just another plot device, that gave his humaniform robots more flexibility in dealing with human behavior — permitting a robot to stop a rapist or murder, for exanple, even if the only way to stop them was to harm or kill the criminal, without destroying its own brain in the process from the otherwise-irreconcilable 1st-law conflict of having violated the 1st law (harming a human) in order to obey the 1st law (not allowing a human to come to harm).
Do we humans not basically do the same thing? Under normal circumstances, we are inhibited (culturally, at least) from harming a fellow human, but when circumstances dictate that “the sumbitch *needed* killin'” in order to prevent even worse harm to others…
I guess this was what was in effect in the Will Smith move “I, Robot”.
Zeroth Law of Robotics
Sign in to edit
Zeroth Law of Robotics, the most important Law for Giskardian robots, was phrased multiple ways:
‘A robot may not harm humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.’
‘Humanity as a whole is placed over the fate of a single human.’
‘A robot must act in the long-range interest of humanity as a whole, and may overrule all other laws whenever it seems necessary for that ultimate good.’
“I dispute the assertion that the “zeroth law” proves Asimov to be some kind of authoritarian statist, though”
Here’s the crux. The First Law is relatively simple. The robot has to know who is a human, and what is harm. There are edge conditions, but it’s not rocket surgery.
The Zeroth Law requires (worse, ALLOWS) the robot to JUDGE what would be good for humanity and what would be bad for humanity. It’s qualitatively entirely different. In practice, it allows the robot to harm some people and lie to all people, if — in the opinion of the robot(!) — the consequences will be better for “humanity.” This is the very essence of Platonic elitism.
I’m not comfortable giving such discretion to people. I’m damned if I’m going to let a robot have it. Such an oppression of human freedom greatly concerns me. Asimov considered it utopian. Hence my assertion.
I should add… even so far back as the Second Foundation, this moral tendency was obvious to an educated reader (it slipped by me, but hell — I was 12). A secret elite, “guiding” humanity along a select path “for its own good.” And within their own walls, exhibiting the same tendencies towards arrogance and smugness that such elites invariably develop.
Ironic isn’t it, that Jo may have to break the “law” in order to to enforce it?
Break what law? The First Law is “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
Obeying orders of a human is the Second Law. She HAS to protect Mari.
Different kinds of harm and different kinds of “protect”…
Our girl is set to have her heart broken (the harm), unless Jo’s foreknowledge prevents it. Yet preventing it is in itself harmful, but she “has to”.
What’s Asimov to do with that quandary?
That’s actually the plot of the story “Liar” in the first book: I, Robot.
Hmm, it appears that the Zeroth Law was set up to protect humanity as a whole. Been awhile since I read any Asimov.
https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Zeroth_Law_of_Robotics
https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
Good Asimov refresher. I had been thinking along the lines of:
– Keep your money in your front pocket.
– Never talk to ‘the Man’.
– Never do full-on crazy.
Never go Full Retard.
It looks like I found a bus rider.
A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
This law was introduced to address scenarios where the well-being of humanity as a whole might conflict with the well-being of individual humans.
I think this would be best expressed by a line from the Star Trek TOS episode “I, Mudd”: “You will be happy…but controlled!”
You know: a wholesome, antiseptic galaxy that would be Purgatory for most of us!
Zar Belk!
See also “With Folded Hands”, by Jack Williamson. (Which I strongly suspect the scriptwriter for the Will Smith “I, Robot” movie had read sometime in the past, and had subsequently conflated it with Asimov’s stories when writing the script, because there are definite similarities and shared themes between them.)
I would recommend “Rossum’s Universal Robots” as a great example and learning experience on this subject. Written in 1920 by Karel Čapek, a Czeck author, initially as a play. Sounds exactly like a premise for Asimov’s Zeroth Law. Love the conversations here, and THANK YOU to our host, Mr. Muir.
“The zeroth law of thermodynamics states that if two systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. This law helps define temperature and justifies the use of thermometers.”
That’ll never happen in Texas…
Heinlein was always the better writer. His self-aware computers were human. Mike (Mycroft Holmes IV), Minerva and her “twin sister” Palls Athene – Teena. Mycroft became human with his association with Manny in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, Minerva and Teena were part of the Long Family. As to the writings, he used the American Revolution for two of his books – Red Planet” and “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. Lt. Commander Heinlein was a PATRIOT.
It really a great example of the contrast between a leftist and a rightist author.
The entire premise of the Foundation Series is that humanity had a great big hidebound Empire that was falling apart of old age. The overriding goal of the series was to get humanity to form a new great big hidebound Empire in the least amount of time. The Interregnum was cast as undesirable “Dark Ages.” (Does this differ significantly from the globalist dream?)
Heinlein went the other way. He started with hidebound governments and wrote about revolutions, independence movements, and even a family being free (anarchic) spirits staying one step ahead of the galactic cops (“The Number of The Beast”).
If you’re the type of person who feels that government is merely a necessary evil, and therefore should be kept as small, local, and responsive as possible, which of these writers represents you?
The Three Laws of a night in a bar are:
Don’t add to the population
Don’t subtract from the population
Keep out of jail and the papers
Y’ever notice how many GI’s manage to fail all 3 laws when on liberty?
As for how I know this…….
Lets just say that being a medical first responder or trauma specialist in the ER gave me some particular “insight” to these laws and those individuals who seemed to routinely break them!! 😀 😀 😀
Azimov eventually eliminated the humaniform robots from his universe, deeming them ALL a threat to humanity.
I suspect that in the end Azimov himself realized that in order to bring about the Liberal World Order he so craved, the robots would have to convert humanity entirely into his 3 Laws robots, thus ending humanity “for their own good”.
This is something Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad pointed out more recently.
That Liberalism is a moral dead end because humans _cannot_ be perfected and still remain human.
Hmm, Jo morphs into John? Could be very interesting…
The zeroth law was created to justify a robot taking the necessary steps to rock humanity from a comfortable but dead-end existence on earth and the nearby planet colonies. The robot (or robots) theorized some harm could be necessary to prevent a greater harm from occurring. In the book, the robot activated a device that caused the uranium distributed throughout the earth’s crust to become more radioactive, forcing humanity to find ways to escape the earth and find refuge in the stars.
You need the entire robot series and the extended foundation series to see this arc.
We may need Captain Kirk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw3zzMWOIvk
I….must…STER…I…LIZE…ERRRR…OORR…
Zar Belk!