Quinn Angstrom
you can tell i'm not a robot because i'm constantly through inaction allowing myself to come to harm
BattroidBattery
it would have been cool if the human design spec included endless motivation for self-care and improvement
Dirk Warhard
we program robots with the 3 laws and they suddenly start forcing us to exercise and eat well and we're like, wait, that's not what we meant
Quinn Angstrom
turns out humans really like coming to harm
Quinn Angstrom
can't even go rock climbing without a robot diving through a window to pry you off the wall and take you back to the ground
Quinn Angstrom
robots ban sports worldwide
Quinn Angstrom
and alcohol, and the police
Quinn Angstrom
twitter
Quinn Angstrom
the fourth law of robotics
Quinn Angstrom
a robot cannot post, or through inaction allow a human to post
Wild Child
there was one story where the research assistant robots kept dragging the scientists away from anything even slightly radioactive
Quinn Angstrom
was it the little lost robot
Quinn Angstrom
because that happened in there
Wild Child
yup, just realized you had an earlier plurk about that
dragon time
I ought to do a rec plurk for Freefall
Quinn Angstrom
what's freefall
dragon time
I am so glad you asked! The elevator pitch is that it is a long running sci fi webcomic about non human sapients and how they interact with human society
Quinn Angstrom
oh wait is that the one with the kid whose mom is a giant spider
dragon time
Nope
dragon time
It's the one where I stole a bunch of traits off one of the protagonists to make Riptide August
dragon time
The slightly longer pitch is that the human colony planet Jean has been undergoing terraforming for about twenty five years, it has a lot of robots that use a more flexible neural architecture than the classic three laws robots (there are still some three laws robots in the comic) in order to avoid, you know
dragon time
A large number of things that can go wrong with three laws robots
dragon time
This gives them more independence and problem solving abilities so they don't need to rely on humans
dragon time
They do have safeguards, and most of them do like humans
Quinn Angstrom
really my top problem with the three laws has always been the same
Quinn Angstrom
do they work? maybe, maybe not, I don't care
Quinn Angstrom
they're slavery
dragon time
that is exactly what the overarching arc is about
dragon time
the two main characters are 1. an alien who exists outside of the framework and is also a rogue with a heart of gold type
dragon time
2. a genetically engineered wolf who operates under similar rules as the robots
dragon time
there are a lot of comedy shenanigans and a lot of underlying "hold up it's kind of fucked up that there's a remote that shuts down this cute dog who is also a person"
dragon time
"the robots and florence are at a roughly similar level of being a person"
dragon time
"hold up this is kind of fucked up we can order people around and they have to do it, we did make them that way but like, that doesn't mean it should be the status quo"
dragon time
it is very thoughtful and optimistic speculative sci-fi about human nature and the nature of our creations!
dragon time
it is also a wacky comedy about an alien cephalopod who wants to be the galaxy's most famous criminal
dragon time
you can start reading here
dragon time
my favorite character is dvorak
my favorite character is dvorak
dragon time
i mean my fav is sam but i see a lot of sam so dvorak is the one i go yessss dvorak is in this scene about
izzy.vrm
holy shit, freefall
izzy.vrm
i have not thought about freefall in a very long time
izzy.vrm
but i also recommend
Wild Child
freefall is really good
Wild Child
i love the bit where sam points out the robots do have basic morality because despite being an annoying bitch and not human at all none of them have tried to murder him