Editing Three Laws of Robotics (section)

====Removal of the Three Laws====
Three times during his writing career, Asimov portrayed robots that disregard the Three Laws entirely. The first case was a [[Vignette (literature)|short-short story]] entitled "[[First Law]]" and is often considered an insignificant "tall tale"<ref>Patrouch (1974), p. 50.</ref> or even [[apocrypha]]l.<ref>Gunn (1980); reprinted in Gunn (1982), p. 69.</ref> On the other hand, the short story "[[Cal (short story)|Cal]]" (from the collection ''[[Gold (Asimov)|Gold]]''), told by a first-person robot narrator, features a robot who disregards the Three Laws because he has found something far more important—he wants to be a writer. Humorous, partly autobiographical and unusually experimental in style, "Cal" has been regarded as one of ''Gold'''s strongest stories.<ref>{{cite web|last=Jenkins |first=John H. |work=Jenkins' Spoiler-Laden Guide to Isaac Asimov |url=http://preem.tejat.net/~tseng/Asimov/Stories/Story419.html |year=2002 |access-date=2009-06-26 |title=Review of "Cal" |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090911085355/http://preem.tejat.net/~tseng/Asimov/Stories/Story419.html |archive-date=2009-09-11 }}</ref> The third is a short story entitled "[[Sally (Asimov)|Sally]]" in which cars fitted with positronic brains are apparently able to harm and kill humans in disregard of the First Law. However, aside from the positronic brain concept, this story does not refer to other robot stories and may not be set in the same [[continuity (fiction)|continuity]].

The title story of the ''[[Robot Dreams (short story collection)|Robot Dreams]]'' collection portrays LVX-1, or "Elvex", a robot who enters a state of unconsciousness and dreams thanks to the unusual [[fractal]] construction of his positronic brain. In his dream the first two Laws are absent and the Third Law reads "A robot must protect its own existence".<ref name="RDA1">{{cite book|last=Asimov |first=Isaac |title=Robot Dreams |year=1986 |author-link=Isaac Asimov |access-date=11 November 2010 |url=http://www.tcnj.edu/~miranda/classes/topics/reading/asimov.pdf |quote=“But you quote it in incomplete fashion. The Third Law is ‘A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.’ ” “Yes, Dr. Calvin. That is the Third Law in reality, but in my dream, the Law ended with the word ‘existence’. There was no mention of the First or Second Law.” |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120316134042/http://www.tcnj.edu/~miranda/classes/topics/reading/asimov.pdf |archive-date=16 March 2012 }}</ref>

Asimov took varying positions on whether the Laws were optional: although in his first writings they were simply carefully engineered safeguards, in later stories Asimov stated that they were an inalienable part of the mathematical foundation underlying the positronic brain. Without the basic theory of the Three Laws the fictional scientists of Asimov's universe would be unable to design a workable brain unit. This is historically consistent: the occasions where roboticists modify the Laws generally occur early within the stories' chronology and at a time when there is less existing work to be re-done. In "Little Lost Robot" Susan Calvin considers modifying the Laws to be a terrible idea, although possible,<ref name="BBC2">{{cite web |title='The Complete Robot' by Isaac Asimov |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A455898 |publisher=BBC |access-date=11 November 2010 |date=3 November 2000 |quote=The answer is that it had had its First Law modified}}</ref> while centuries later Dr. Gerrigel in ''[[The Caves of Steel]]'' believes it to require a century just to redevelop the positronic brain theory from scratch.

The character Dr. Gerrigel uses the term "Asenion" to describe robots programmed with the Three Laws. The robots in Asimov's stories, being Asenion robots, are incapable of knowingly violating the Three Laws but, in principle, a robot in science fiction or in the real world could be non-Asenion. "Asenion" is a misspelling of the name Asimov which was made by an editor of the magazine ''Planet Stories.''<ref>Asimov (1979), pp. 291–2.</ref> Asimov used this obscure variation to insert himself into ''The Caves of Steel'' just like he referred to himself as "Azimuth or, possibly, Asymptote" in ''[[Thiotimoline]] to the Stars'', in much the same way that [[Vladimir Nabokov]] appeared in ''[[Lolita]]'' [[anagram]]matically disguised as "Vivian Darkbloom".

Characters within the stories often point out that the Three Laws, as they exist in a robot's mind, are not the written versions usually quoted by humans but abstract mathematical concepts upon which a robot's entire developing consciousness is based. This concept is unclear in earlier stories depicting rudimentary robots who are only programmed to comprehend basic physical tasks, where the Three Laws act as an overarching safeguard, but by the era of ''The Caves of Steel'' featuring robots with human or beyond-human intelligence the Three Laws have become the underlying basic ethical worldview that determines the actions of all robots.