Editing 1613: The Three Laws of Robotics

This comic answers the generally unasked{{citation needed}} question: "Why are they in that order?" With three rules you could rank them into 6 different {{w|permutation|permutations}}, only one of which has been explored in depth. The original ranking of the three laws are listed in the brackets after the first number. So in the first example, which is the original, these three numbers will be in the same order. For the next five the numbers in brackets indicate how the laws have been re-ranked compared to the original.

;Ordering #1 - <font color="green">Balanced World</font>: The safety of humans is placed as the top priority, superseding even a robot's preprogrammed obedience; a robot may disregard any orders they are given if that would result in harm to humans, but otherwise must obey all instructions. The "inaction" clause ensures that a robot will actively save humans in danger, and also not {{w|Little Lost Robot|place humans in hypothetical danger}} and then leave them to that fate. Their own self-preservation is placed at the lowest priority, which means they will sacrifice themselves if necessary to save a human life, and must obey orders even if they know those orders will result in their own destruction. This results in a balanced, if not perfect, world. Asimov's robot stories explore in detail the ramifications of this scenario.

;Ordering #2 - <font color="orange">Frustrating World</font>: Human safety is still top priority, so there is no danger to humans; however, the priority of self-preservation is now placed above obedience, which means that the robots value their existence over their job and so many would refuse to do their tasks. The silliness of this is portrayed in the accompanying image, where the robot (a {{w|Mars rover}} looking very similar to {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}} both in shape and size - see [[1091: Curiosity]]) laughs at the idea of doing what it was clearly built to do (explore {{w|Mars}}) because of the risk. In addition to the general risk (e.g. of unexpected damage), it is actually normal for rovers to cease operating ("die") at the end of their mission, though they may survive longer than expected (see [[1504: Opportunity]] and [[695: Spirit]]).

;Ordering #3 - <font color="red">Killbot Hellscape</font>: This puts obeying orders above not harming humans, which means anyone could send a robot on a killing spree. Given human nature, it will probably only be a matter of time before this happens. Even worse, if the robot prioritizes obeying orders above human safety, it may try to kill any human who would prevent it from fulfilling those orders, even the person who originally gave them. Given the superior abilities of robots, the most effective way to stop them would be to counter them with other robots, which would quickly escalate to a "Killbot Hellscape" scenario where robots kill indiscriminately without any thought for human life or self-preservation.

;Ordering #4 - <font color="red">Killbot Hellscape</font>: This is much the same as #3, except even worse as robots would also be able to kill humans in order to protect themselves. This means that even robots not engaged in combat might still murder humans if their existence is threatened. It would be a very dangerous world for humans to live in.

;Ordering #5 - <font color="orange">Terrifying Standoff</font>:This ordering would result in an unpleasant world, though not necessarily a full Hellscape. Here the robots would not only disobey to protect themselves, but also kill if necessary. The absurdity of this one is further demonstrated with the very un-human robot happily doing repetitive mundane tasks but then threatening the life of its user, [[Cueball]], if he as much as considers unplugging it.

;Ordering #6 - <font color="red">Killbot Hellscape</font>: The last ordering puts self-protection first, which allows robots to go on killing sprees as long as doing so wouldn't cause them to come to harm. While not as bad as the Hellscapes in #3 and #4, this is still not good news for humans, as a robot can easily kill a human without risk to itself. A human also cannot use a robot to defend it from another robot, as robots can refuse combats that involve risk to themselves - this means a robot would happily stand by and allow its human master to be killed. According to Randall, this still eventually results in the Killbot Hellscape scenario.

The title text shows a further horrifying consequence of ordering #5 ("Terrifying Standoff"), by noting that a self-driving car could elect to kill anyone wishing to trade it in. Since cars aren't designed to kill humans, one way it could achieve this without any risk to itself is by locking the doors (which it would likely have control over, as part of its job) and then simply doing nothing at all. Humans require food and water to live, so denying the passenger access to these will eventually kill them, removing the threat to the car's existence. This would result in a horrible, drawn-out death for the passenger, if they cannot escape the car. It should be noted that although the car asked how long humans take to starve, the human would die of dehydration first. In his original formulation of the First Law, Asimov created the "inaction" clause specifically to avoid scenarios in which a robot puts a human in harm's way and refuses to save them; this was explored in the short story {{w|Little Lost Robot}}.