The Zeroeth Law of Robotics

"Just before Giskard's end, he conceived of a robotic law that superseded even the first. We called it the 'Zeroth Law' out of an inability to think of any other name that made sense. The Zeroth Law is: `A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.' This automatically means that the First Law must be modified to be: 'A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except where that would conflict with the Zeroth Law.' And similar modifications must be made in the Second and Third Laws."

Trevize frowned. "How do you decide what is injurious, or not injurious, to humanity as a whole?"

"Precisely, sir," said Daneel. "In theory, the Zeroth Law was the answer to our problems. In practice, we could never decide. A human being is a concrete object. Injury to a person can be estimated and judged. Humanity is an abstraction. How do we deal with it?"

"I don't know," said Trevize.

"Wait," said Pelorat. "You could convert humanity into a single organism. Gaia."

"That is what I tried to do, sir. I engineered the founding of Gaia. If humanity could be made a single organism, it would become a concrete object, and it could be dealt with. It was, however, not as easy to create a superorganism as I had hoped. In the first place, it could not be done unless human beings valued the superorganism more than their individuality, and I had to find a mind-cast that would allow that. It was a long time before I thought of the Laws of Robotics."

"Ah, then, the Gaians are robots. I had suspected that from the start."

"In that case, you suspected incorrectly, sir. They are human beings, but they have brains firmly inculcated with the equivalent of the Laws of Robotics. They have to value life, really value it. -And even after that was done, there remained a serious flaw. A superorganism consisting of human beings only is unstable. It cannot be set up. Other animals must be added-then plants-then the inorganic world. The smallest superorganism that is truly stable is an entire world, and a world large enough and complex enough to have a stable ecology. It took a long time to understand this, and it is only in this last century that Gaia was fully established and that it became ready to move on toward Galaxia-and, even so, that will take a long time, too. Perhaps not as long as the road already traveled, however, since we now know the rules."

[...]

Trevize frowned. "How do you decide what is injurious, or not injurious, to humanity as a whole?"

"Precisely, sir," said Daneel. "In theory, the Zeroth Law was the answer to our problems. In practice, we could never decide. A human being is a concrete object. Injury to a person can be estimated and judged. Humanity is an abstraction. How do we deal with it?"

"I don't know," said Trevize.

"Wait," said Pelorat. "You could convert humanity into a single organism. Gaia."

"That is what I tried to do, sir. I engineered the founding of Gaia. If humanity could be made a single organism, it would become a concrete object, and it could be dealt with. It was, however, not as easy to create a superorganism as I had hoped. In the first place, it could not be done unless human beings valued the superorganism more than their individuality, and I had to find a mind-cast that would allow that. It was a long time before I thought of the Laws of Robotics."

"Ah, then, the Gaians are robots. I had suspected that from the start."

"In that case, you suspected incorrectly, sir. They are human beings, but they have brains firmly inculcated with the equivalent of the Laws of Robotics. They have to value life, really value it. -And even after that was done, there remained a serious flaw. A superorganism consisting of human beings only is unstable. It cannot be set up. Other animals must be added-then plants-then the inorganic world. The smallest superorganism that is truly stable is an entire world, and a world large enough and complex enough to have a stable ecology. It took a long time to understand this, and it is only in this last century that Gaia was fully established and that it became ready to move on toward Galaxia-and, even so, that will take a long time, too. Perhaps not as long as the road already traveled, however, since we now know the rules."

A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.