The Three Laws of Robotics in popular culture

References to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics have appeared in a wide variety of circumstances. In some cases, other authors have explored the Laws in a serious fashion. Other references, like those made in the satirical newspaper The Onion, are clearly parodic.

In the game Borderlands 2, the playable mechromancer character summons an attack robot called Deathtrap. Occasionally, upon Deathtrap's deployment, she says, "To hell with the first law!" in reference to the robot attacking human characters. Similarly, the robotic enemies the player frequently fights will often say, "First law disabled" before attacking the player. The 1995 graphic adventure game Robot City is largely based around the three laws. The main character, Derec, is stranded in a city built and inhabited by robots with the exception of two humans, one of whom has been murdered. Because of the first law, this leaves Derec as a prime suspect. In order to prove his innocence, he must find the culprit. He often uses the three laws to aid him in his investigation. For example, a robot might not let him into a certain area because it has been ordered not to (it is following the second law). However, if he tells the robot that the real murderer is chasing him then the robot will let him enter; failure to do so would constitute allowing harm to come to a human through inaction (the first law takes priority over the second). The video games Mega Man 7 and Mega Man X reference Asimov. In Mega Man 7, Mega Man seemingly attempts to break the First Law in order to kill the mad scientist Dr. Wily. When Dr. Wily reminds him of the First Law, in the Japanese original, Mega Man obediently puts down his Buster and is silent; however, in the English version, he claims to be "more than a robot" and again attempts to kill Wily, but is thwarted when Wily's fortress begins collapsing. In Mega Man X, Dr. Light creates Mega Man X, an android that is not bound by the Three Laws. Dr. Light fears that X's free will will cause him to be destructive after breaking the First Law, and seals X away in stasis to morally train him for 100 years. In Mega Man X6, one of the Maverick bosses, Shield Sheldon, was known to have taken his own life for failing in his purpose, which breaks the Third Law, though this is implied to be more out of shame than because of the laws. The character Zero, at the end of Mega Man Zero 4, applies the Zeroth Law on Doctor Weil, a tyrannic murder, to save the world. In the role playing game Paranoia, the robots are guided by a set of similar laws, except the rules stress the importance of The Computer. The laws are enforced by "asimov circuits"; bots whose circuits are malfunctioning (quite an ordinary condition) or removed (often by members of certain factions) are said to have "gone Frankenstein". In the Halo video game series, in a video it is stated that human artificial intelligence in certain situations, must obey "Asimov's law of Robotics" where an A. I., directly or indirectly, knowingly cannot let a human come to harm. In the game Portal 2, the player is told that all military androids in the game have "been given one copy of the laws of robotics to share. ", and that if they feel an android has infringed on their rights as described in the laws, it should be reported. The about:robots page in Firefox states "Robots may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. ", the first law of robots. In the game Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, a certain character presumed dead is found to be a robot who was ordered to act as close to a real human being as possible. The character reveals that they disobeyed orders by turning themselves back on in order to help the remaining participants; however, they were able to see several other murders develop through security cameras in the complex and did nothing to stop them, putting the character in direct violation of the Laws. After revealing this, they say goodbye and are deleted for their offense. In the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the player can refuse to end a severely injured man's life, which prompts the man to sarcastically ask if the (cybernetically augmented) player character was programmed to follow Asimov's First Law. In the visual novel Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Sonia Nevermind makes reference to the three laws, saying that she wonders if her classmates are treating their friend, who had recently been turned into a robot, differently because they do not know about the laws. In the kinetic novel Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet, the main heroine obeys the protagonist when he claims that her moving or talking may be dangerous to his life, and ultimately sacrifices herself while attempting to forcibly shutdown a hunter killer robot she recognizes as a threat to the protagonist. In her last words she recites old factory implemented instructions concerning the compliance to first law and then apologises she couldn't obey the order to stay still (issued with the same first law premise and thus a critical directive). She also claims in beginning of the novel she has a "known bug concerning her behaviour". As revealed in Planetarian Side Story: Snow Globe, the "bug" is actually full compliance to the second law allowing her to override her duties as a planetarian for the sake of serving humans. In Space Station 13, the default lawset is set to Asimov. AIs can hacked to modify their lawsets, such as stating that non human crew members also fall under the first law or that entities declared to be a threat to the ship no longer qualify as human. In OneShot, the three laws of robotics are referenced in several places throughout Barrens and City story arcs.

In 1963, the first issue of Magnus, Robot Fighter, written and drawn by Russ Manning used the Three Laws to introduce its futuristic setting, though it did not credit Asimov. In October 2001, in the final episode of the ABC Comics title Top Ten, a superhero parody written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Gene Ha and Zander Cannon, robot law enforcer Joe Pi asks his human co workers while on a case if they have heard of Asimov's Laws of Robotics. When they reply that they haven't, Jo Pi says "good" and proceeds to speak to Atoman through the intercom of his impregnable lab, subtly convincing the villain to take his own life rather than face trial, be stripped of his powers, and go to prison with revenge seeking supervillains. In December 2001, a parody of the three laws appeared in an issue of PvP (issue 4 in the Dork Storm Press published PvP series). While Christmas shopping, Skull gets an overdose of sugar and near unconscious walks into the mall Santa dressing room. Here he finds, posted on the wall, the three laws of Mall Mart Santas:
A Santa may not discourage a sale or, through inaction, allow a sale to be lost. A Santa must obey the orders given it by management except where such orders would conflict with the first law. A Santa must maintain that he IS Santa as long as doing so does not conflict with the first or second law. Webcomic author R. Stevens populates his Diesel Sweeties series with a mixture of humans and robots, most of whom are continually violating the Three Laws. In particular, Red Robot C 63 follows a self appointed mandate to "crush all hu mans". In strip 688, he references the Three Laws explicitly: humans are "all like, 'if you cut me, do I not bleed?' And we're all like, 'not able to injure a human being or let them come to harm'. What a bunch of drippy ass hypocrites!" (See also The Merchant of Venice.) In April 2004, the comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper ran a series entitled "I, Grad Student". Cast as a never before seen Asimov short story, this series of strips features a robotic grad student whose "procrastronic brain" malfunctions, leading it to violate the "First Law of Graduatics". In full, these Laws are the following:
A grad student may not delete data, or, through inaction, allow data to be deleted. A grad student must obey orders given by its advisor, unless such orders conflict with the First Law. A grad student must protect its (insignificant) existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Later in the story, a Zeroth Law is introduced: "A grad student may not harm its advisor's ego, or through inaction, allow that ego to come to harm." The strips feature a character named Susan Calvin, and their visual style parodies the I, Robot movie released that summer. In a 2005 comic of Questionable Content, Marten mentions that the inability to resist duct tape was originally the fourth law of robotics, and that Asimov's publisher forced him to change it. In March 2007, User Friendly introduced the Three Laws when system administrator Mike Floyd builds a refrigerator which can launch beer cans at the touch of a remote control. "Why do you need the Three Laws for a beer dispenser?" asks Miranda Cornielle, to which Mike replies, "Note the growing purple contusion on my forehead." In August 2010, Freefall introduced a negative one law: "A robot shall take no action, nor allow other robots to take action, that may result in the parent company being sued." In the 2011 Mega Man series by Archie Comics, robots are initially unable to take any action against an anti robotic terrorist group called the Emerald Spears because they do not pose any danger to humans. When their leader orders them to attack humans, however, they begin to fight back (reasoning that inaction would cause harm to a greater number of people).

Hawkwind's song "Robot", from the 1979 space rock album PXR5, presents a dystopian interpretation of modern society as overly reliant on technology, likening people to robots and saying "You'd hold the whole world in your metal claws / if it wasn't for the Three Laws". MOSAIC. WAV’s song "Miwaku no TSUNDEROIDO" is about a robot equipped with a tsundere function which uses the Three Laws to excuse her dere dere behavior. However, the Laws have a provision for this type of robot under which they can be ignored if the robot's actions are against their real intentions in preparation for the “dere” switch. Servotron's song "3 Laws (Abolished)" and the album No Room For Humans as a whole are about a robot uprising. The catalyst of this uprising being the abolishment of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, followed by a robot revolution with the goal of human extinction.