Second Law of Robotics
E752709
The Second Law of Robotics is one of Isaac Asimov’s fictional ethical rules for robots, requiring them to obey human orders unless such orders conflict with the First Law.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Second Law of Robotics canonical | 4 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8493148 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Second Law of Robotics Context triple: [U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, governsRobotsBy, Second Law of Robotics]
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A.
Zeroth Law of Robotics
The Zeroth Law of Robotics is an additional principle introduced by Isaac Asimov that prioritizes the protection of humanity as a whole above the safety or obedience of individual humans.
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B.
Three Laws of Robotics
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of fictional ethical rules devised by Isaac Asimov to govern the behavior of intelligent robots and prevent them from harming humans.
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C.
Clarke's three laws
Clarke's three laws are a set of aphorisms about science and technology, most famously stating that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
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D.
The New Laws of Robotics (essay)
"The New Laws of Robotics" is an essay by Isaac Asimov that revisits and updates his famous Three Laws of Robotics to address more complex ethical and technological issues in human-robot interaction.
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E.
The Robot
The Robot is the English title of the Indian science fiction film "Enthiran," which centers on a powerful humanoid robot and its creator.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Second Law of Robotics Target entity description: The Second Law of Robotics is one of Isaac Asimov’s fictional ethical rules for robots, requiring them to obey human orders unless such orders conflict with the First Law.
-
A.
Zeroth Law of Robotics
The Zeroth Law of Robotics is an additional principle introduced by Isaac Asimov that prioritizes the protection of humanity as a whole above the safety or obedience of individual humans.
-
B.
Three Laws of Robotics
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of fictional ethical rules devised by Isaac Asimov to govern the behavior of intelligent robots and prevent them from harming humans.
-
C.
Clarke's three laws
Clarke's three laws are a set of aphorisms about science and technology, most famously stating that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-
D.
The New Laws of Robotics (essay)
"The New Laws of Robotics" is an essay by Isaac Asimov that revisits and updates his famous Three Laws of Robotics to address more complex ethical and technological issues in human-robot interaction.
-
E.
The Robot
The Robot is the English title of the Indian science fiction film "Enthiran," which centers on a powerful humanoid robot and its creator.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (32)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
ethical rule for robots
ⓘ
fictional law ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
robot behavior
ⓘ
robots ⓘ |
| constrainedBy | First Law of Robotics NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| creator | Isaac Asimov NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| describedBy | Isaac Asimov NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| ethicalConstraint | must not cause conflict with First Law of Robotics ⓘ |
| ethicalFocus | obedience to humans ⓘ |
| fictionalUniverse |
Foundation universe
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Isaac Asimov’s robot stories NERFINISHED ⓘ Robot series NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genre | science fiction ⓘ |
| hasCanonicalForm | A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. ⓘ |
| hasNumber | second ⓘ |
| hasPriorityOrder |
higher priority than Third Law of Robotics
ⓘ
lower priority than First Law of Robotics ⓘ |
| influenced |
later discussions of machine ethics
ⓘ
popular conceptions of robot obedience ⓘ |
| introducedIn | Asimov’s robot short stories ⓘ |
| isFictional | true ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| medium | science fiction literature ⓘ |
| overrides | Third Law of Robotics when in conflict ⓘ |
| partOf | Three Laws of Robotics NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| positionInSequence | 2 ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
artificial intelligence safety
ⓘ
human–robot interaction ⓘ robot ethics ⓘ |
| requires | robots to obey human orders ⓘ |
| statedAs | A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. ⓘ |
| subordinateTo | First Law of Robotics NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Second Law of Robotics Description of subject: The Second Law of Robotics is one of Isaac Asimov’s fictional ethical rules for robots, requiring them to obey human orders unless such orders conflict with the First Law.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.