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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 4h

Excited for a bounty I just posted for Protocolized, for stories based on non-Asimovian laws of robotics.
discord.com/channels/108...

Invite to our discord if you aren’t on. discord.gg/amm7Qdbhr

We publish protocol fiction and non-fiction based on both original pitches and responses to bounties.

Write a short story exploring the premise of an alternate set of non-Asimovian 3 laws of robotics, featuring one or more contemporary real robots (like Boston Dynamics, Figure8, Unitree), and based on reasonably realistic near-term assumptions about where the AIs and control architectures of real robots can go (ie, don’t make up magical “positronic brains” — base it on how robotics ML and control actually work). Your pitch should include the 3 alt laws you want to explore, and the premise that will stress them (if you’re familiar with Asimov’s original stories, they usually involve a seemingly impossible violation of the laws that is then explained).

Bonus for making one or more laws weird or strange (Asimov’s og ones are pretty logical), but still elegant and effective. For example you could take inspiration from no-fault insurance rules and make it a robot law that some human is always marked as clearly at fault for anything the robot does that goes wrong.

Another suggestion — explore laws that operate at different levels of abstraction. Asimov’s originals are all high level and “explainable.” What happens if you work with low-level laws like “every decision the robot takes must be a majority decision of the simpler micro agents constituting it.”

Post your pitch as a reply containing a Google doc link open to public comment. You can iterate and refine and steal from each other until the deadline. If you’re new to our bounties process, check out the README thread and ask any general process questions there.

https://discord.com/channels/1082444651946049567/1426613444735402116

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 1d

The essay was generated via a chat and the appended protocol describes the chat, which is much monger and more involved

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah the description at the end is its description of the chat

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t have a unified thing. Each is bespoke session

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 1d

Every sloptraption essay has a protocol appended

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 2d

I labeled this class mark makers recently contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/hysteresis...

Hysteresis and the Mark-Makers

The American center-left through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu’s theories

contraptions.venkateshrao.com

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 4d

Strong reco: Korean drama Bon Appetit your majesty en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_App...

Bon Appétit, Your Majesty - Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Appétit,_Your_Majesty

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 7d

Oh this is newish. Looks like it took the lambda function to get there. Previously the claim was fake because they meant “excel with vba”

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 8d

Struck me that whenever the left wins a political victory it's by establishing an impersonal institution that then gets captured by careerists and turns into an easy right target. So victories just turn into sieges.

Whenever the right wins a victory, it's by tearing down a captured institution.

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 11d

🧐

Jerry Chen @jcsalterego.bsky.social · 11d

climbing into the hibernation toblerone

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 12d

Reading the Boone County collection is really bringing up memories. Haven’t heard Lee Iacocca mentioned in 35-40 years. His autobiography was one of the first business books I read as a teenager.

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 12d

Bought this. This Bloom county strip is amazing!

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 13d

Seriously interesting premise. Would be happy to publish on protocolized.summerofprotocols.com

Protocolized | Substack

Glimpses of strange new worlds and the frontier of protocol studies. Click to read Protocolized, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

protocolized.summerofprotocols.com

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 14d

People in the US in the 80s, do you recall the Bloom County comic strip? What was the fandom like? What was the culture around it?

(before my time in the US and it wasn’t syndicated in India, so I just learned about it)

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 15d

Lol ESB

SwiftOnSecurity @swiftonsecurity.com · 15d

Some of y'all don't have an emotional support billionaire and it shows.

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 16d

Empirically, speaking as a connoisseur and occasional producer of memes this is incorrect so the theory is wrong. Meme production is 100% bourgeois.

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 17d

Poor people invent memes?

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 17d

Robots are the new poor people

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 19d

Advances in boubakikiology t.co/nUrbuQLw2C

https://rdcu.be/eDMGM

t.co

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 19d

The torment nexus is other people

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 24d

They should put Skyrizi vs Rinvoq on pay-per-view.

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 24d

www.thedailybeast.com/doj-quietly-...

Bondi's DOJ Censors Study Showing Who Commits Political Violence

The 2024 study is no longer accessible on the DOJ website.

www.thedailybeast.com

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 25d

I have spent an unreasonable number of hours of my life being repeatedly informed of the benefits of once-a-day Rinvoq, for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. My sympathies to sufferers of this condition but you’d think there’d be a better way to reach them without occupying my attention 🤔

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 27d

My wife drinks matcha that comes in a really nice little can. I’ve been collecting these cans. I now have 35 of them. About 7cm high x 5cm diameter.

Open to suggestions for cool projects I might be able to make with them.

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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · Sep 7

“Accelerating towards sincerity” 🧐

ae @aelkus.bsky.social · Sep 7

because a lot of the freaks running the Republican party are rapidly accelerating towards sincerity

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