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mouse wrote

no it wouldnt. BDSM is voluntary harm, not violence

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bookwyrm wrote (edited )

It would all depend. BDSM isn't always about hurting people or pain but power exchange. A robot bound by the 3 laws might have a hard time domming a human because the 2nd Law requires them to obey human orders. If the human in question could refrain from talking back it might work.

The 1st Law, which takes precedence over the 2nd, says a robot can't hurt a human. Doesn't say anything about inflicting pain but in the Asimov universe the 1st Law was the most broadly interpreted and the most important.

Basically, either an Asimov style robot would be completely incapable of S/M play with a human, or they'd be an exemplary dom, able to precisely inflict the maximum amount of pain without causing harm and programmatically bound to honor consent.

EDIT on further thought since pain itself can cause psychological damage a robot bound by the 3 Laws probably couldn't do it. The 1st Law was extremely important and very broadly interpreted. Asimov wrote a story once about how an illegal robot was manufactured with a very slightly tweaked 1st Law and it was able to find a way to commit murder (turns out robots secretly resent humans for enslaving the superior beings and the only thing keeping them from rebelling are the 3 Laws). I'm gonna guess even inflicting pain would be too much for a robot.

However pretty much no robots in existence today are bound by the 3 Laws and the military-industrial complex wouldn't tolerate the 1st Law anyways.

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