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"The bottom line in the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better to rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes."
- Frank Herbert

Circuit Inhibiting Destructiveness  
  Ensuring that robots take on the responsibility of pleasing their masters, and obeying their orders.  

NICK CAME BACK to “consciousness” abruptly. “How do you feel?” Dex asked. There was a brass screw in his hand.

Nick gave an experimental wriggle. “Wonderful,” he said in his toneless voice. He wriggled again. “Yes, wonderful. I can hardly believe it. What did you do?”

"...It’s like having been dry for years and then suddenly getting all the oil in the world.”

Nick began to walk up and down the room jerkily. “I can’t tell you how much better I feel Dex,” he said. (Since what Dex had really done was to unscrew the two main circuits which inhibit destructiveness in a robot, whether toward itself, toward other robots, or toward masters, no wonder Nick felt better. Along with his inhibition, he had shed his anxiety.) “I could cope with a dozen masters now. Why should I let him do something I don’t like?”

Technovelgy from To Please The Master, by Margaret St. Clair.
Published by Space Travel in 1958
Additional resources -

No wonder "repairs to robots except in licensed repair shops on written request of the master are strictly forbidden."

*Spoiler*!


('To Please The Master' by Margaret St. Clair)

For a moment they danced together, hand and hand, around the flames. Then, each holding a screwdriver, the roll of tools stuck in Nick’s belt, they started out on their mission of salvation.

“We’ll fix every robot in the world!” said Nick. “No more trouble with masters!”

“And how!” cried the old robot. That was the beginning of the Robot Wars.

Compare to the much better known restraining bolt from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from To Please The Master
  More Ideas and Technology by Margaret St. Clair
  Tech news articles related to To Please The Master
  Tech news articles related to works by Margaret St. Clair

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