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"Writing about the future, I have a vested interest in there being a future for me to write about."
- John Brunner

Prime Command  
  A universal order or principle carried out by every robotic device.  

Yes, sometimes what seems like a good idea backfires. The robots are just trying to be nice.

[But the robots mean well - it's their prime command:]

"It didn't mean anything to you that the robots have practically taken over our whole society — that they've been making us more and more dependent on them all the time?"

"Well, sure, I understood that. But it did sound kind of silly, you know, Jim. I mean, honey, the robots love us. They have to. It's a prime command."

Technovelgy from Robots Are Nice?, by Gordon R. Dickson.
Published by Galaxy in 1957
Additional resources -

Compare to the Noninterference With Other Worlds from In the Deep of Time (1879) by George Parsons Lathrop, the Relations with Extraterrestrial Life from Ogre (1944) by Clifford Simak, the law of contact from Orphans of the Void (1952) by Orville Shaara, the Prime Directive from With Folded Hands (1947) by Jack Williamson, the treatment of extramundane aborigines from Symbiotica (1943) by Eric Frank Russell and alien self-government from Co-Operate or Else (1942) by A.E. van Vogt.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Robots Are Nice?
  More Ideas and Technology by Gordon R. Dickson
  Tech news articles related to Robots Are Nice?
  Tech news articles related to works by Gordon R. Dickson

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