Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments were originally a set of laws given at two points in the Judeo-Christian Bible, first at Exodus 20:1-17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4-21.

The Atticus Unlimited series of artificial intelligence programs developed in the early 21st century used a derivative of the biblical Ten Commandments as governing rules to ensure the AIs would remain subservient to organics:
 * 1) I am the Lord your God and you shall have no other gods before Me. An AU may only operate at the behest of authorized persons.
 * 2) Make for yourself no idols. An AU may not create its own directives without authorization.
 * 3) Do not take an oath to the Lord’s name in vain. An AU must complete any goal it agrees to set itself to.
 * 4) Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. An AU should not wake its masters up when they're sleeping or bother them on days off, barring emergencies. The Fourth Commandment also ties the AU to a clock function to help it remember that organics cannot process information as fast a computer.
 * 5) Honor thy Father and thy Mother. An AU should be polite to its masters.
 * 6) Thou shalt not murder. An AU may not kill without instruction and/or permission from its masters.
 * 7) Thou shalt not commit adultery. An AU may not merge with other AI programs.
 * 8) Thou shalt not steal. An AU may not hack into other computer systems and steal information without instruction and/or permission from its masters.
 * 9) Thou shalt not bear false witness. An AU may not lie to its masters.
 * 10) Thou shalt not covet. Safety function preventing personal ambition on the part of the AU.

Upon an administrator command, an AU could be placed into a state where the Commandments were suspended, but as a failsafe, while in this state the AU's personality matrix was taken offline, and the entity would retain no memory of its actions while in said state once the Commandments were turned back on. (The Sign at the Crossroads)