The question is, what is our "cultures" perception of artificial intelligence. In difference to animals a robot should have the possibility of selfreflection and therefor should be able to formulate his own needs. If it is (an unchangeable) part of its programming to have a set of moral principles (as I. Aasimov proposes) that produces the robots own wish to accept cruelty for the sake of mankind, than what right do we, as human beings have to block this part of the robots "nature"?

I. Asimov is an american writer of quasi-scientific litrature. he was very concerned about the development of a.i. and its impact on mankind. He was the first to call for "robotrules" that should limit the robot to iis position of a servant.
The problem is that a robot in difference to an automat should be intelligent and able to develop, so it could decide, that mankind is a thread...
By the way, a lot of the problems of "cyberethnologica" was discussed by sci-fi authors, i would be very intressted in some posts that concider these discussions...

Ah ... the birds, the birds. Dunno if they're always right. But hell, yeah: Birds definitely should know what they're whistling about from their lofty realms beyond the rooftops ... as I know who Isaac Asimov is/was :o)
Definitely, what "cyberethnology" (or how the heck you may call it) is concerned with, already is/was treated by SciFi-writers. Asimov is one, Heinlein is another one ("Do androids dream of electrical sheep?") and my hero William Ford Gibson is even one more.
All this interests me a lot -- maybe I should quit my job at university and become a full-time writer? Livin' under a bridge shouldn't be too bad if you still have cable-connection, shouldn't it?
Does anybody in this room ... ahem ... know what da hell I'm talkin' about here? What I wanna say: There surely are "things to come" in respect to SciFi'n'cyberpunk-literature and "cyberethnology".

"Livin? under or on the bridge, that is the Question!?"
:o) On THE bridge. :o)