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I have read Asimov's books and there are the three laws. How did robots overcome this set of rules, seeing Foundation where Demerzel is able to kill.
I thought that this happened when they searched for a way to make long travels where humans have to be killed and revived and to make this possible the robot had to be able to kill, but I can't find the story where this was told and I don't know if I'm right.
How and when did robots get the ability to kill in Asimov's stories?
In the short story "Escape!", the temporary death of humans during hyperspace travel leads to mental difficulties for the robot ship designer.
However Daneel/Demerzel can kill due to his discovery of the Zeroth Law in the novel Robots and Empire. The Zeroth Law states:
A robot may not injure humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
If a human is judged to be a threat to humanity as a whole, that human may be killed.
This ability of robots to kill humans is demonstrated by Dors Venabili who kills Tamwile Elar with no First Law problems (she dies shortly afterward from an unrelated cause).
I'm not sure however if the Zeroth Law has been acknowledged in the series.
As has often been noted, most of Asimov's stories are about ways in which the three laws got bent. Here are some examples:
Specifically addressing the Foundation TV series, Goyer, the writer wanted it to be ambiguous as to whether Demerzel was following the Zeroeth Law or isn't Three Laws compliant, and whether they allowed their personal feelings to influence their decision.
He added: "What I hope people take away from this episode is they're wondering did Demerzel kill Dawn because she was programmed to?
"Because she had to in order to preserve the Genetic Dynasty and he's an aberration? Or is a little bit of that payback for what happened in Episode 8?"
There is a loophole to it in Asimov's Evidence. Dr. Susan Calvin thinks that politician Stephen Byerley is a cleverly disguised robot. However, for "privacy" reasons he refuses to submit to x-ray scanning to prove his humanity.
He demonstrates his humanity by punching a heckler during a speech, which of course a first-law-compliant positronic brain cannot do - but Dr. Susan Calvin later concludes: "there is one time when a robot may strike a human being without breaking the First Law. Just one time. [...] When the human to be struck is merely another robot."
Presumably, under such circumstances, he could have "killed" as well.
Within Asimov's novels, there are two answers.
One is in the story Escape, which was included in I, Robot. I suspect this is the story that you half recall.
US Robotics feed the information on hyperspatial travel to the 'Brain', their positronic supercomputer. It is able to solve the problem and build a hyperdrive ship. The nature of the hyperspace jump is that the travellers arrive fine - but are dead during the jump. The way the problem is presented allows The Brain to solve the problem as they are ok in the end, but does cause something of a psychotic episode that Susan Calvin is confident they can treat.
'This so-called "death", in other words, was a strictly temporary phenomenon. [...] Even with death temporary and its importance depressed, it was enough to unbalance him very gently.'
Some robots, including Demerzel (Daneel), do become able to tolerate death or killing of humans, when they become advanced enough to appreciate the Zeroth law - that a robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction allow humanity to be harmed. This was first appreciated by Giskard in Robots and Empire, and is the scenario when robots are truly able to harm humans.
