Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
On the psychology of Artificial Intelligence
A Duck:
I think Pintsize WOULD work with a more human-like chassis.
They weren't common during the Hannelore's-Robot-Boyfriend arc, but now it's a long time after time (including a timeskip too), and we have Momo.
I really like the science fiction elements QC has and if would be really interesting to see our comic-relief grow as a character (and in potential for destruction, too)
Pilchard123:
--- Quote from: cesium133 on 23 Jan 2015, 08:12 ---(Of course I'm sure Momo would object to that.)
--- End quote ---
No! The eels!
Neko_Ali:
Pintsize in a more human like body would be troublesome... both for him and everyone around him. Thanks to robot racism, anthro PCs with bodies like his or Winslows are both given more leeway on behavior and treated more like things than people. Where as ones with more human chassis like Momo and May are pretty much treated more like human. Treatment varies of course, but there is no way Pintsize would get away with half what he does now if he had a human-like chassis. But then again, he always wouldn't be casually thrown into walls, disassembled or have his head punched so hard it dents by people just meeting him either...
ReindeerFlotilla:
The anthropcs aren't the only type of AI. In fact, we don't really know if station qualifies as one of the really big AI's that Momo was talking about. Remember, station is at least 24 years old. Mono is 2. Computing power has increased by about 4096 times since station came about.
Who is to say he could be upgraded to the level Mono was talking about?
I'm only saying that we really have no clue how the details we have fit together. Why would a financial software package that didn't deal with people enough to need a name need a gender?
Sure, it's also a case of "why not" but to assume that an AI would even bother to think about that switch in that context is fairly self centered. Just because we have gender, we assume they would want it, too.
Dale is a chill guy, but he's not that super special. Yet May has pretty much latched on to him. At a guess, I would say that's because the respect he showed her was a new experience for her.
Also, he was the only person she knew at the time.
It's probably not nearly that interesting. But the possibility is more fascinating than just assuming all AI are anthropcs
Pilchard123:
Not really QC related, but I was browsing worldbuilding.stackexchange earlier and came across this question.
How could ghosts be explained without an afterlife?
--- Quote from: Serban Tanasa ---I've always loved well-done ghosts. However, I've always hated the afterlife-speculation that they engender if used in a story. So I need a way to get ghosts without the fluffy spiritualistic bits. This is not a value judgement on the afterlife, I just don't want to cheapen the concept with easy answers.
If we can get a purely 'materialistic' ghost, some sort of system to preserve and project the memory of a person or important event, that would make me much happier.
What defines an acceptable ghost:
Must be perceivable, and if possible by multiple people simultaneously.
Must be immaterial in some sense (i.e you probably should not be able to grab it by the collar) Nonetheless, I would like my ghosts to be able to generate sound.
Must resemble some formerly living person in some essential aspect (visage, patterns of behavior, speech if possible). I would love it if they were partially sentient/aware and thus interactive and endowed with a deceased person's memories (at least up to a point), so they would (mis-)recognize people and could be persuaded to share their secrets.
This is not vital, but if they need to be killed put to rest, I would love for a way to do so.
So, how do you construct a ghost?
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Erik ---If you're looking for something that resembling a former human being but without there being an afterlife, then essentially you're talking about someone's imprinted consciousness remaining behind in some form.
Such a thing would have no physical manifestation (because it isn't a real thing, so to say) but could still be around because other minds or objects keep it going. I´m not sure what the tech level of your story is, but the higher it gets, the easier it becomes.
If we put the tech level slightly above where we are now, it becomes quite plausible. We´re already getting close, with Facebook pages for dead users that are still interacted with as an example. These people are gone, but their page lingers. If you go one step further and imagine a Facebook script that automatically replies to certain things, such as birthdays, you might get messages from dead people. In this case you still know the person is dead and you know what it is happening, but it's the first step. Any script that is smart enough to reproduce the kind of message the user would post will sound quite a bit like them.
If you make the internet a bit smarter, things get more eerie. Imagine you make a picture inside your late friends home, and the face-recognition software suddenly pings his face somewhere in the corner. Of course, the software is simply pretending to be smart; it's picked up that this is your friends' home, it found a "face" that it couldn't place, and suggested that considering where you are and that there's apparently someone there with you, it must be your friend.
Later on, the same kind of software might think that since your friend hasn't been talking to you in a while it will helpfully start a conversation between the two of you. Of course it's goal would be to kickstart it for a few lines before your actual friend takes over (both sides thinking the other initiated the conversation, ideally). It'll sound quite like your friend used to do, but sort of stops responding after exchanging a few platitudes.
Of course the above is just software, but imagine if the software has the same response to various other people the person knew, and they start talking to each other. Human communication being what it is, something like "I talked to John yesterday" will come up. Many people will not add in "through the computer", and will instead start thinking ghosts. (Remember; people already do this). But this time, they'll have a chat history to prove it, and it'll look pretty convincing.
People already use automation for a lot of common tasks and this will only expand in the future. At some point, if you die, you'll leave behind so many automated tasks, some of which are so hard to pinpoint as being automated (because if people realise it's automated, it becomes insincere, so they'll be as lifelike as possible) that it might easily be possible to get the feeling someone is still around.
You'll be able to 'interact' with them, they can make sounds, generate images and even control other devices. When you add in glitches and detection faults, it gets even creepier. (Imagine the door to your friends' house going open downstairs and hearing "Welcome, John" from the automated system. It just made a false positive and when you get downstairs there'll be nobody, but you'll still get a nagging suspicion)
As for putting the 'ghost' to rest; the solution would be to convince the world that this person is truly dead. This can be easy if there's a centralized register where someone's state is kept, but it can also be very difficult if various devices independently check whether or not someone is still around against each other, where the other devices automated interactions trigger the "still alive" for it, and it triggers the "still alive" for others.
Such ghosts could even become angry because the scripts are picking up that you're trying to convince the world their patron is dead, even though they think he isn't. They might react less friendly, decide that your friend's logical reaction would be to deny you access to their home and things, or even alert the authorities. They might even get the idea that you are trying to kill them and become openly hostile to you.
--- End quote ---
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version