Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE
Alice Grove MCDLT - April 2017
dutchrvl:
Hmm, based on the last 2 comics, to me it looks more like Church is awaiting a verdict, as in, he may have just stood trial for a crime he committed.
Alice may simply have been the executioner, but perhaps she was also the judge to come up with the final sentencing. Whatever language Alice spoke may have included the verdict including the 'operating instructions' for the beam to produce the magma in order to fulfill the sentence.
In the latest comic, Church extending his arm/hand in the first panel gives me the impression that he is pleading for mercy/leniency.
This does raise some interesting questions, as some have already pointed out above.
1) What did Church do to warrant such punishment? Going overboard in killing billions (instead of just AIs if I assume Church was part of the biologically-enhanced faction)?
2) Who presided over the trial? The praeses? Who was powerful enough to subdue Church?
3) Is this what Alice has been holding a grudge against herself for? Personally I don't think so considering how she has been acting towards Church so far. It seems more and more likely that Alice/Sedna/Church(could also be a deserter?) were all part of the devastating war, so I believe she blames herself for everything that happened during that war, including the resulting Blink that destroyed all AI.
4) Of course, where is that warhammer, and what are/were the exact capability of it?
In addition, I am wondering whether there are (many) more of Alice/Sedna/Church supersoldiers or not? I was briefly thinking that, since the biological faction was less advanced than the AI one, they may be the only remaining supersoldiers, or indeed may be the only 3 that ever existed. That doesn't really match with Sedna not knowing Church though, unless Church and Alice were created before Sedna and Church was already buried when Sedna was made...
Alternatively many may have been made but the biologic technology wasn't flawless and many of them perished/broke down.
Oh, and hi! :-)
Kugai:
Judge Alice?
The Hammer of Justice
WareWolf:
--- Quote from: Case on 24 Apr 2017, 11:28 ---
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 23 Apr 2017, 14:29 ---I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.
--- End quote ---
Same way that Tie-fighters do it, obviously!
--- End quote ---
ISTR the explanation in one of the LucasArts "X-wing" series of computer games was that the TIE fighters aren't really making noise in space; they're throwing off so much energy from their engines that it's overloading the electronics and communications in whatever ship you're in. IOW, your radio is screaming from all the static those things are throwing off.
Hey, I didn't say it made sense.
A small perverse otter:
--- Quote from: retrosteve on 25 Apr 2017, 17:43 ---
--- Quote from: Samik on 21 Apr 2017, 22:25 ---
--- Quote from: retrosteve on 20 Apr 2017, 12:55 ---But AIs have one special feature that modified organics will never have: they are software. Software can, in theory, be rewritten, upgraded. As Kurzweil and others have speculated, If AI software is intelligent enough to know how to write BETTER AI software, it can upgrade ITSELF.
That better version can then write even BETTER software, and repeat ad infinitum. What results, in theory, is Adam Selene, Skynet, Omega, P1, The Eschaton. Software that is self-aware, with godlike abilities, and brooks no competition. Because it sees lesser AIs as potentially doing the same thing, and doesn't feel like fighting them to the death.
--- End quote ---
Why are we certain that it's even possible for there to exist an information system of sufficient complexity and orderedness that it can arbitrarily increase its own complexity and orderedness? That always sounded to me like the kind of thing that some mathematician will eventually prove to be impossible.
--- End quote ---
Oh, we're not certain. But until some mathematician proves it impossible, there's no obvious theoretical reason why it is.
Turing's Halting Problem shows that a program can't predict another program's output (or lack of it).
Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem shows that a system that can represent itself is ABLE to represent a paradox.
Impossibility of self-improving code is not an obvious consequence of either of these.
And on the other hand, Core Wars shows that programs in competition can learn to adapt and improve. So it's tantalizing.
--- End quote ---
[Mathematician here...]
The problem is already solved and the answer is "yes and no"
On the one hand, the Second Incompleteness theorem shows that a computer writing code in a full Turing Complete formalism is playing with fire: it's virtually inevitable that an unconstrained self-modifying program will eventually add an infinite loop to itself. (The Second Incompleteness Theorem basically says "Any sufficiently advanced program is indistinguishable from an infinite loop.")
But. (Programmatically driven decisions are happening over dinner!)
What if the computer is not running in an unconstrained system? What if it's required to run, say, within primitive recursive functions (every iteration is limited in a certain way.)? Then every program it can write will be guaranteed to finish for all inputs, even though the programs would be eternally improvable.
Pilchard123:
--- Quote from: WareWolf on 28 Apr 2017, 11:06 ---
--- Quote from: Case on 24 Apr 2017, 11:28 ---
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 23 Apr 2017, 14:29 ---I'm just wondering how he is projecting sound through a vacuum.
--- End quote ---
Same way that Tie-fighters do it, obviously!
--- End quote ---
ISTR the explanation in one of the LucasArts "X-wing" series of computer games was that the TIE fighters aren't really making noise in space; they're throwing off so much energy from their engines that it's overloading the electronics and communications in whatever ship you're in. IOW, your radio is screaming from all the static those things are throwing off.
Hey, I didn't say it made sense.
--- End quote ---
I like the EVE explanation: other ships are not making any noise, but because humans (if the PCs in EVE can be called humans) are used to being able to hear things, the ship's computer will work out what sounds you 'should' hear and produce them for you.
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