Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

ai ages

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flondrix:

--- Quote from: BenRG on 17 Aug 2017, 04:02 ---Another thought: Station once told Marten that teenage Hannelore had named some of the Ellicott-Chatham AIs involved in the space program (and that she wasn't that creative when it came to the names). This means that we can start establishing a baseline of maximum ages. IMO, I don't think any of the AIs are older than six to ten years and most of the AIs we are familiar with are probably no older than three years.

--- End quote ---

Hannelore has had her own apartment since the very beginning of the strip, and a few years have to have elapsed in strip time sine then.  She must be in her mid-twenties at the very minimum.  That makes Station at least 10 years old; hpwever, I would not be surprised if he were among the very first AIs.

Is it cold in here?:
In context it sounded like Station was included when Eminence Grise talked about "elders".

Cornelius:
I should think so too.

At any rate, within the comic's time, there has been a very swift revolution with AI. Within the timeframe of the comic, we have seen them gain civic rights, and anthropoform chassis have gone from uncanny valley to fairly commonplace. Though, to be honest, I seem to remember an anthropoform AI at the placement office in the flashback when Marten was paired with Pintsize.

At the same time, maturity as a function of their function seems a difficult call. How much maturity does an assembly arm, by that reasoning need? And yet... Compare also the military installations Pintsize has managed to rile up.

As such, it doesn't seem impossible that specialised AI, like Station and Ship, have evolved before freestanding AI, as a natural evolution of what were very complex self-adjusting systems.

flondrix:

--- Quote from: miados on 17 Aug 2017, 12:09 ---I am unsure if you will see a large amount of change in say a toaster ai who is happy being one and wants to stay one forever.

--- End quote ---

You might think Trashbot has a crappy job, but he really likes it. He likes it a disturbing amount, actually.

Cornelius:
As an aside, I'm not really comfortable with the idea of my appliances having a consciousness... My toaster spends altogether too much time in the back of the cupboard.

Another question is to what degree hardware determines the possible level of maturity. To what degree would that limit, say, a toaster? Which also begs the question: what are the criteria for a system to be recognised as an independent, conscious AI? That is something the levels of Turing test passed might indicate.

Another interesting question, but perhaps for a different thread, would be if the degree of maturity/human equivalent age, plays a role in the civic duties/rights they can exercise. Somewhat like how legislation protects minors (and equivalent) in our world.

For now, we seem to be focusing on very human-like AI's - quite naturally, as they are most present in the comic - however, would the consciousness of Trashbot, or a toasterbot work in a similar way? Someone in the comic already mentioned that the very large AI's just treat human consciousness as just another subroutine. I can imagine it can be very difficult to consider the maturity / human equivalent age of what is essentially an alien mind.

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