Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 4321-4325 (3-7 August 2020)
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote from: Farideh on 08 Aug 2020, 21:58 ---
--- Quote from: Tova on 07 Aug 2020, 00:58 ---Just to throw one more variable into the mix, maybe the mentions of 'substrate' in the comic are actually references to software substrate.
--- End quote ---
Then again, Bubbles threatened to tear out Corpse Witch's substrate.
--- End quote ---
Which wouldn't matter if CW had a backup, and if that were possible she'd treat it as a survival priority. The implication is that AI personalities can't be backed up, despite the early comic that showed Pintsize running on a desktop.
Farideh:
Even if Corpse Witch had a backup, she'd still be dependent on someone else getting a new chassis/substrate, restoring the backup, checking that everything went OK, etc. It's a major hassle.
There was a very early indication of Marten having a backup of Pintsize.
Mr Intrepid:
--- Quote from: Gyrre on 09 Aug 2020, 07:27 ---
--- Quote from: Farideh on 08 Aug 2020, 21:58 ---
--- Quote from: Tova on 07 Aug 2020, 00:58 ---Just to throw one more variable into the mix, maybe the mentions of 'substrate' in the comic are actually references to software substrate.
--- End quote ---
Then again, Bubbles threatened to tear out Corpse Witch's substrate.
--- End quote ---
I'm still wondering if the AnthroPCs and other pre-Singularity A.I.s used the same sponge lattice substrate as the post-Singularity A.I.s we've met or if they use something more akin to our own world's technologies.
--- End quote ---
A guess here. Early model anthropcs have their substrates built in, and are not removable. They can be transferred to larger chassis and into a removable module. Perhaps something on the order of a future generation SSD. When Momo and Winslow got their upgrades, their old chassis basically "died" for lack of a self-aware operating system. When Faye met Bubbles, Corpse witch popped a reinforced out of a AI's head, replacing it, with no harm done.
This, perhaps, is why Pintsize could run on a laptop. Presumably a pretty powerful one. And, of course, Roko's was reinforced because she was in law enforcement, so her substrate survived, and was downloaded (or plugged in) to a server farm.
Gnabberwocky:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 09 Aug 2020, 11:13 ---Which wouldn't matter if CW had a backup, and if that were possible she'd treat it as a survival priority. The implication is that AI personalities can't be backed up, despite the early comic that showed Pintsize running on a desktop.
--- End quote ---
There are a few possible explanations:
1. This relates to Gyrre's point. Perhaps the less-advanced pre-Singularity AIs didn't have a physical brain and were thus able to transfer their consciousnesses freely.
2. CW and the other underground AIs also might have been able to make a backup but not created one for security reasons, which would explain the extra emphasis on drive safety. This implies that full consciousness transfer is possible, so maybe every chassis made has an unused AI brain inside that molds to match the mind of the AI trying to transfer into it. Secondary thought: this process is painful and feels self-intrusive, similar to Yay going inside someone's mind and editing it.
4. AIs can temporarily add a copy of their consciousness to the computer, but cannot do the machine learning process and cannot make complex decisions.
5. The tech has changed over the years and the earlier AIs (Momo, Winslow, Pintsize) have received hardware and/or firmware and/or software upgrades in order to keep up.
Or, we could all be missing the most likely reason, which is that Jeph forgot about a minor detail put in the comic fifteen years ago.
Farideh:
--- Quote from: Gnabberwocky on 09 Aug 2020, 13:38 ---Or, we could all be missing the most likely reason, which is that Jeph forgot about a minor detail put in the comic fifteen years ago.
--- End quote ---
Heresy! :D
Jeph mentioned at some point that he has most of 'how AI works in the QC verse' written out - let's hope he decides to enlighten us at some point.
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