Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
How many AIs are there? What are the social consequences?
N.N. Marf:
I suspect this gets down to the definition of ``robot'' again, and it's misuse referring to the sapient being so embodied.
Wingy:
As a former programmer, they make sense just fine. I assume, however, that they have access to a worldwide net of data they can sift - what we would call "big data" today - when they have spare cycles (recharging overnight?) to plan the next days events. Just like insomniacs do... After all, we know Pintsize sells his spare cycles for cash...
flfederation:
--- Quote from: N.N. Marf on 27 Oct 2020, 08:06 ---I suspect this gets down to the definition of ``robot'' again
--- End quote ---
What else would you call a metal person that was built instead of created through an organic process? Don't say "android", some of them are spiders and jellyfish creatures. The hair is polymer, so if you want to say they're partly organic because of that... in the way that Clinton is an "android" because of his hand...
Not to mention that the term most commonly used for them is AI, not robot, which would make the "not a robot" argument a straw man. Are they not AI, because they differ from contemporary AI designs? Is a laptop not a computer, because it contains no electromechanical relays or vacuum tubes? The biggest stretch for the comic so far IMO, is that it was difficult for them to find a routine that can read PDFs, but Star Trek has done worse than that on an off day. Not having one already installed is much easier to believe.
I'm not going to hold Jeph to any literary/technical standards higher than we could hold Asimov to, I don't know why anybody else would want to.
If there's a better word than what's already used, just say what it is. But I'm sceptical. Even the term "robot" comes from Czech fiction, not science.
hedgie:
I do think that the "type" of AI matters as well. An intelligence like Station or Yay is positively alien to our way of thinking, as is the idea of just existing out in the æther somewhere. It's like when my Pathfinder character (an elf) went to her mother for advice regarding a powerful "human" noble family and a proposed alliance for overthrowing an evil queen. The GM managed to chill me as a player to the bones when mum simply said "They think like us". As in, a long-lived race in a D&D game like a dwarf or elf will have a perspective that humans simply can't get, like simply waiting for an enemy to die of old age if they don't pose an immediate threat. Certain AIs will probably follow that mould.
Characters like that are really fucking hard to write, and the only writing I do is game-related. So, the average robot on the street, even if they have some theoretical immortality, is most likely to *be* somewhat human, as a sort of adaption, since humans are really bad at interacting with life-forms that are essentially "alien".
BenRG:
--- Quote from: flfederation on 27 Oct 2020, 11:14 ---
--- Quote from: N.N. Marf on 27 Oct 2020, 08:06 ---I suspect this gets down to the definition of ``robot'' again
--- End quote ---
What else would you call a metal person that was built instead of created through an organic process?
--- End quote ---
I, personally, use the word 'Synthetic', which is short for 'Spontaneously-Emergent Synthetic Intelligence'.
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