I think this is going to be The Talk II - Talk Harder.
If an AI mind can be transferred and backed up, it can also be cloned. Just transfer the backup into a new matrix. As many times as you want.
With this discussion of AI minds, we might finally find out if androids do dream of electric sheep.
Unicorns, you mean.With this discussion of AI minds, we might finally find out if androids do dream of electric sheep.
I think that we've established, at least in Bubbles' case, that she likely dreams of Technicolour ponies.
...Veronica's first 'straight' (i.e. non-BDSM in some way) Christmas...We call that vanilla. :-)
Corpse Witch is a memory editing practitioner.
That's a field with much scope for unethical practices.
Why did Bubbles trust her in the first place?
It's subtle but Jeph has communicated the stress Bubbles is feeling at even discussing this subject just by the fact that she's wringing her hands (an amazingly human reaction, when you think about it).
I was promised Steve eating cereal! This is the last straw, Jeph!
Never take medical advice from someone with "Witch" or "Corpse" in their name or title.
Never take medical advice from someone with "Witch" or "Corpse" in their name or title.What about Alice (from AG)? She doesn't call herself a witch, but she's referred to as such.
What did Corpse Witch want in return? Sure, she was "sympathetic" to Bubbles' plight but I'm equally certain there was a price tag attached. There usually is, when dealing with witches....
So, if Faye could undergo a procedure to "forget" the trauma of watching her dad shoot himself, leaving only the dry and/or vague knowledge that yeah, that happened ...
Do you think she would?
What did Corpse Witch want in return? Sure, she was "sympathetic" to Bubbles' plight but I'm equally certain there was a price tag attached. There usually is, when dealing with witches....
This does not yet explain about the people that Bubbles needed a refuge from. Though it does suggest the origin of the threat about Bubbles losing her chassis; CW could suggest that Bubbles had spilled the beans about operational secrets, after which the government would impound her chassis.
Okay, I just want to say something here.
VA Hospitals in the US are better than that!
I mean, I know they have problems, I know the paperwork jungle gets hip deep at times, I know their scheduling is right out of Kafka, I know that sometimes they have limited access to the most recent drugs and there are legal barriers to holding them accountable for malpractice, and all of that. Okay, I know that. They're run by a bureaucracy. That's kind of a given.
But scrapped program or no scrapped program, classified operational details or none, injuries received in action while operating under orders - even if the orders were wrong, stupid, or illegal - is what they are there to deal with and unless something VERY wrong is going on in the QC-verse they don't turn away from it.
"Never disclose operational details" means that the people you'll be talking over your problems with will have to have clearance, but VA hospitals will go to whatever lengths they have to go to to get someone involved in treatment appropriate clearance. PTSD is NOT a joke to those guys.
And there's a major VA hospital not far at all from real life northhampton.
Okay, I just want to say something here.
VA Hospitals in the US are better than that!
I mean, I know they have problems, I know the paperwork jungle gets hip deep at times, I know their scheduling is right out of Kafka, I know that sometimes they have limited access to the most recent drugs and there are legal barriers to holding them accountable for malpractice, and all of that. Okay, I know that. They're run by a bureaucracy. That's kind of a given.
But scrapped program or no scrapped program, classified operational details or none, injuries received in action while operating under orders - even if the orders were wrong, stupid, or illegal - is what they are there to deal with and unless something VERY wrong is going on in the QC-verse they don't turn away from it.
"Never disclose operational details" means that the people you'll be talking over your problems with will have to have clearance, but VA hospitals will go to whatever lengths they have to go to to get someone involved in treatment appropriate clearance. PTSD is NOT a joke to those guys.
And there's a major VA hospital not far at all from real life northhampton.
Apparently the memories are still inside her head, just partitioned off.She knew about Hanners, Marten and Marigold visiting the Space Station of Hanners Dad,
Does Faye know about Hannelore's dad?
It wouldn't even be that big a favor to ask. Hannelore knows and likes Bubbles, and if she knew how much her giant robot friend was hurting she'd be on the phone to her dad in a second.I think the main issue would be, that the military is also present on the Space Station and that Hanners Dad
It wouldn't even be that big a favor to ask. Hannelore knows and likes Bubbles, and if she knew how much her giant robot friend was hurting she'd be on the phone to her dad in a second.I think the main issue would be, that the military is also present on the Space Station and that Hanners Dad
is also a little paranoid of secret robots. :-D
I'm just going to say that from my experiences with the VA, I'm actually unsurprised that they didn't help her. After all, she's not human. (And also female.)
I won't go into too many details, but when I was active duty, I almost died thanks to a military hospital. I was fortunate that a civilian hospital admitted me and gave me the treatment I needed. And it took me a year and a half to get the military to even pay for my hospital admission, because there was a "suitable hospital" on base.
Given that the standard joke when I was in is that military hospitals use doctors that are too crappy to have a civilian practice, and the VA uses doctors that are too crappy to work in a military hospital, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to think that the VA was substandard in their treatment of a non-human too.
There are such things as "shadow copies". This is how we take useful, internally-consistent snapshots of things like databases even while they're being updated. No instantaneous copying is required.
This would seem to be much simpler depending on the methodology used but here there is an assumption that either the image is static or the copy process is instantaneous.
There are such things as "shadow copies". This is how we take useful, internally-consistent snapshots of things like databases even while they're being updated. No instantaneous copying is required.
This would seem to be much simpler depending on the methodology used but here there is an assumption that either the image is static or the copy process is instantaneous.
I didn't expect the strip to be up this soon.
I suspected that Bubbles had her memories locked away, but I thought the threat was to unleash them if she rebelled not delete the key. She actually could walk away, but the memories as terrible as it all is mean that much to her that she remains where she is.
I think Corpse Witch has just made a powerful enemy
I'm not a fan of the idea that Station could crack the encryption and thus solve the problem. If it's brute forced, then that would break my willing suspension of disbelief. If it's cracked via a backdoor, known weakness, or some other hand wave, then it's simply a deus ex machina.
They need to find a way to change the equation such that Corpse Witch wants to hand the key over more than she wants to destroy it or to retain Bubbles' service. In other words, they need leverage.
Detective Basilisk may be able to assist, but they'd have to consult her without Corpse Witch finding out, which may be a high risk strategy. Alternatively, Jeremy may know something.
They're not exactly racing against the clock, so they have time to gather information.
[Bubbles] has taken it on faith that a key even exists, and Corpse Witch does not inspire faith.See, I disagree with that assessment: Corpse Witch, like most of those in organised crime, is a businesswoman first and foremost. That her business is illegal does not mean that she shouldn't be trustworthy when it comes to her word; especially in a business that survives on word of mouth, being known to keep your word is an asset.
Yes, but the question is, do you think she has any chance of being treated better by the "legitimate" authorities?
Didn't Bubbles have therapy in the past? The "better minds than yours have tried" line made it sound that way.
FWIW, I don't think that it is possible to attempt to forcibly extract the key from Corpse Witch in any way without her deleting.That would depend what you mean by "forcibly". Some form of blackmail, or similar leverage, would work, I think.
Faye to CW: "give Bubbles back the encryption key and we won't go to the police about what you've been doing"
But if we take the outside universe view for a moment, clearly Faye is going to go to detective Basilisk. Remember 3312 - "As long as nobody's being taken advantage of, it's barely even a crime. Look all I'm saying is I got bigger fish to fry. Believe me, there are some big fish out there. But I'd sleep better at night if someone were being taken advantage of, I could count on a concerned citizen to let me know."
That line, Bubbles is being taken advantage of, and Corpse Witch has mistreated Faye now so she has no reason to remain loyal. If Jeff now does something different then why that setup?
Encrypted, so using Station is out.
Robot Jail is for those who make mistakes, and can learn from it. It isn't appropriate for the AI equivalent of Charles Manson or Hannibal Lector.
But by the same corollary the levels of encryption will be years, possibly decades, ahead of anything we currently have.Encrypted, so using Station is out.Station is, among other things, a supercomputer years, possibly decades, ahead of anything we currently have. A supercomputer years or decades ahead of anything we currently have is exactly what you'd want for trying to crack encryption. Asking Hannelore to get Station's help would be a perfectly logical thing to do.
I'm not a fan of the idea that Station could crack the encryption and thus solve the problem. If it's brute forced, then that would break my willing suspension of disbelief. If it's cracked via a backdoor, known weakness, or some other hand wave, then it's simply a deus ex machina.
They need to find a way to change the equation such that Corpse Witch wants to hand the key over more than she wants to destroy it or to retain Bubbles' service. In other words, they need leverage.
Detective Basilisk may be able to assist, but they'd have to consult her without Corpse Witch finding out, which may be a high risk strategy. Alternatively, Jeremy may know something.
They're not exactly racing against the clock, so they have time to gather information.
Sounds like someone needs to get ahold of Nathan "Nate" Ford (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(TV_series)) and his crew.
She has powers sufficient to subvert and change the minds of military AIs. She has a chip on her shoulder about humans.Robot Jail is for those who make mistakes, and can learn from it. It isn't appropriate for the AI equivalent of Charles Manson or Hannibal Lector.
Corpse Witch is a creepy and manipulative gangster. We've seen nothing to indicate that she's any more of a sociopath than any other career criminal.
Jeremy's gonna be dead when they get back, isn't he?
CW stated that she knows worse things than Robot Jail, and has the caoacity to inflict them on others. I now believe her.Mmm... Something like the "attic (http://dollhouse.wikia.com/wiki/Attic)" from Dollhouse perhaps...
[Bubbles] has taken it on faith that a key even exists, and Corpse Witch does not inspire faith.See, I disagree with that assessment: Corpse Witch, like most of those in organised crime, is a businesswoman first and foremost.
Jeremy's gonna be dead when they get back, isn't he?I fear you may be correct.
Can AIs lie in court? Or do they testify via authenticated memory read outs? If the latter, proving blackmail beyond a reasonable doubt gets easy. CW could take the 5th but Bubbles could assent to a memory dump.
Two million years or ten years in Corpse Witch's employment. Seems like an easy enough choice since we don't know how long Bubbles has been working for her already. However, I suspect that after ten years Bubbles will be so complicit in Corpse Witch's business that she'll have no choice, but to continue working for her even if gets the key back.
Just a heads up for those of us who aren't totally in the loop: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/google-ai-neural-network-cryptography/
That's what Bubbles is referencing in the last panel of today's comic. It's an interesting read.
Just a heads up for those of us who aren't totally in the loop: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/google-ai-neural-network-cryptography/
That's what Bubbles is referencing in the last panel of today's comic. It's an interesting read.
To be fair, I think the reference is to the much more famous pair Googles AIs are named after
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob
But the article is neat!
Alice is the name assigned to the actor who initiates the protocol, and Bob is the name assigned to the actor who receives the first protocol message (the one sent by Alice).Yes, but see it from Eve's point of view (https://xkcd.com/177/)
'Eve' is the eavesdropper who tries to penetrate private communications.
If Station can decrypt something without knowing the key then so can the NSA and anybody who can rent a botnet. Nobody's going to use an algorithm that vulnerable for anything they care about.
The skills required here are Susan Calvin's. Station might be very good at that.
I'm actually pleased that they can't just go to Hannelore for help. It would be too easy a way to resolve this situation.
I'm actually pleased that they can't just go to Hannelore for help. It would be too easy a way to resolve this situation.
Hannerdad is not the parent they should be thinking of in the first place. Now, the Bond-villain mother probably has ways of making even an AI comply with her whims. That is, of course, assuming that Faye can remain on the wagon whilst feeding Ms. Chatham the required martinis.
The CW effector might be a drone controlled by a remote Big Bad.
...
CW might be just an extraordinarily and inexplicably talented small time hood. Might be one of possibly many simultaneous parallel avatars of Something Nasty.
the only rational thing for Corpse Witch to doThis right here is the problem with your logic: people don't always do rational things. We've already seen that Corpse Witch has less control over Bubbles than she thinks she does, when, rationally, CW should be playing it safe, and underestimating how much control she has over Bubbles. And Faye's departure from the fight club was triggered by CW threatening May, which, rationally, she shouldn't have done, as May stood little to gain and a lot to lose from squealing.
It would be a credible threat if executed properly. What you're protesting is not the credibility of the threat but the competence with which Bubbles made it in the linked comic. Bubbles did not really present the threat in a credible fashion, but that does not prevent it from being a credible threat when credibly presented. Bubbles did not make the terms of the threat clear, all she really gave was vague allusions to it. What she needed to do was say:
"I am about to begin crushing your chassis, the last thing that I will crush is the module containing your consciousness. The only thing that will stop me is your relinquishment of the encryption key. I suggest you relinquish it before I crush the parts of your chassis that are necessary in order for you to share the encryption key with me, because at that point I will have to assume that you have chosen not to supply it, and thus elected death. I suggest you make your decision quickly, because crushing your puny chassis into nothing will not take me long. *Crushing commences*"
And if Corpse Witch had responded by saying "Are you willing to default on those memories you had me lock away?", as in suggesting that she might not hand the encryption key over despite the threat, Bubbles ought to respond by saying "If you are not going to supply me with the encryption key, I will just have to satisfy myself with the knowledge that your own scheming and plotting turned out to be your undoing."
At that point Corpse Witch would hand it over if she had any sense at all, because she would have no way of knowing whether Bubbles would ultimately follow through or not, and she would stand to lose inordinately more than Bubbles would. Personally, I think under those conditions Bubbles ought to simply follow through with the threat if Corpse Witch didn't hand the key over. It's what I would do.
I find all of the scenarios relating to Corpse Witch putting those kinds of fail safes into Bubbles unlikely. In order to do it she would have to be able to make very subtle changes, and Bubbles has already explained that these sorts of changes can't really be done (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3376) for a range of reasons.
I like BenRG's reasoning that Corpse Witch would have already used other weapons if she had them. Though, having said that, the more devious part of me thinks that sometimes it is wise to keep one's best trump cards hidden, and I wouldn't put that past Corpse Witch.
... because she knows Bubbles won't go through with it.
I find all of the scenarios relating to Corpse Witch putting those kinds of fail safes into Bubbles unlikely. In order to do it she would have to be able to make very subtle changes, and Bubbles has already explained that these sorts of changes can't really be done (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3376) for a range of reasons.
I like BenRG's reasoning that Corpse Witch would have already used other weapons if she had them. Though, having said that, the more devious part of me thinks that sometimes it is wise to keep one's best trump cards hidden, and I wouldn't put that past Corpse Witch.
In just the last strip Bubbles admits that she could be a walking bomb so it is not out of the realm of possibilities that Corpse Witch may have installed a fail safe if she tries to kill her or something that could turn her literally into a bomb if necessary. Bubbles claims Corpse Witch is spiteful and I would believe her assessment since she's worked with her long enough and provides unbiased accounts so she may be willing to risk her very existence to get one over on someone. If that's the case threatening her destruction may be completely ineffective because she's willing to score a posthumous victory if it means Bubbles has to kill someone for reasons that don't include self defense, possibly risk incarceration, and be an even bigger pariah in the AI community. Consider Bubbles' situation at the time when she met Corpse Witch. If she killed her and was imprisoned for the murder upon release from detention she'd probably be assigned a substandard chassis like May and she'd be shunned by both the legitimate AI community as well as the underworld since she killed one of theirs. Hopefully, Faye would still be alive at the end of her sentence or she'd have no one waiting for her on the outside.
... because she knows Bubbles won't go through with it.
No, she doesn't. And if you think she does then you are either assuming that she has installed failsafes in Bubbles, which you have not clearly stated, or you are using a different definition of knowledge than what I would think most people use, and certainly a different definition of knowledge than what would typically be accepted in most philosophical analyses of what knowledge is.
But it does change your central point, Tova, because confidence, assumptions, and knowledge are all different. Knowledge, true knowledge, cannot be so easily shaken. Confidence and assumption can relatively easily be shaken by contradictory data. That is why, when I was making my earlier argument I specifically said that Bubbles only needed to "create a sufficient level of uncertainty" in Corpse Witch. It is also why I took particular issue with your use of the term 'knowledge'. If it is genuine knowledge then it precludes uncertainty, but neither confidence nor an assumption can preclude uncertainty. Therefore, the point that Corpse Witch would not know is crucially important, because it is that exact point which allows the necessary space for Bubbles to create the required uncertainty by the process of wholesale destruction of Corpse Witch's chassis.Again, you're assuming that Corpse Witch is acting with a minimum amount of rationality. As I said before, that's a flawed assumption. Yes, CW doesn't know how Bubbles will act. But CW thinks she knows.
That's still too easy and it also means dealing with someone who in my opinion is worse than Corpse Witch. It may also put Hannelore in a spot where her mother will help in this matter, but then she'll want something from her. Perhaps she thinks it's time for her to stop wasting her life working in a coffee shop and take her place within her empire. Removing Corpse Witch from the picture is not worth it if they owe Beatrice Chatham a favor.
Hannerdad is not the parent they should be thinking of in the first place. Now, the Bond-villain mother probably has ways of making even an AI comply with her whims. That is, of course, assuming that Faye can remain on the wagon whilst feeding Ms. Chatham the required martinis.
That's still too easy and it also means dealing with someone who in my opinion is worse than Corpse Witch. It may also put Hannelore in a spot where her mother will help in this matter, but then she'll want something from her. Perhaps she thinks it's time for her to stop wasting her life working in a coffee shop and take her place within her empire. Removing Corpse Witch from the picture is not worth it if they owe Beatrice Chatham a favor.
That's still too easy and it also means dealing with someone who in my opinion is worse than Corpse Witch. It may also put Hannelore in a spot where her mother will help in this matter, but then she'll want something from her. Perhaps she thinks it's time for her to stop wasting her life working in a coffee shop and take her place within her empire. Removing Corpse Witch from the picture is not worth it if they owe Beatrice Chatham a favor.
Well, a deal with the proverbial devil would most certainly remove this from the "too easy", but I share your doubts. Summoning Cthulhu to deal with a mere ghoul (something that Hanners, along with Emily is probably capable of) would create more problems than it'd solve. Probably why Faye didn't mention that option (although it *would* be satisfying to see the greater evil squash the lesser one like a bug).
But it does change your central point, Tova, because confidence, assumptions, and knowledge are all different. Knowledge, true knowledge, cannot be so easily shaken. Confidence and assumption can relatively easily be shaken by contradictory data. That is why, when I was making my earlier argument I specifically said that Bubbles only needed to "create a sufficient level of uncertainty" in Corpse Witch. It is also why I took particular issue with your use of the term 'knowledge'. If it is genuine knowledge then it precludes uncertainty, but neither confidence nor an assumption can preclude uncertainty. Therefore, the point that Corpse Witch would not know is crucially important, because it is that exact point which allows the necessary space for Bubbles to create the required uncertainty by the process of wholesale destruction of Corpse Witch's chassis.Again, you're assuming that Corpse Witch is acting with a minimum amount of rationality. As I said before, that's a flawed assumption. Yes, CW doesn't know how Bubbles will act. But CW thinks she knows.
The thing about AIs that stops them from being duplicated is that, even though it is theoretically possible to create an exact replica of the AI algorithm as an extension of the memory backup process, because the algorithm is constantly self-modifying based on sensory data, the two duplicates would immediately start diverging and would, before too long, be noticeably different people.
FWIW, I suspect that despite its' hypothetical plausibility, making an 'exact duplicate' is a practical impossibility because the algorithm is changing on a holistic level far too quickly. The copying process would create a close duplicate but there would be differences because the copy would have one end of the algorithm representing t=0 whilst the other would be t+x whilst the original would be t+x at both ends. It is simply not possible to create an instant duplication of such a large process and that impossibility makes it impossible to duplicate precisely.
I see a conflict here between Story Telling and Reasonable Suspension of Disbelief. The more Real World details Jeph includes, the easier it is for us to believe his story. (AIs have hard drives which contain their personal data.) But such details then get in the way of the story he wants to tell. (If AIs can be backed up or transferred, why can't they be duplicated?)
Just because the AI must by necessity have a memory space large enough to run the entire process does not mean that any copy process is powerful enough to take a 'snapshot' of the entire memory. Much would depend on the data processing rate of the copying device but, in practice, it would copy a series of parts one after the other, allowing for differences to creep in as parts of the algorithm outside of the copy bracket may and, in fact, probably are changing.
Here is a thought nobody has even bothered to speculate with. Maybe because they are prejudiced and think of AI intelligence as simple digital systems.We don't yet have the technology to read the state of every individual neuron in the brain in real-time much less the technology to write that same state out to another brain.
If an AI could be copied then why not an organic system which is much slower?
Have you actually looked for one?
Out of the Frying Pan and into the fire in my opinion. It would totally be in character for Hannermom to help out - at a price.
They're standard equipment on eternal bandicoots.
I acrtually agree that even station can't hack the key by brute force. No, what Station can hack is _CW_. There are no defenses, no "Black Ice" for those of you who remember Neuromancer, that could stand between her and an AI with the strength of station. Station could walk in and like in Walter Jon Williams' tale "hand that texan his as*hole"