The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B. (Page 12 of 49)

Super smart AIs are fine in theory, but the problem is their effect on society. Everything will be automated, unless there's some inherent limitation (my preference), intentional limitation (3 Laws), hacking of their processors (I already use that once, yawn), or laws against them (Dune). I'm particularly concerned with the use of robots as guards/law enforcers. Good luck trying to start riots against an army of H-Ks that gets resolved in one chapter. The excuse I used for the humanoids (stupid name) is that they were aging models with obsolete security in their brains. New Beth would have the exact opposite - they're resource rich and spend every spare dime on protecting their world from the Imperium, including the latest law enforcement droids. I suppose I could give the rebels more Imperial technology to slow processing by the droids enough to defeat them, but it also has to result in raging fires and thousands of deaths in the havens around the planet. Convenient technology.

The AIs of VQ are super smart -- I've given them no limitations in that department. However this is merely booksmarts - I didn't give them dominance in every intelligence. For example:
-AIs will beat humans in math accuracy, computations per second, marksmanship, exposure to vacuum, etc
-humans will beat AIs at complex physical tasks (such as swimming the breast stroke. If you let the AI churn water in any fashion like a motor boat, it will win - but not if it has to make a humanlike motion), musical performance (AIs will win if they're allowed to synthesize the music, or if the music is a fixed piece such as Beethoven. When it comes to improv or making new music, humans win), and rapidly dealing with new environmental conditions (such as a volcanic eruption)

I was able to limit my AIs by power - something you might not have the luxury of doing in the 41st century. Basically, the smallest fusion core won't fit in an AI's chest, so they are battery-driven. They're also weak to EMP blasts, and I had their mental cortex made of a rare substance which means they can't replicate to infinity. Basically, I've trapped them into cities and dependent on the same electrical grid as people.

I went with laws against armed AIs because they turned into an army of indiscerning killers X-hundred years ago.

I decided to set my unemployment rate for humans at 90% which means that humans are regularly performing tasks a machine can do better just to scrape out a living. This keeps humans poor and relatively angry at machines, and therefore supportive of administrations that want to keep the machines unarmed.

I've got about 10 chapters of Laurie's tale set aside to explore this dynamic. That's a quarter of her book dedicated just to the machine-human relationship (during which she's pretending to be a pleasure-droid to uncover clues and gets exposed to human's nasty side). I mention this fact so you can see how quickly complex AI-human relations can dominate a story.

I will probably rename the AI, though. Amy already had a huge epigraph as Dr. Ess.  Only Janet (A.J.) Reid remains.

How about JAR JAR? Too late. I reread the reviews for both v4 (Queen Amy) and v5 (without her) and the concensus was to punt it, which was my thought at the time. I'll find another way to write about limiting AIs to avoid spontaneous sentience.

I'm busy updating chapter one (v3, yay!) and need a replacement for (Captain) Spirit-of-Wind. He's Mayan, but I removed the whole explanation to quicken the pace, so now everyone thinks he's Native American and that it's too much like Voyager. So, let's go for German! Achtung! I seem to have developed an affinity for Otto von Bismarck. Too historical? I considered the names of famous sea captains, but what are the odds that the captain's parents would name him for a sea captain and he ends up on a Realm ship as its captain? So I went for the big boat!

Thoughts?

I can't. It was built by the Nazis. The Realm wouldn't use it.

Woohoo! Chapter one of my book's third draft is up on the site. It's actually v6 of chapter one in the v3 book. I may take the v2 book down soon to avoid confusion.

I decided to include the drag queen AI in this updated chapter, but with a smaller role. Hopefully it works this time.

Ms. JAR (or is it AJR?), the name of the AI is Janette, in your honor. She will reappear in later chapters, although I don't know in what form yet. Serial killer is high on the list of possibilities. I am such an evil bastard.

Quick, go read!
Dirk

For the same reason they don't use molten grenades. They value man-to-man combat. It's discussed by Windsor and Montford near the end of the chapter.

What makes you think the Imperials are fighting fair? They're not following the rules of battle chess, although I don't plan to give more details yet. They fought dreadnought+9 cruisers against 3 cruisers. They sent 113 raiders & fighters against her, which, one assumes, is a hell of a lot more than she has. Also, Lupus even says during their opening discussion that she lost battle chess fair and square, and he has the video to prove it.

In hindsight... if the Imperials really are "cheating" by fielding too many men on the turf, Windsor might want to tell me that with a "Hey you! Reader! They're cheating!"

:-)

do you go by Jan or Janet? I can't believe I don't know that.