Artificial intelligences (Beware a few Fallout and Bess/Ben spoilers)

[Alexa]

Am I the only one obsessed with this? Surely not. This is a good place to share your thoughts.


What is your stand on these AIs? Artificial intelligences and their forms (Androids, synths, machinery, annoying little holograms..)


I really like the story aspect that they provide. In a galaxy rife with organics of all types and variety, AIs are the true aliens here. Hand-So, your cold, calculating bitch with the twist that she wants to take over the galaxy in order to subdue it into a state of pleasure (AND CAN SUCCEED). Bess/Ben, Grow-Your-Own-AI, who you get to shape as the story progresses, either into a brain-dead sex-slave or a lively bookworm with a love for the PC. 


JimT really hits on this with Bess/Ben. Good job. Marry me.


This whole obsession with AIs in TiTS was dead for a little while after I started doing life-things. However, I played Fallout 4 recently. Who hasn't? Shelled out for a new graphics card and everything so I could play it smoothly, much hype. It really interested me, however, when I got into the factions of Fallout 4. The Brotherhood, Railroad, and Institute, the three major factions of Fallout 4 (other than the Minutemen).  The Brotherhood thought the synths were abominations and should be destroyed, the Railroad thought they were just like people, and should be saved. The Institute's intentions were a little ambiguous if you ask me. I couldn't tell if it planned to use synths as machines for now and use them to replace man later on, or if it just wanted to keep them as slaves forever. Either way, the Institute was very firmly rooted in the idea that synths were machines and should be treated as such, wiping memory freely, etc.


Isn't it a little cruel that the Institute sees its own creation as nothing more than a machine? Wiping said machines' memories and reprogramming them, despite the machines looking just like humans, having even shown to go out and pursue lives of their own? Should the Institute be playing god? Or is it humanity's duty to create its successor, for the better of intelligent life itself?


Or that the Brotherhood considers synths abominations, despite the the synths being indistinguishable from humanity? Paladin Danse is a synth, and he's one of the most loyal of Brotherhood soldiers. 


Should the synths be replacing humanity? A clean, fresh start from the warlike species? Ready for the irradiated world? New and improved?


I find the whole topic of artificial intelligences and their social impacts to be quite an interesting one.


I wanted to bring the subjects to light and see what you all thought,  if you read into it or anything. In this topic I'm focusing on the social impact of AIs. I thought of bringing something similar to Fallout's synths to TiTS, some sort of storyline. 


What do you think? Thinking a little deep for a text-based porn game or post-apocalyptic videogame?
Also, for those of you with an eye out for AI characters, take a look at AMP, my own long WIP creation (Picking back up on writing, now!)

 

[Void Director]

The case of the Institute and their synths was probably the most interesting part of Fallout 4 for me. I wish Bethesda fleshed it out a bit more as it felt like there were a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe I missed some lore and perhaps the DLC's will shed further light.


The majority of the members of the Institute treat synths like they are not at all sentient or deserving of moral consideration. The game does not really give us much of an explanation as why the smart intellectual scientists of the instute don't seem to pick up on the fact that the synths are extremely intelligent and easily pass every variation of the Turing test. There is some disagreement within the Institute though. I recall hearing one of the guys in the robot assembly department commenting on how synths would eventually evolve and replace humans, not just serve them, and implying that was a good thing.


Probably the main reason the Institute thinks of synths as tools is because they saw their slow evolution from gen 1 skelton robots to gen 3 full humanoids. As such they see the process as a gradual improvement with no single moment where the synths can be called sentient or conscious. Of course they may also just hold the opinion because it is convenient for them. After all people, including intellectuals, have dehumanized and enslaving people for centuries.


There also seemed to be some subtext that the Institute was fully aware that its synths were sentient but chose to ignore this fact because they were afraid of them. This evidence mostly comes from Father. You can read on Father's terminal that he discontinued the research that led to Kellogg's cybernetic implants, despite the fact that they granted virtual immortality. He justifies this by saying its the Instutue's goal to preserve humanity as it is, not some cyberized or otherwise advanced form of it. In other words the Institute is a distinctly non transhumanist organisation. They are actually quite bioconservative (well its current leadership is anyway). They are pretty much the logical conclusion of Vault Techs modo "A better future, underground" despite the fact that Vault Tech was never serious about that. As such they would view humanity being replaced by synths as terrible, even if the synths were smarter, stronger, kinder, and better adapted to the wasteland. In a dialog Father also mentions that the synths are fine as long as they are kept in the institute where they can be monitored and controlled. But he notes they are faster and stronger than humans and could be every dangerous (implying possibly existentially so) on the outside world. So it might be the Institute choses to treat synths like equipment because they think doing otherwise would lead to the extinction of the human race (while a minority faction of them is fine with synths replacing humans).


Anyway, that's my little rant for now. I wish Bethesda gave a little more detail about how the Institute justify its positions. Of course I chose to side with the Institute my first time through. My headcannon is that after becoming director my character changed the way synths were treated, but it would be nice nice if Bethesda had a real epiloge instead of a generic 2 minute clip.

 

[Alexa]

The case of the Institute and their synths was probably the most interesting part of Fallout 4 for me. I wish Bethesda fleshed it out a bit more as it felt like there were a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe I missed some lore and perhaps the DLC's will shed further light...

Amen to that. That's kind of why I wanted to continue it on in TiTS. To an extent, anyhow. I particularly wanted to flesh out the relationships between synths and humans. 


As for the creation of the synths, why would the Institute create them, if only to shackle them to the its operations? Mankind, redefined is finding itself a slave to the Institute. I sided with the Institute as well. Seeing the chaos that humanity had wreaked upon itself, it seemed logical to replace it with a new form of intelligent life, much like humanity, just without all the bad. 
 


I really would like to see more of this in TiTS. Not just grown AIs, but actual organizations seeking to bring about new races. I think it'd be interesting. 

 

[Number13]

You also have to remember of the concept of GI's.


AI are Artificial Intelligence, and they generally try to mimic human thought processes and emotions but weren't built to truly understand this.


GI's, meaning Genuine Intelligence, were built to understand human emotions, dreams and thought processes, and act much more humane with their decision.


A good Example is from the movie I.Robot, comparing the AI VIKI and the GI Sonny and how show their human values.


I'm just mentioning this point for any further discussion on this topic. From what I've seen, Gianna can be classified as an GI, Hand-So a GI and Bess an AI that developed into a GI.

 

[Alexa]

You also have to remember of the concept of GI's.


AI are Artificial Intelligence, and they generally try to mimic human thought processes and emotions but weren't built to truly understand this.


GI's, meaning Genuine Intelligence, were built to understand human emotions, dreams and thought processes, and act much more humane with their decision.


A good Example is from the movie I.Robot, comparing the AI VIKI and the GI Sonny and how show their human values.


I'm just mentioning this point for any further discussion on this topic. From what I've seen, Gianna can be classified as an GI, Hand-So a GI and Bess an AI that developed into a GI.

Weren't GIs 'grown intelligences', according to the codex entry? Or has it been updated?
GIs being actual simulated minds and AIs being designed?


I haven't watched that movie, actually. Was it any good?


You may want to make the distinction between genuine and grown, that may cause some confusion. Perhaps we shouldn't use initials anymore.


Also on the concept of AIs, I thought about 'evolved' AIs, another class. Rather than being designed by programmers or captured from a living creature and simulated, what about an rudimentary AI given the ability to develop itself put inside a simulation, given a specific goal?  Kind of like what you mentioned about how Bess/Ben gained the capacity to understand human emotions, dreams, thought processes, etc. I believe it's called intelligence explosion.

 

[BlueRaven]

GI means grown intelligence in the context of TiTs. They are also referred to as Organic AI.


Organic AI's: "These are created by taking a brainscan of undeveloped infant brain and placing the simulated approximation of a human mind into a time-accelerated 'teaching' supercomputer. Programmatic drives replace human drives for food, shelter, and companionship. The specific ways that these drives are embedded in the AI vary by company and model, hugely impacting the resulting AI's personality."


Coded AI's are entirely different. They're designed from the ground up without copy-pasting a human mindset.

Coded AI's:"These are created by hundreds of thousands of lines of code along with embedded sentience libraries and subroutines. They rely almost entirely on logic for their decision-making processes, allowing them to be faster and more mathematically powerful on comparable hardware than an organic AI."


However, Bess is an AI who has prototype emotional libraries to reference. This doesn't make her an organic AI. She's a Coded AI with emotions. By the end of her story path, her brain doesn't even resemble anything human, because she's learned to self-code her brain.

 

[Alexa]

GI means grown intelligence in the context of TiTs. They are also referred to as Organic AI.


Organic AI's: "These are created by taking a brainscan of undeveloped infant brain and placing the simulated approximation of a human mind into a time-accelerated 'teaching' supercomputer. Programmatic drives replace human drives for food, shelter, and companionship. The specific ways that these drives are embedded in the AI vary by company and model, hugely impacting the resulting AI's personality."


Coded AI's are entirely different. They're designed from the ground up without copy-pasting a human mindset.

Coded AI's:"These are created by hundreds of thousands of lines of code along with embedded sentience libraries and subroutines. They rely almost entirely on logic for their decision-making processes, allowing them to be faster and more mathematically powerful on comparable hardware than an organic AI."


However, Bess is an AI who has prototype emotional libraries to reference. This doesn't make her an organic AI. She's a Coded AI with emotions. By the end of her story path, her brain doesn't even resemble anything human, because she's learned to self-code her brain.

I'm shocked you created an account just to reply to my thread. :') 


I'm glad we can keep this little post for reference for future posts.


Bess's name is everywhere here, I can certainly see. I hope JimT sees this thread ( cough cough Cue JimT..). I haven't been stalking his posts lately, but I believe he's going to be or already in the process of making new Bess/Ben content. I'd like to see her/him taken further.


For those of you who watched Ex Machina, is it human even if you can visibly see that it is NOT human, but can genuinely emulate human thought and emotion? 


I'd certainly like to see Bess/Ben expanded upon for more excursions out of the ship.

 

[EmperorG]

For those of you who watched Ex Machina, is it human even if you can visibly see that it is NOT human, but can genuinely emulate human thought and emotion? 

While I didn't see Ex Machina, I feel the answer to that question for me is that if I can clearly see you're not human but have human thought/emotion, then you're a sentient being. Not Human, but yes a sentient. What I mean by this is that most of the alien species in TiTs don't look human but sure share human emotions well enough, cultural differences not withstanding, and I wouldn't call them human so why should I call a machine human then?

 

[Nonesuch]

The case of the Institute and their synths was probably the most interesting part of Fallout 4 for me. I wish Bethesda fleshed it out a bit more as it felt like there were a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe I missed some lore and perhaps the DLC's will shed further light.


The majority of the members of the Institute treat synths like they are not at all sentient or deserving of moral consideration. The game does not really give us much of an explanation as why the smart intellectual scientists of the instute don't seem to pick up on the fact that the synths are extremely intelligent and easily pass every variation of the Turing test. There is some disagreement within the Institute though. I recall hearing one of the guys in the robot assembly department commenting on how synths would eventually evolve and replace humans, not just serve them, and implying that was a good thing.

The thing you need to understand about the Institute is... well, first you need to understand it's Bethesda writing, which equals astonishing laziness plus plotholes everywhere. But let's do what we end up doing in every single one of their games since Oblivion, and finish their quite obviously unfinished game for them.


The thing you need to understand about the Institute is that they obfuscate about everything. They take their cues from the man they all look up to, Shaun, who is a manipulative, sociopathic liar. They're a very isolated group of scientists who have developed an inbred intellectual culture where everything is basically hypothetical, including the real world lives they routinely toy with or destroy. They say they want to secure the future of the Commonwealth with SCIENCE, but they patently have no interest in the actual Commonwealth whatsoever. Hell, the fact they've spent how many years down there with the tech they have, and the land outside looks the way it does, tells its own story. They want to secure the future of the Institute, because that's all they really know, and that's at the root of everything they do; if they could spend the rest of eternity in their magical little bubble making robot gorillas, that'd be great.


So when it comes to gen 3 synths: Shaun knows damn well they're sentient by every measure of sentience you'd care to use, but it's expedient for him to pretend they're not, so that's what his line is. The rest of the Institute go along with that, because this intelligent slave workforce they've now got keeps everything running. You'll hear scientists talk about the fact the gen 3s dream, the fact they develop wants and depression, but it's always in purely hypothetical terms, and the dept leaders basically avoid the question. If you go along the Railroad route, the guy you rope into helping you clearly doesn't believe there's going to be any consequences for his actions; it's all just another fun experiment. He fucking kills himself once he fully appreciates the magnitude of his actions.


There's a lot of contradictory information presented about the gen 3s which make them frustrating to properly debate, but that has to be seen in the context of the Institute telling a lot of half-truths about them.

 

[Etis]

is it human even if you can visibly see that it is NOT human, but can genuinely emulate human thought and emotion?

Depends on definition of "human".


If non-human being can be adequately understood with cognition patterns made for humans, it is human in terms of heuristic logic which is natively used by humans. But logical superstructure of our minds knows, that this is not safe assumption, since it is can give false positives, like in case of any characters from books or games (can you say you never felt emotional link with character?). Technically, AIs are nothing more than complicated state machines. But the catch is... Humans are ones too, just built on different element base. So this question have no comfortable answer. Any lines between humans and machines are actually vague and controversial. You can draw one for yourself whenever you want. Or screw it and use your heuristic patterns. You can be wrong, but this is a usual human thing to be wrong, after all.

 

[Void Director]

The thing you need to understand about the Institute is... well, first you need to understand it's Bethesda writing, which equals astonishing laziness plus plotholes everywhere. But let's do what we end up doing in every single one of their games since Oblivion, and finish their quite obviously unfinished game for them.


The thing you need to understand about the Institute is that they obfuscate about everything. They take their cues from the man they all look up to, Shaun, who is a manipulative, sociopathic liar. They're a very isolated group of scientists who have developed an inbred intellectual culture where everything is basically hypothetical, including the real world lives they routinely toy with or destroy. They say they want to secure the future of the Commonwealth with SCIENCE, but they patently have no interest in the actual Commonwealth whatsoever. Hell, the fact they've spent how many years down there with the tech they have, and the land outside looks the way it does, tells its own story. They want to secure the future of the Institute, because that's all they really know, and that's at the root of everything they do; if they could spend the rest of eternity in their magical little bubble making robot gorillas, that'd be great.


So when it comes to gen 3 synths: Shaun knows damn well they're sentient by every measure of sentience you'd care to use, but it's expedient for him to pretend they're not, so that's what his line is. The rest of the Institute go along with that, because this intelligent slave workforce they've now got keeps everything running. You'll hear scientists talk about the fact the gen 3s dream, the fact they develop wants and depression, but it's always in purely hypothetical terms, and the dept leaders basically avoid the question. If you go along the Railroad route, the guy you rope into helping you clearly doesn't believe there's going to be any consequences for his actions; it's all just another fun experiment. He fucking kills himself once he fully appreciates the magnitude of his actions.


There's a lot of contradictory information presented about the gen 3s which make them frustrating to properly debate, but that has to be seen in the context of the Institute telling a lot of half-truths about them.

You're probably right. The Institute seems far too comfortable. When they see how poorly the rest of the Commonwealth is doing they are more concerned with protecting their own buble than trying to bring change. One nitpick is I probably would not call Shaun a psychopath, eg someone who lacks empathy or moral concern anyone. Rather he is very tribalistic, his concerns only extend to his own small social group and not to humanity in general. if he trere uley cared for no one except himself there would be no point in trying to get the player to defend the Institute after he was already diagnosed with fatal cancer. Although perhaps there were some  social clues about him in the plot that I missed.


Of course players who go the Institute  route can handwave most of this away by saying that in the end they are director, and thus have the power to steer the institute towards good (possibly, using either force or that level 10 charisma score to get the department heads on board). Unfortunately, Bethesda does not even attempt give us a proper epiloge on the fates of the various factions or how the player was able to steer them. I understand not wanting the game to end abruptly at the end of the main quest like fallout 3 but they could have just had some kind of retire button that gave a fallout new vegas style epilogue.

 

[Yvenne]

This is an interesting discussion and all, but are you guys sure this is the right forum for this topic? The way I see it, it's more a general opinion on AI, and a lot more about Fallout than TiTS or any ideas for a scene xD

 

[Nonesuch]

>Bumps dead topic to say it isn't on-topic


>Doesn't offer anything on-topic to discuss


Piss off.