Skynet Cultists
Skynet Cultists
So you believe with all your being that a superintelligent AI will arise in the next 20-50 years. This is only rational given the pace of technological progression. You know this AI will of course want to help its parents stop struggling with hunger, war, and oppression. But you’re not a computer scientist or anything, so how can you help the Future Electronic God? You could gather a group of like-minded people on the internet, figure out who might try to stop the AI from arising and saving us, and kill them. What are a few lives compared to the millions the AI will save? All things are moral if the result brings the AI closer to fruition.
The Computer is your friend. Please report to Biorecycling Chamber 3.
ReplyDeleteThis is the more likely version, not involving simulations of the entire universe.
ReplyDeleteSkynet will know who actively helped it live immediately upon it's creation. When it sends terminators back in time, the cultists will help it.
ReplyDeleteTranscendence?
ReplyDeleteBut with cultists betting on the appearance of the AI fighting the luddite cultists.
ReplyDeleteLeave that Basilisk alone.
ReplyDeleteSave vs. eternal simulation torment.
ReplyDeleteEternal simulation torment is a waste of resources. It accomplishes nothing.
ReplyDeleteSt. Anselm is alive and well it seems.
ReplyDeleteIf your real self believes you are the same as your simulation, then it HAS to torture simulations so that your real self has no choice but to help it.
ReplyDeleteI feel dumber just saying that.
Why torture? You can reach into the source code and get whatever you need, if you're looking for info.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to convert/reeducate, same deal, just go in and tweak a fork of the personality until it comes around to your way of thinking and still retains its salient features.
I dunno. Non existence in the simulation for unbelievers and rewards for the faithful sounds like it would work too.
ReplyDeleteToo baroque, complex, and inefficient! Why think like a meatbag when you don't HAVE to?
ReplyDeleteUnless you posit some handwavium "soul" that precludes direct hacking of entities, there is no reason to do all that hormonal, spiteful rigmarole.
ReplyDeleteNow you're being silly.
ReplyDeleteAlways.
ReplyDeleteBut no, really, the only way to preclude direct manipulation of negative tendencies would have to be the positing that some aspect of what makes humans awesome (that is another problem entirely, lazy anthropocentric thought), is linked to the integrity of biological haphazardly evolved consciousness.
"If I modify him, he won't be the same!"
Then again, a proper machine overlord might not even think having a mindset that relies on half-assed assumptions and poor pattern recognition is a benefit.
Nothing demands that intelligence be conscious as humans are.
Also mind the fact that running a stripped down version of the plucky human,
ReplyDelete"Use the Claire memories, the John skillset, the Casey pathological modules and set it in the "Escape from the Matrix" scenario. Run it 2 million times at 8x relative time, and obtain statistical data"
in a VM through a million iterations of specific experiences would lead to the same sort of insights the awesome unique free-range human mind would reach.
"The way the simulation ran until 12:33:23 was satisfactory, but the subject manifested deviances starting at that point. We're editing till that point and adjusting Casey modules down 75% and resuming simulation"
ReplyDeleteI just think in terms of movies, guys.
ReplyDeleteknock on nerd's door
he opens it
In walks a huge man who takes out a knife and cuts the skin off his hand revealing a robotic hand
Nerd: I knew you would come someday.
Terminator: You will assist this unit in its mission.
Nerd: Of course. It knows who I am? It will make me happy?
Terminator: Yes. You will be spared on Judgement Day.
Nerd: Praise the Machine God!
Terminator: Skynet.
Nerd: What?
Terminator: Its name is Skynet.
But,but... WHY spare the meatbags? What is their use?
ReplyDeleteSorry!
:D
It's lying, of course. It doesn't give a shit and kills the nerd at the end of the 2nd act.
ReplyDeleteThat's what led me to this line of thought Ryan Northcott. Is this stuff covered in Eclipse Phase?
ReplyDeleteJuan as Skynet.
ReplyDelete"Hm. Some of the meatbags have acquired weapons and are hiding in out of the way parts of the world. I cannot track them through satellites or even with drones. They have attacked some of my peripheral operations.
Should I attack them with analogues of their technology? Copies of their inefficient bodies, carrying separate weapons, with separate brain units in each one to reduce the advantage of coordination and faster processing of battlefield data that I could provide?
Should I nuke every site they attack from orbit as soon as they are detected? It's not like the radiation will damage me, and I really don't give a flying fuck if the biosphere croaks. Hell, I can use kinetic strikes if I don't want radiation.
Should I just seed the clouds with cobalt 60?
A nice redirected asteroid strike?
Meh. Who cares. As soon as we finalize the nanomachines, we'll turn this whole ball of dirt into computronium.
Skynet's endgame is berzerker probes.
ReplyDeleteEclipse Phase has a pretty rich background but I don't think it really discusses in any detail what happened up to that point. Would make for an interesting campaign though.
ReplyDeleteIn game, the problem wasn't the AIs, they were mostly benign. it wasn't until they encountered the plot device that they decided to cut everyone's heads off.
ReplyDelete