AI Question
- Thread starter Pappy55uk
- Start date
I find a HAL-9000 style supercomputer as the brain of a spaceship far more believable than robots in humanoid shapes (or even an AI housed inside a cloned human-like body). Given that ED prefers to portrait a more realistic universe, I would expect that such an AI would likewise not look at all human-like.
P.S: HAL was not evil, he just tried to follow two conflicting paradigms in an attempt to do what he thought was good.
Yaffle
Volunteer Moderator
AI was (is?) banned in the ED universe, but I don't recall why. Could be a Dune-esque Butlerian Jihad, I don't know.
If there were to be an AI I'd agree with Mephane, why put it in a very limited human shape? Surely the AI would design itself the best physical layout based on its needs, rather than being a culmination of different selective pressures over countless millennia.
An Iain M Banks Mind makes sense, for example. Or a Wintermute from Neuromancer.
If there were to be an AI I'd agree with Mephane, why put it in a very limited human shape? Surely the AI would design itself the best physical layout based on its needs, rather than being a culmination of different selective pressures over countless millennia.
An Iain M Banks Mind makes sense, for example. Or a Wintermute from Neuromancer.
If there is... why would you want to know about it now???
I'd much rather it was unknown before being discovered in the live game.
AI does exist in Elite, but it is very illegal. And is one of the few things besides the Thargoids that the different factions will ally against. Computers and robots do exist, but are not sentient - fo rthe most part. Of course, what is hidden deep in space is anybody's guess
Michael
/5char
Culture minds would likely take a very dim view of both the Empire and the Federation, with their conflicting but equally abusive power structures.
I, for one, would welcome these omnipotent but benevolent allies against oppresion and the chance to undertake missions on their behalf, should Special Circumstances require such action.
Exactly, he was an innocent caught in a world of secrets and lies..
As for an evil AI.. its probably not evil, just actively wants nothing to do with us water bags.
Lets hope the Empire does not discover it first.. try to wipe it out.. then say it was just a group or rouge coffee machines!
Actually, I am in favor of the Empire eradicating any machines that produce rouge coffee. That stuff is disgusting.
I hope there will be no such black and white hollywood scifi thing as an "evil AI".
I do not mind there being a powerful artificial intelligence somewhere. On the contrary, I love that stuff. And it can be dangerous to humans, perhaps. But I would like it to be mostly indifferent in a vastly superior way instead of evil per se. I would like it to be incomprehensible to us players and it's actions inscrutable for our intelligence. I would like there to be no communication possible.
Sometimes we might meet the AI's machines in unknown space, but we can only observe them and are powerless to do anything else.
Last edited:
What about Thargoids
Could you imagine a Elite without Thargoids? There you'll have your "evil" A.I.
They're more a collective hive mind society of living beings, no? Something between Heinleins Bugs and Clarkes Joined.
Ive read a few...
By Fred Saberhagen, I still have my Penguin copy of Berserker. Star Trek - TOS also had an episode with a berserker-like machine in it, I was never sure if the script writers had taken the idea from Saberhagen.
Saberhagen's novels preceded the ST:ToS episode 'Doomsday Machine'. The influence is obvious, IMO.