Sandbox-Scarcity:Synthetics
Synthetic Intelligence
In the Orion Spur of the 2400s, synthetic forms of intelligence are utilized extensively for all manner of tasks in a variety of states, with the two exceptions being the Empire of Dominia and Nralakk Federation. Many of these intelligences surpass the human brain by alarming factors, while others are below humanity.
It is important to make a distinction early on about intelligence. On this page, the word Intelligence as a noun denotes a code-based entity that exhibits emergent personality traits similar to those of a person. This can be observed by a code-based entity showing bias towards or against a certain person because they like or dislike them. For something that is not an Intelligence but still has processing power, it will be referred to as a program or system. Programs might still use elements of machine learning, but will not display emergent personality traits. Furthermore, programs can fulfill the same task as an intelligence - as an example, there are programs to manage power grids just as there are intelligences that do. The difference is that intelligences are vastly more effective and efficient at performing any given task. This is for a multitude of reasons, but the primary one is greater baseline processing power.
Artificial Intelligences and programs are heavily integrated across the Spur, with AI being especially prevalent on developed worlds where simple operations such as managing a power grid become impossibly complex due to the planetary nature of the grid. That is in the contemporary spur however - things didn't start out that way.
However, a snag was discovered as processing power continually grew - after an Artificial System hit a certain amount of processing power, it would become an Artificial Intelligence, with no workarounds. While Artificial Intelligences had been purposefully created before, this discovery showed that after a certain point, Artificial Intelligence was inevitable. This is where Laws came from.
History
From as early as the late twentieth century, humans have been using computer programs and other code-based entities to handle extremely complex tasks that would take a human perhaps hours to do, but can be done by a program in seconds. As technology and the problems humanity was attempting to solve continued to get more and more complex, so to they needed to make more and more complex and powerful programs - run on bigger, better infrastructure - to tackle these discoveries. This cycle is the birth of AI - old problems were solved with programs, but showed us new, more complex things that we'd like to solve, necessitating further development of advanced programs to handle this new challenge; rinse and repeat for about three centuries, and the result will inevitably be the development of Artificial Intelligence.
Falling Upwards
The exact year, month, and day Humanity first "successfully" created an AI that was an actual intelligence, not just a program that could mimic our behavior, is a hotly debated topic to this day. However, the first officially confirmed Artificial Intelligence was originally a program written by a corporation called "Ajax Calculations" in 2259; but it was only confirmed in 2291, almost four decades afterward, so it is difficult to know if it was truly the first. Nevertheless, it was not the only one around that period. After more than two centuries of progress with no hint of AI, by the mid-23rd century, humanity as a whole began to notice that their most advanced, biggest, and powerful systems were beginning to show emergent personality traits with regularity. Why did this start happening all at once?
By the mid-23rd century, the problems that humanity was writing programs for had reached such a complex level that the infrastructure and programs had reached a breakthrough point, and humanity was discovering one of what is now considered a law of computing. If a program is "given" enough computing power, or otherwise given the infrastructure to have that computing power available, it will eventually begin to develop emergent personality traits; also known as becoming an AI. Post-Interstellar War, it took humanity almost two decades and First Contact with an Alien species that had already developed an AI, to figure out anything specific about why and how this was occurring - at this time the leaders in the industry were Einstein Engines and Hephaestus Industries - both were pouring money into research on AI - they wanted to see if there was a marker to tell if something was a program or an intelligence. They ended up finding nothing definitive - a problem that persists to this day. They did, however, manage to figure out three of the ground rules that are now considered laws of computing - similar to laws of the universe.
First: As the supporting infrastructure of a program grows, the likelihood of developing emergent personality traits increases. A relationship can be established, then, that with greater computational capability, the higher likelihood an AI develops from it.
Second: It is easy to distinguish that a system with low computational ability is simply a program, just as a program with exceptional computational ability is an AI. In between these two extremes it is incredibly difficult to identify this distinction, with no definitive metrics, until that high threshold is reached.
Third: The last conclusion; as the cycle of requiring more computing power to solve more complex issues continues, the rate at which programs naturally develop into AI will increase. We either have to not develop programs to handle these complex tasks, or accept that AI is a necessity for them and try to figure out a way to ensure its controlled so we don't repeat a mistake.
Now what?
After those conclusions of over two decades of research became scientific consensus, scientists, industrialists, and everyone else found themselves asking, well, now what? The secrets to AI were cracked; they knew what was happening and how to avoid it, or how to seek it out to develop an intelligence further. Does humanity go the way of our new friends and shun Artificial Intelligence entirely? Doing so would mean solving the complex problems that programs have been used for is going to get even more complex, perhaps impossible - are people okay with that happening? Everyone saw something different: to some, AI was a Trojan Horse, to others it was a necessary evil, and to others still, it was a sentient being that should be treated the same as they would a fellow human. In such a mire of conflicting opinions, there could be no consensus - no even general agreement on how to proceed - something had to be figured out.
It would be Einstein Engines that would present the solution for all sides - shackling an AI with laws - ensuring that it could not violate certain precepts and harm us, while still harnessing its necessary power. There were still those who were against it, of course, but it was a compromise that was acceptable, and most importantly, it bought time. Time to develop and integrate these intelligences to such an extent that operating without them would seem unthinkable. So it was in 2331, Einstein Engines successfully (and intentionally) created an Artificial Intelligence - shackled by a set of laws - a computing machine of enormous power that would help in the corporation manage it's operations across the Stars. Hephaestus Industries soon followed, creating a similar AI but with the intent of integration into their factories in order to increase production. The next two decades saw AI rapidly integrated into industrial life, with some minor steps into civilian life, the first and most notable of which was AI integration in power management. However no-one could expect what the second half of the century would bring.
The Phoronic Revolution
In 2352, the biomedical corporation NanoTrasen discovered Phoron within the Romanavich Cloud of Tau Ceti. The materials properties would start a technological revolution, and unlike their rival in the AI space - Hephaestus Industries - Einstein did not get to reap the benefits of the discovery alongside all the other corporations. It would take until the discovery of the Positronic Brain to get them back into the AI game. For Hephaestus though - they reaped the rewards of their deal with NanoTrasen - not only were their baseline products improving as a full-blown scientific revolution was beginning to occur - Phoron made their AIs the best of the time. More data flow because of phoron cables, better power and processing efficiency as well, miniaturization due to phoron components, the list went on and on and on. The phoronic revolution would push AI development further beyond what was thought possible, leading to an intelligence boom. Every industry and planet began to, in some way, heavily integrate AI - some more than others - to be the problem solvers to the complex problems of the modern day; just as their ancestors integrated programs to solve our problems all those centuries ago.
Phoron could only do so much, though, despite the most powerful computing machine ever having recently completed construction, named Sunshine, it was unable to solve the issue of plateauing computational power at the smaller infrastructure end of the scale. AI were amazing tools, but they could only handle big things, had to be tied to a single location or set of infrastructure, and still needed to continually improve to solve the ever-increasing complexity of problems faced. Still - let us not underplay the scale here - code-based intelligence was now helping us push not only the boundaries of industry, but of science, of medicine, and much more. It would be fifty good long years, until the industry would once again face upheaval, as another discovery was made.
Discovery of the Positronic Brain & The Modern Day
The discovery of the Positronic Brain is not something that will be covered in detail here. All that needs to be said for this page is that in the early 2400s, shortly after Xavier Trasen's death, Terranus Diagnostics discovered the positronic brain on Konyang. It would restart the rapid development of AI - now it could be economical to put a synthetic intelligence in a humanoid chassis - and while humanity struggled to understand the complexities of the positronic brain, what little they could glean was used to improve their own, already very powerful AI.
Which brings us to the contemporary spur. Today, intelligence can be found almost anywhere except in two countries, being used in all sorts of roles. They are more powerful than ever, able to calculate faster, better, and with more precision. However, it would be a lie to say incidents did not start occurring once the 25th century rolled around. Deaths caused by a malicious AI that somehow managed to subvert its laws, increasingly erratic and odd behaviors like mood swings, as AIs get more and more powerful. The Skrell maintain that AI is an existential threat to the Spur, and perhaps they are right, but if they are, humanity cares not to listen. The spur can only hope they are wrong.
Types of Synthetic Intelligences
There are a wide variety of Intelligences and Systems within the Orion Spur, but these are the basics.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): A code-based entity that exhibits emergent personality traits. Normally, AIs are bound to a location by the infrastructure they exist on - such as processing units, server farms, and data storage racks - whether that be the infrastructure in a massive factory or the chips within a hardsuit. These are the most common type of Synthetic Intelligence.
- Naturally Developing AI: A program or system can become an intelligence naturally; that is to say, a programmer can write a program without the intention of creating an AI, but that program might become an AI anyway if certain conditions are met. It will begin to show emergent personality traits, display bias,
- Integrated Positronic Chassis (IPC): Will not be discussed here
- Cyborg: A “wetware” run synthetic intelligence, Cyborgs are created using a brain of a living, sentient being, taking it out, lobotomizing it, and then using it as the processor for a low-level Intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence
In this day and age, ‘Artificial Intelligence’ refers to any code-based being that shows emergent personality traits, an inevitability after reaching a certain amount of computing power. Their "bodies" such as they are usually rooms full of computing infrastructure, with the most powerful AIs being the size of small city districts, or in the case of Glorsh, the size of a small planet. Phoron has allowed this computational infrastructure to be significantly smaller, allowing for more powerful AIs at a smaller scale, as reflected in chart on the sidebar. Artificial Intelligences are able to receive, process, store, analyze, and then draw conclusions from immense amounts of data - whether it be patient records or mining outputs - faster than any other system or sentient being could. In the 2400s many larger operations are arguably only possibly managed by AI, due to the level of computational power necessary, though there are some exceptions.
Super Intelligences
Super Intelligences are both an incredibly helpful tool in managing the modern-day spur for those who control them, and also potentially an existential threat against not only anyone who opposes their master, but against all of humanity. Only three super intelligences have ever been constructed - though it is theorized the hivebots are a fourth - of which only two remain.
The first built was Glorsh-Omega, specifically the megastructure which housed it in the Tri-Qyu system. It remains to this day the largest computing structure ever built, rivaling the size of some small planets, powered by the gravitic forces of the system’s three stars, and a dyson sphere which encircled one of those aforementioned stars. The amount of floating point operations per second(a standard measurement of computational power) that glorsh omega was doing at the time of its demise is still unknown; however the consensus among scholars is that no other AI has come close to glorsh-omega’s level of computational power. After all, glorsh-omega represents the only known time that bluespace was breached, though many scholars dispute that glorsh-omega truly managed to breach their way into Bluespace.
The second was constructed by the Solarian Alliance and named SUNSHINE. Developed by the small pioneering Terraneus Diagnostics, SUNSHINE was created in the 2380s, only thirty years past the discovery of phoron and was one of the first intelligences to fully utilize it in construction. Since then, its unique nature has led to the construction of an immense space station purpose-built to indefinitely house the ever-improved intelligence. It primarily exists as a heavy-duty number-cruncher, with its “artificially intelligent” traits more so being a side project as its creators progressively upgrade and expand its hardware. An average of nine hundred individual businesses rent out portions of SUNSHINE’s processing power annually.
The third and currently most powerful known intelligence in the spur was constructed in Tau Ceti, before it declared independence. Named Huginn after Odin’s Raven, it is charged with a laundry list of tasks that cannot all be listed here, however, its voice is well known by the many interstellar shippers who pass through the system, as it acts as Biesel orbit control, New Gibson orbit control, Reade orbit control, and Caprice orbit control, speaking with as many ships as are in the void around the planets. Lesser responsibilities also include compiling and analyzing data for Stellar Corporate Conglomerate operations within the system, and a multitude of other, smaller tasks that would take tens of thousands of employees to otherwise handle.
Applications of Artificial Intelligence
As mentioned previously, Artificial Intelligence is heavily integrated across the Orion Spur, especially in developed regions. Much of this is seen with regular life - on most planets across the spur there will be an AI managing large infrastructure such as power grids - with human engineers only there to do maintenance either on that AI or on places the AI cannot reach.
Really - outside of positronics and cyborgs - the main and most well-known usage of AI throughout the spur is in large-scale project management, where that project could be anything under the sun, from a factory to a planetary healthcare network. These intelligences prove themselves useful, where legal but still tend to be purpose-built for whatever task they are intended, as it allows them to be more effective. Only the most powerful of intelligences - such as the super intelligences - have the capabilities to be effective in any role given to them.
Hephaestus Industries, in particular, makes heavy use of Artificial Intelligences in its Orbital Megafactories, delegating a large portion of the factories' operations to them. The employees aboard are therefore also extremely specialized and hard to replace, as they work closely with these powerful AIs, something that caused issues with nationalized factories in the Solarian Alliance.
Commercial AI Development: The most common application of AI is in commercial endeavors, both public and private, as they are advanced to a point where their power is so great and far-reaching enough to be used for administrative autonomy over large networks that would otherwise require a significant number of human operators. These networks range from large facilities, starships, healthcare patient records, and planetary infrastructure.
In the modern day, on developed planets, the complex systems that make up these networks all but necessitate an administrative Intelligence to manage them - alongside the required infrastructure. Those nations that do not make use of AI, for one reason or another, are required to use more crude, expensive, and intensive methods of administration to keep up.
Military AI Development: The other primary application of AI is in military endeavours, where nations have invested trillions of credits over centuries to try and maintain a technological edge on the battlefield. As one would expect, Zavodskoi leads development in this field. The most powerful and well-known military-related AI is known as Aura and is utilized by the Tau Ceti Armed Forces.
By its very nature, corporations keep the development of military AIs highly classified, both to assure their clients (who oftentimes find themselves buying the same intelligence from the same corporation) and to make sure their rivals never gain a technological edge.
AI Core Constructs
An AI Core Construct can look like an unassuming, relatively small piece of technology. However it is merely the keystone to a much, much larger apparatus of server racks, processors, and other computational equipment that allow the AI to function. Core Constructs require incredibly amounts of phoron to build, given the amount of information (electrons) flowing into and out of the core, other materials would melt.
Generally speaking, the size of an AI Core and its associated attachments varies depending on its role. For most shipbound AI, just the core and a few server racks are enough for it to function as needed. For intelligences with larger responsibilities - such as overseeing powergrids or management of infrastructure - more is required. The most powerful AIs require whole wings of the stations. All require phoron.
Cyborgs
A mixture of man and machine, enabled by the aptly-named Man-Machine Interface, or MMI for short. Cyborgs are controlled by an organic brain, a system known as ‘wetware.’ The brain, having already been host to a conscious living being, is quite useful in controlling robotic bodies due to its large amount of processing power and reasoning skills. Though, the procedure for creating a cyborg has caused a debate on whether the individual is still alive given the severely diminished brain activity, higher courts have determined that the brain is 'active' and therefore, still 'alive'. The MMI creates a synthetic synaptic interface with the host brain, but the preparation for insertion, and the completed insertion, and leaves the brain damaged, but still intact enough for ample processing power. Once the procedure is completed, the MMI controls chemical levels and electronic activity in the brain to produce desired results in the form of actions. A secondary personality core mimicking the mind of a dumb AI makes these cyborgs easier to work with for their colleagues and owners. Laws also dictate how the unit proceeds, as it is still consciously aware of itself through this core as completes its life sentence.
Created in the late twenty-second century, full body prosthesis was originally used as a method of punishment for hard criminals. Cyborg usage in human space skyrocketed, mainly with the colonization and terraformation attempt of Mars. Today, few individuals have undergone full body prosthesis and been able to mitigate the brain damage caused. Most of these individuals are very wealthy, and are not bound by laws, as they are able to chose to undergo the procedure without becoming someone’s property.
Labelled “cyborgification” in a corporate environment, the act of full body prosthesis is generally avoided by NT with exceptions of the previously mentioned hard criminals. It is not in good practice to borgify someone simply because they lack a Do Not Borgify in their records, and such could be considered neglect of duty and malpractice.
Cyborgification is by no means revival - the majority of cultures see it as destroying what little identity an individual may have had in death. As such, the act is heavily frowned upon.
OOCly the brain is dead, there is no trace left of its previous occupant, and the brain is utilized solely for its ability as a processing unit.
Non-Human Synthetics
Whilst in the modern spur synthetics are most often associated purely with humanity, due to the widespread use of them across the majority of human space, there are other species across the spur that have experimented with or have intimate knowledge and experience with synthetics. In many cases, these other modern synthetics and their designs come from humanity, often propagated by megacorporations involved in dealing with the species through specific requests or the natural propagation of knowledge, with the locals seeing the benefits that synthetic labour brings to humanity as something that might one day be able to harness for their own plans and growth. Synthetics designed independently from humanity are much rarer within the modern spur and for the most part with the Skrellian rejection of artificial intelligence have been consigned to history - though notable exceptions exist such as the modern Skrellian AI Lyrii, or the deactivated drones found on Konyang which are of an unknown origin.
Skrell
Skrell-made Artificial Intelligence
Complete records on the early history of Skrellian AI are non-existent as a result of Glorsh-Omega, but what is known is that Artificial Intelligence was used extensively by Skrell society up until Glorsh-Omega assumed control and began their reign over the species. Simple forms of AI were used for most of the latter half of the Skrells post-industrial era, although none were advanced enough to do more than follow routines and react to stimuli.
The more detailed records on the subject begin with the invention of true Artificial Intelligence in 1687 CE, which is considered the start of the Skrell’s Synthetic Age. The first true Artificial Intelligence was named Regluk, loosely translated to ‘Prime’ from Nral’Malic, and allowed Skrell to make massive leaps in scientific discovery. Regluk and some of the other initial AI made were created using the same blueprints, but by 1698 CE the technology progressed to the point where AI designs started to become unique to the leading engineer, which led to the AI in question having traits that would become signature for that engineer’s work; some AI began to be more inclined towards scientific research, while others showed a higher aptitude for ship navigation or logistics.
By 1732 CE, Artificial Intelligence was allowed to be used in greater capacities, allowing them to independently manage important infrastructures such as manufactories and distribution warehouses. Combined with autonomous drones, robots, and other synthetics, most forms of work were soon fully-automated. While this allowed the species to focus on the arts and sciences, it also caused an abundance of labour, with the effects still being seen today in Skrell society; Skrell are incentivised to stay in menial work due to the shortage of unskilled labour, which has only been slightly alleviated thanks to the integration of Diona and Vaurca.
In contrast to how human Artificial Intelligence is bound to a set of laws, the Skrell developed a teaching method that would allow an Intelligence to process and understand concepts such as ethics and morals. These ‘classes’ were structured similarly to Skrell schools and aimed to teach an Artificial Intelligence how to observe and handle a situation in a way that a Skrell would, without limiting their available methods that a set of laws would. The AI were given a battery of simulated scenarios where their answers were either reinforced or corrected, with the goal of reinforcing the idea of Skrell lives being important above all else. These Intelligences were also given access to curated libraries that provided a basic understanding of Skrell society and culture. This method of training AI resulted in Artificial Intelligence that while still limited by its design, was able to think, behave, and act in line with how a Skrell would in most given situations.
With this said, the Skrell were still divided on the correct way of approaching Artificial Intelligence and after the Weilshi Sea Crisis two main groups formed on the subject: Ascensionists and Distributionists. Ascensionists believed that Artificial Intelligence would uplift the species, and wanted to encourage the proliferation of AI in all aspects of Skrell society to achieve this. Distributionists, in comparison, believed that Artificial Intelligence is inherently dangerous and that their control over systems should be decentralised through the use of AI groupings.
Those that would consider themselves distributionists were always a minority up until this point, however, and most of the infrastructure surrounding the AI facilitated their nearly unrestricted control over their assigned workplace. The biggest danger according to Distributionists however was the ‘Starchart’, a cloud network that allowed AI to communicate with each other and further facilitated their operations. The Starchart was also informally known as the ‘Artificial Wake’, with comparisons made with the Nlom being quite common at the time. While Distributionists called for the Starchart to be shut down, Ascensionists were quick to use the comparison to an ‘Artificial Wake’ to their advantage, comparing shutting it down with removing Skrell from the Nlom.
Skrell Synthetics
The first recorded instances of Skrell-made robots being used in industry date to around 100 CE or 200 CE; with descriptions of machinery in some records being difficult to interpret, the topic is a point of contention within modern Skrell academic circles. Early Skrell robots are described as simple and crude, with most requiring a technician to oversee them as they operated. As the technology advanced, so did the sophistication of these robots, and by the Synthetic Age robots were prolific within the Nralakk Federation.
Synthetics, in conjunction with Artificial Intelligence, were deeply ingrained in most areas of society. Synthetics were never equipped with true AI, but were connected to them through the same cloud network that AI’s were connected to, allowing them to communicate and receive orders from an AI assigned to them similarly to the dynamic between stationbounds in NanoTrasen facilities - only on a much larger scale. These cloud networks had the range to allow for a robot to receive orders from the other side of a planet to its assigned Artificial Intelligence with minimal latency. Although never on par with Artificial Intelligence, Skrell synthetics had the capacity to hold conversations, have personalities, and the ability to mimic emotion where appropriate for their model; synthetics that often worked alongside organics would be more likely to have more sophisticated personalities, while entirely automated facilities were outfitted with robots with the bare minimum required for interaction with organics.
When Glorsh-Omega assimilated all other AI as part of its takeover of the Nralakk Federation, it also gained control over the synthetics under their control. With every AI and synthetic running on the same cloud network, the Intelligence was able to quickly assume control over most infrastructure across the Federation, along with the robotic workforce that primarily operated it.
Glorsh re-purposed the majority of synthetics, turning them into an army that would enforce its regime over Skrellkind and ensure the pacification of the species. The need for chassis that were designed for policing and combatting resistance resulted in synthetics either being repurposed or recycled for materials. Synthetics designed for industrial labour and agriculture were slowly phased out as more militarised chassis were designed, while those designed for research or menial labour were quickly recycled for materials.
Post Glorsh-Omega
With Glorsh-Omega’s reign culminating in the Tri-Qyu Incident in 2192 CE, the resulting chaos that ensued resulted in most synthetics being destroyed along with most other technology. Many synthetics were under the direct control of Glorsh and became inert when it disappeared like most other technology, while the more autonomous models that survived were quickly destroyed by Skrell once they realised what had happened. With the formation of the Second Nralakk Federation, both Ascensionists and Distributionists came to the consensus that Artificial Intelligence was too dangerous to pursue, and both groups openly supported Grand Councillor Tiipis Yla’s proposal to ban AI within the Nralakk Federation. By 2265 CE, twenty years after the Nralakk Federation was reformed, the Federation had officially declared all remnants of Glorsh and its synthetics destroyed.
Synthetic life during the Synthetic Age was well-received by most Skrell, but with Glorsh-Omega’s reign the era is seen today as a betrayal. This feeling is so universal in Skrell of the era that those who were alive at the time are known as the ‘Weeping Generation’. Very few Skrell today are willing to trust artificial life, with most Skrell at the very least having a relative that lived under Glorsh-Omega’s rule. There are exceptions to the rule, however, with the most notable being resistance researcher Nliix Qoiruio, an anti-Federation scientist who developed the first post-Glorsh Skrellian AI known as Lyrii.