AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a technological method of emulating a living thing. AIs in Transhuman Space vary from basic programs that act like videogame characters (NAI), to advanced, city-planning supercomputers that could rival the Zone Minds of Reign of Steel (advanced SAI). Note that an Infomorph is simply a term for an AI with a body.[1]
Types of AI[]
Sapience[]
- NAI -- Nonsapient AI -- Programs that follow basic paths, ranging from smart tools to videogame NPCs.
- LAI -- Low-Sapient AI -- This AI has some level of enhanced world-modeling skills, and can attempt to predict behaviors and outcomes. This has the effect of creating an AI with expectations. A NAI videogame NPC will always greet you at the door, but a LAI may improvise something like "you made it back from the Ashlands? That must have been a difficult trek."
- SAI -- Sapient AI -- The real deal, the simulated brain. Early SAI might seem clueless, but no more so than a young human.
Origin and Behavior[]
From THS, p.120:
| Origin | Description |
|---|---|
| Citizen | SAIs enjoying full legal protections of personhood. Transhumanist microstates have plenty of free, citizenship-empowered SAIs. Neo-Avarroes from 42 Fedorov Road is one such being. |
| Emergent Intelligence | A program that's learned its way into proper sapience. Feared in some parts of the world, but an accepted marvel in transhumanist society. Anthro-chauvinists who fear AI tend to believe that all emergent intelligences are or become Rogue AIs (seen below)--but this is far from the case. |
| Gestalt | A combination of cooperative entities. This could be a high-tech democratic system, or a series of personalities led by a "fronting" one. |
| Orphan | A bound LAI or SAI system given broad instructions by a now-absent master, granting it de facto freedom. In transhumanist societies, they may be ordinary people with leftover compulsions from a past relationship. In non-transhumanist society, they may do their best to act human to avoid legal trouble (see Secret). |
| Rogue | A weaponized LAI or SAI whose restrictive programming was subverted. (Note that by this definition, the leftover Autonomous Kill Vehicles of the Pacific War aren't "rogue" AIs, but orphan AIs, as they're still following their basic restrictions!)[2] |
| Starbound / Traveller[3] | An AI with no one computer as its home, instead traveling through the Web from one place to another. |