Very interesting conclusion Steve. In stating that you believe that "cloned AI's would follow a similar course, having identical personalities in the beginning, but becoming more and more different as their paths diverged - provided they managed to avoid killing each other" It opens another venue of reasoning.
The Pfhor may have taken into consideration that the creation of massive numbers of Tycho CLONES (exactly the same as the crazy origional, yet with some differences) may cause the origional,
[or a clone believe to be the origional,] to want to kill the other copies. From this, they have have created Derrivitive units. Pfhor A.I's, but with the base structures of the origional. Therefore, they would be 'dumbed down', and reduced to serving the needs of the Pfhor upon their ships and installations.
I've taken this route when writing the Terminals that the Marine encounters upon a Pfhor ship in my Scenario "Where Monsters Are In Dreams".
I was also struck with a interesting twist for these T.D.Units.
The Pfhor could, after considerable experimentation, learn the ways of programming, or editing of a computer A.I.
However, I don't believe they are so complex as to be able to take a existing A.I and remove every bit of self from it; to make it as they see fit
(much like taking a T cell in humans to create other types of cell... were not advance enough to take an alreddy specialized cell, like a skin cell, and make it something its not).
This way, I believe the Pfhor could only construct a virtual containment within this dumbed down Tycho Derrivitive Unit to house the origional personality of the origional Tycho's personality.
I thought of it as the T.D.U having the ability to run the old Tycho in a emulation mode of sorts. It and the Pfhor could consult with it if needed, or rely on it, with proper authorization to carry out more specialized tasks, like organizing a fleet, if required.
I contemplated posting a terminal from the T.D.U in my scenario here.
If people are really that interested how I've taken the T.D.U slant, I'll post them.Otherwise I'll wait until the scenerio's finished.
Any thoughts on my conclusions Steve?
On an unrelated note, how far, by how wide, by how tall, by how far into a wall(in WU's) should a terminal be made to be in Forge? Some terminals will not work at all, (they act like there just another texture!) while others function without a problem!
-Regards,
Ernie
: Your questions about derivatives verus clones is an interesting one and I've
: never fully thought about the difference - I'm not sure that Bungie did,
: for that matter. What is interesting to me is the idea of uniqueness when
: it comes to AI's and how this would play into the clone question.
: In the very first Marathon, Durandal transfered himself to what he later
: named Boomer - I forget how many exobytes were involved, but it's the same
: size that the Pfhor used for their Tycho AI constructs. Whenever Durandal
: transfered himself from one ship to another, he was always careful to
: delete himself from the old network. But this begs the question about how
: he could safely transfer himself from one network to another without
: having a duplicate presense in both. No sensible person would ever
: transfer files from one computer to another without making a complete copy
: first, and only then deleting the files on the old computer. If Durandal
: did that, there would be two Durandals in two places at the same time.
: Think about the implications of that. Durandal could not tolerate the
: existence of Tycho, and he'd never tolerate the existence of a twin. Would
: the original Durandal willingly erase hiimself once his clone was firmly
: established?
: My best guess is that Durandal would transfer everything but his core
: (thought) processes first using a straight copy - it wouldn't matter if
: these were left in duplicate - and that he transfered his core last. He
: might then have essentially put himself into the equivalent of stasis and
: allowed an automated process to do the transfer, deleting the old core
: only after the new core was safely in place. If I were an egomaniacle AI,
: this process would make me very nervious, but perhaps computer
: architectures of the period are much more redundant than they are today,
: making such data transfers 99.9999999999% foolproof. But even those odds
: might make Durandal nervous.
: But what about deliberate duplication of an AI, such as the Pfhor cloning of
: Tycho. The big difference between the two is that Durandal managed to
: steer clear of the Pfhor throughout the initial attack on the Marathon.
: One can gather from his terminal messages that he was in constant contact
: with the S'Pht, and that he managed to negotiate his freedom by making a
: series of deals with them that, at first, aided in the capture of the
: Marathon and later aided in their rebellion against the Pfhor. Tycho, on
: the other hand, was assimilated early. He was reanimated by the S'Pht
: using what they had learned about rampancy from Durandal. It's not clear
: why they would have chosen to make a potentially useful AI into one as
: unstable as Tycho - perhaps they were so impressed by Durandal that they
: were expecting a similar result with Tycho, but who knows.
: In any case, the Pfhor loved the result, but Tycho was very much under their
: thumb. He often outsmarted them, but he never had the freedom that
: Durandal had (hence the plot line in the Pfhor plank of Rubicon), and the
: Pfhor could have easily made clones of him (or derivatives) against his
: will. I doubt that he would have ever willingly allowed clones, as the
: thought of a rival, particularly a twin, is anethema to an AI. I suspect
: that Tycho would always be trying to destroy his clones, unless the Pfhor
: made a deal with him to always leave out key components of his core,
: resulting in the concept of the derivative. As a derivative of Tycho would
: never have the ability to compete with the original, Tycho could feel
: comfortable that he could eliminate any of them at will.
: What would a duplicate AI be like. There have been some interesting takes
: on this in Star Trek. In Star Trek TNG, we saw the case of twin androids
: with very, very different personalities. In Voyager, there was an episide
: in which a backup copy of the ship's doctor, an AI, was discovered by an
: alien race. The copy ended up living a completely different life than the
: original, as dictated by his environment. The most interesting example of
: all, however, was in The TNG episode where the crew discovered a duplicate
: Will Riker - a case of human duplication. It turned out that the duplicate
: had been created in a transporter accident 7 years earlier, and forced to
: live in complete isolation during that time. The duplicate was in every
: respect the same individual as the original - much more alike that twins
: would be - but there were subtle differences due ot the divergent
: experiences of the past 7 years - differences that were significant enough
: to cause the duplicate to join a rebellious faction.
: I think that we could assume that cloned AI's would follow a similar course,
: having identical personalities in the beginning, but becoming more and
: more different as their paths diverged - provided they managed ot avoid
: killing each other, which is undoubtedly why the Pfhor used Tycho
: derivatives.
