Perfectly good trope, does not marry up with most of the examples.: AI Is A Crapshoot

I took a sledgehammer to the description to make it less about Evil Twins and more about the reasons the AI goes rogue. Better?

As I go through it, the page is also loaded to the gills with Natter. I dredged out the Real Life section and started axing bits from Video Games but I had to stop and save changes. Anyone else want to help?

It looks vastly better and reads much more like one trope rather than two cobbled together.

As well as the natter, there's the issue of examples that don't fit the new definition. I've got a suggestion about what to do with those that don't: move 'em to Evil Twin. Does that seem reasonable?

edited 22nd May '11 12:31:10 AM by Camacan

what does "Marry up" mean?

Yes, move the Evil Twin examples, or else pare them down to being about the AI going bad.

Is there anything else to do here? I'd like to close this.

Eh, we've got 1322 wicks to check — make sure they fit the new definition not the old. My feeling from going over the examples in the article is that bad examples will prove to be fairly uncommon.

Sorry to double post but I think there's a bigger prob that the twin thing re examples; I know this is a broad trope, but what is our definition A.I.? Where does it end?

My thinking:

• A.I. is thinking software. A.I. happens on silicon chips — or similar kinds of artificial substrate. It includes self-aware computers and robots. It doesn't include stuff where the thinking bit is biological.

Not an example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot; biological:

• Baccano goes the same route with Szilard's Homunculi. According to Ennis, every one of her "brothers" before her developed a conscience and subsequently turned against Szilard (before he killed them, of course). Ennis is different only in that she succeeds.

Is an example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot; thinking computer:

• In Cyborg009, an almighty super-computer named "Sphynx" just happens to have the memories of one of its creators, a deceased young man with quite the Oedipus Rex complex. Predictably, he/it turns into a Stalker with a Crush as soon as he meets Francoise aka 003, the Cyborg Team's Team Mom.

Is an example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot; robot:

• In Rudy Rucker's The Hacker and the Ants, an integer underflow causes a household robot to start flinging infants through walls. The error is explained in a way to make the behavior believable, as long as you accept that household robots would be capable of exerting that kind of power to begin with.

Does that sound right?

edited 24th May '11 1:12:47 AM by Camacan

Do biological computers count?

That's what I'm asking!

Well, I guess it depends largely on the definition of artificial. For example, in the webcomic Freefall, protagonist Florence is an Uplifted Animal. Her friends and peers all treat her as fully... well, not human but a sapient equal in all ways to themselves. Similarly, the planet she's on is frankly lousy with robots (to the tune of 1,000:1 robots to humans or something) and many of those robots have full-fledged personalities.

The folks in charge of the planet, however, view all AI's, organic or electronic, as property and consider their exercise of independent thought an aberration that would fall under this trope.

So I think the question has to arise not as an absolute but within the context of the work.

I think it needs a new title, my immediate reaction of reading the title was "AI's have bad aiming skills?". Keep the old one as a redirect of course.

Agree on the rename. My first thought on reading the title was "If someone develops an AI, there's an even chance it will turn evil." A crapshoot is a situation where the outcome is completely unpredictable, not one where you're guaranteed to lose.

Er, I'm not seeing any contradiction there. Crapshoot = random chance. The trope is about AI's having a random chance to turn evil.

That's my reading too. When you make an AI, it's always chancy. When you grow an AI, you dice with death. Or something less catastrophically aberrant — but it's always a dice roll.

(Is now the time to apologize for getting in the way of locking the thread earlier on? )

edited 16th Jun '11 7:34:46 AM by Camacan

Another vote that the current name makes sense. Crapshoot = random.

Ok, the last time I had read it was before Fighteer cleaned out all the "AI's will have an Evil Twin or turn evil themselves" mess. My error.

edited 16th Jun '11 9:00:30 AM by Madrugada

Alright, well, since the current issue is resolved, let's lock this. We can open a new topic if there are other problems.