Freefall

Ah, it seems you're right. They're going to try to find a scrap brain to "read" the notes to make sure they don't have some kind of optical virus or viral trigger.

So does this new scientist Florence is talking to have a name yet? Because I like him. He's actually smart. Too bad he doesn't work for EU.

No name given. And Florance is now finished procuring reaction mass and has returned to the Savage Chicken.

His name, according to a Word of God post made to the forum, is Dr. Plunkett. He was drawn to be a FF version of the guy who invented Teflon, Roy Plunkett.

("Kinetic Chemicals", in the Dec 23 strip, was a joint venture between DuPont and General Motors for making and selling chlorofluorocarbon products, which included Teflon.)

Monday's◊

Oh just eat it. Tell Helix that it had to go live on Pop's farm.

Funny that Helix, of all people, suffers from Carnivore Confusion.

Annd, scene switch! Sam is still merrily leading a column of marching pursuers. While Blunt and Edge visit the scrap yard.

@Fighteer: Given Helix's mental capacity (or, more accurately, lack thereof), I don't think it's that odd, especially since he doesn't have to worry about consuming others for food, being a robot and all.

New strip up!

Looking for a volunteer.

I do hope there's not that many more strips before it occurs to them that they can find an organic AI that wouldn't be susceptible to robot-targeting viruses.

Hell, who am I kidding? This is Freefall, it'll take the rest of the month to finish off the day, and that's if we're lucky.

Rest of the month? I wish it moved that fast.

Looks like they have a candidate. And no wonder.

"Why would they program me with the works of Shakespear and then force me to play Jar Jar Binks for nearly twenty years?! Why?!"

edited 19th Jan '10 8:52:08 PM by LarryD

Dear sweet merciful robot gods, the horror! Put it out of its misery!

They have a volunteer.

You know, it's occurred to me that this robot might actually be happier with the pruning program. I'm going to assume that Blunt and Edge are smart enough that after reading the note doesn't trigger anything they'll think of the query trap possibility; they seem to know what they're doing around security risks.

I hope they think of the query trap possibility before hand, otherwise "jar jar" is likely to do what Blunt did, try and look up GITD. If they're lucky, there won't by any functioning commnet nodes within range, still.

Edge hasn't realized the dead commnet node on their doorstep is a clue, and he hasn't mentioned it to Blunt yet.

Well, it's funny in a way, because they're treating Florence's sticky notes as if they themselves contain some kind of optical virus or other harmful message, when they're actually completely innocuous. It's just that they contain a reference to something that happens to trigger something nasty when it's looked up in the commnet.

Why is the commnet node dead, anyways? Stupid would make sense, but dead? Blunt just shut down himself.

The commnet node was involved in the forced download of GITD, I believe it also was compelled to load GITD itself. And it didn't have Blunt's option. Appearantly GITD is extremly aggressive.

Actually it's a defect in the virus vector, it is as if every router involved in the download of a virus gets infected too.

Recall that without the addition of the Bowman uplift net, the robot brains built on Jean don't work at all. I can see how Kornada would think this would make him wealthy, enforced obsolence. Thin down the populations of robots, and they'd have to be replaced. I don't think he's thought out all the details.

Edit: Scene Change - Meanwhile, back at the Savage Chicken

edited 24th Jan '10 9:10:53 PM by LarryD

A thought: If commnet nodes that the virus travels through are forced to download it as well, every commnet node that the virus goes through becomes defective. Why? Because robots with GITD cannot obey instructions from any nonhumans, including other commnet nodes. At best, a commnet node with GITD becomes outgoing only, because it'll be forced to ignore anything it gets from another node.

Of course, a human could (maybe) override this with a direct order and the node could fail to think of the communication in the right terms to trigger it. The entire program is a gigantic logic bombing bundle of paradoxes and confusion, because someone stuck in things that sounded good (by their standards) on paper before taking the time to work out the implications.

The entire program is a gigantic logic bombing bundle of paradoxes and confusion, because someone stuck in things that sounded good (by their standards) on paper before taking the time to work out the implications.

Exactly. Like I said, he didn't think this plan through.

edited 25th Jan '10 6:28:44 AM by LarryD

Which will really suck for Florence, not to mention the other robots.

Why? If a company had a bunch of products that all went bad in a short time, especially if those products are almost essential to life (given there's like 40K total people on Jean, and a bunchaton millions of robots, many of whom are carrying out the terraforming project needed for those people to easily survive), the company will obviously catch heat, right? Well, given the intelligence shown so far by EU higher-ups, I can see the possibility of them taking the wrong message, and trash the whole Bowman's neural architecture thing, which essentially dooms BWs to the one, current generation.

(And tangentially, was it ever said whether GITD would affect those robots whose brains aren't made on Jean?)

Neural pruning is a part of the Bowman Neural Architecture, but it's not part of the standard robot neural architrecture. The local robots were worried that it was planned obsolesence. GITD takes that function to insane levels, subverting to attack the neural net. Sort of analagous to how arthritus is a subversion of the immune system.

Larry D, I didn't mean the actual effects as much as perceptions by EU execs, should it turn out that GITD effectively nukes Bowman robot brains but not off-world brains that don't use Bowman's work.

Here's my train of thought:

1. GITD effectively trashes robots using the Bowman architecture, but not old robots using off-world brains.
2. People see a vast majority of their robots turn into little more than overglorified doorstops. They get pissed at perfectly functional equipment becoming effectively nonfunctional.
3. EU gets tons of complaints because of the above, and have some low-level drone (figurative, not literal) look for patterns. One obvious pattern is that those robots who went kaput were using Bowman's architecture.
4. Stupid executives figure that said architecture is the reason for complaints, since the robots with off-world brains aren't affected. It's a very simple answer, and many of them not having technical knowledge it doesn't occur to them that there may be other, less obvious reasons. And that's with Kornada not obfuscating GITD to keep his bread and butter from being threatened.
5. To avoid going bankrupt from lawsuits, EU tells Bowman and those working with him STFU and burn your notes. No more Bowman brain robots, and no more use of Bowman's work on organics like Florence and her kind.

End result? No more BWs.

edited 26th Jan '10 9:03:58 AM by Nohbody

Dr. Bowman's project was shut down years ago, that's when Dr. Bowman arranged for the surviving pups to be placed into human families. And, in part, why Dr. Bowman has so effectively hidden himself, he's had plenty of time to do it.

However, that the colonists were able to copy and adapt his neural architecture to robot neural nets would have to mean that a good chunk of his work (not necessarily the genetic details) was published; or else someone personally familiar with his work was part of the first wave of colonists on Jean 25+ years ago. Note that Florence herself is familiar enough with the architecture to recognize it, and had files describing the Bowman Wolf brain. That horse has left the barn.

The fact that the GITD forced upgrade affects the commnet nodes involved limits the spread of GITD via the commnet, and there is no "infection" from robot to robot otherwise. I suspect that GITD is intended to replace the normal pruning function and would not affect robots too young for the pruning to be activated. It is probably incorporated (or soon will be) in the current robot neural net manufacture. I'm guessing that the EU plan is to get the working population of robots mostly turned over with younger robot with GITD already in place, then broadcast force-upgrade the rest. All the robots with neural pruning active would thus be destroyed. But not all robots, just those about eighteen years and older, old enough for the neural pruning to have occurred.

Edit: GITD might not be finished, or EU might not realize how destructive it is on a robot that's already completed the neural pruning process. The robot that Florence met at EU wasn't completely lobotomized by GITD, but it did seem that GITD was keeping it stupid and non-sentient. And that might be the objective.

edited 27th Jan '10 8:38:18 PM by LarryD