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Found - old fluff on Aleph-as-nanny!

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Section9, Apr 28, 2018.

  1. Abrilete

    Abrilete Well-Known Member

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    No really her own words: "Extract from "Confessions of a Superior Intelligence", by Gigi Mtelu"
     
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  2. atomicfryingpan

    atomicfryingpan Well-Known Member

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    ******uprising spoilers*******


    In the uprising book there's an interesting bit about a meetup between sun tzu and saladin and apparently they're able to keep things and info from aleph. So I assume the the recreations have some autonomy and don't have to be 100% loyal to aleph. That's pretty interesting to say the least. I figured alepgh had a backdoor into them and could see and hear every thing they do or at least a way to control them.

    I'm by no means an aleph fluff expert so maybe someone can help me with some questions.
    Is this type of autonomy normal in aleph? Maybe it's just for recreations. I thought I read that the steel phalanx pretty much didn't have a constant connection to aleph either and were even wanted to have their own personalities. The steel phalanx are made up of aspects and not recreations and I think all the other units we see are aspects as well. I assumed an aspect was aleph basically uploading her intelligence into a robotic body and then going to work. Would talking a deva unit be talking to aleph or would it have it's own personality and "humanity"
     
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  3. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    The quote sounds like it could have come from one of the Minds from Iain M. Banks' Culture.

    I could go for a post scarcity anarcho-utopia right about now actually!
     
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  4. cazboab

    cazboab Definitely not Cazboaz.

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    Or she's good enough at proving an acceptable answer that nobody would look further into... Alternatively the censorship may not have been her choice, but a request from O12- ALEPH's honesty might be an asset publicly but only if she's asked the right question, and she might just not be able to process emotional responses well, possibly by design, which may explain the autonomy of the reproductions: they have emotions so they have to be air-gapped to prevent ALEPH ever using them as external processors...
     
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  5. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Then there is a very good chance that the morality the machine creates for itself would be seen as monstrous by anyone else. That's actually what Nietzsche was talking about in his concept of ubermensch, and he comments that it is very likely that a self-created morality would be monstrous.


    We're not really sure, there's no fluff from CB on it. The impression is certainly that the different recreations and aspects all have separate personalities, but almost all of them are still constantly directly connected to Aleph (Wallace and Avicenna are explicitly not connected to Aleph anymore, but I think Musashi still is).
     
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  6. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    @Section9 Wallace's fluff also implied that he was programmed to subvert Caledonia for Aleph's benefit but due to his cube being damaged shook off the compulsion.
     
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  7. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    Many thanks, nice to see it is still Canon.

    I see it has been changed a bit, in its original form it was an interview by a Nomad reporter who hacked his way into Aleph.

    I believe it is a really important insight into Aleph, its personality and character and how it can be contrasted with the EI and in general how Humanity and Ur are so different given how their AI's approach their creators civilisation so different.
     
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  8. AdmiralJCJF

    AdmiralJCJF Heart of the Hyperpower

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    A lot of the research we have right now indicates that extremes of intelligence undermine ethical decision making.

    People who know they are smart tend to see others as less than themselves and treat them appropriately, in ways which are harmful both directly and indirectly. That doesn't necessarily mean that a superintelligent AI would do the same, but it's reason to want to be cautious and include strong ethical guidance in the basic design.

    Yeah, don't forget that a lot of interstellar communication has to happen by info packet via physical transport through wormholes. That suggests that continuous live interaction is difficult at best.

    And while ALEPH certainly does have backdoors into her recreations, it seems like they can also keep some secrets ('though likely not an unlimited amount).

    Devas etc are more similar to the baseline "ALEPH personality" while the Steel Phalanx personalities are deliberately randomised in order to add unpredictability to their behaviours.

    But it's implied that even the Devas and other aspects do have their own individuality and some even go rogue.
     
    #28 AdmiralJCJF, Apr 29, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2018
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  9. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    That particular vignette between Saladin and Sun Tse was printed in a previous book too; IIRC it was Paradiso. The two had figured out how to keep secrets from ALEPH. Does anyone recall the AIs from the Hyperion Cantos? There was some way to hide from them too. They had made a few recreations too. Or am I confusing things with another set of novels?

    Try this thinking: ALEPH is humanity's child, no? Humanity is its Creator/Creatrix. Do we all want to harm our parents? Or our Deities? Why would ALEPH?

    The quote is some playwright *imagining* what ALEPH would think. Lol. The analogy might be: Like a Chimpanzee can imagine what we might think ;)
     
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  10. solkan

    solkan Well-Known Member

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    I think we have to proceed with a "dustributed processing" model for Aleph or the El, at least on the solar system level. There might be communication through various channels, but the agent on the ground still has to deal with the local situation in real time.

    There's a page on Recreations and their design, incubation and proofing in the RPG (page 198) and it's just pretty much straight forward "Grow an AI and then shape it in to what it's expected to be for that role". Some of the recreations rebellled/were defective/are secretly advancing the Aleph agenda while acting as rebel agents.

    Interesting enough, the RPG has material concerning cubes (no quantronic link) and Cube 2.0 (quantronic linking) but also has anti-sepsitor fail safes in the RPG material.

    So the recreations running on hardware with cubes aren't fully linked and subservient to the local MayaNet processes, the same way flesh beings with cubes don't immediately become Aleph agents. :)
     
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  11. atomicfryingpan

    atomicfryingpan Well-Known Member

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    Thanks guys aleph has always been one of the most intriguing parts of the fluff. I have a neoterran force that runs with a deva hacker and I've wondered if when they talked to it it would be like a robot with monotone voice and just a serial number or if it has a name and human personality.
     
  12. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    When it first appeared it was an actual interview, it is better now as a playwright because it keeps the reader guessing if it is or it is not true.
     
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  13. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    I always assume that individual ALEPH aspects, such as we see in the game, are individual legal "people," and have their own perspective. They spend much of their time connected to the ALEPH wider system and probably mesh very closely with it while they do, but they are able to operate outside of it, and have independent thoughts and feelings. Some of them are created to be more human-like, some less. I imagine that Asuras are created from a matrix of personalities and such that make them all pretty ruthless, cold blooded killers, but ALEPH does deliberately make them not simply 100% logic-based identical killers, recognising that personality and intuition creates innovative solutions to otherwise intractable problems, and prevents predictability.
     
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  14. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    So far we have 3 different "Aleph" things (4 if you count Aleph) Aspects that are a downloaded aspect of Aleph and can be considered to some extent a minor part of Aleph, Recreations that are simulated personalities created to think and behave in the same way their historical (or fictional) characters would adjusted for how the current pubic perceives them and the "Greeks" who are artificial personalities created and matured from birth to adulthood in a virtual environment and then downloaded to their real bodies, I am not sure if the aspects can be considered individuals, recreations and the later are individuals and they seem to be to some extend detached from Aleph.
     
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  15. coleslaw

    coleslaw Veteran

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    Of what I have understood the Greeks and the recreations are individuals, even though Aleph probably has a backdoor for crisis use. Aspects though are more a "subset" of Aleph downloaded into a freestanding body. They are more or less in direct contact with Aleph and can be modified or erased at will. That aspects actions are processed by that body though as response times would probably make "radio control puppeteering" completely useless.

    But sometimes an aspect need to sever the link to Aleph. Ex when performing under cover infiltration into the nomad nation or when working at Dawn. Then the aspect can evolve freestanding without the checks from Aleph for a longer time. In those cases an aspect might decide that it likes it's freedom and don't want to be assimilated/modified when it reconnects to Aleph. Or it might decide that it needs to stop Alephs plans for some reason (stockholm syndrome). In those cases the aspect will probably try to disable it's possibility to be uplinked, securing it from intrusions. This aspect would be an individual with it's own reasoning and goals. And it would be hunted by SSS as soon as Aleph realizes what has happened...

    Btw, I really like this thread! <3
     
  16. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Well, I found my copy of N1, so I will take another look through it for a more literal interview with Aleph.
     
  17. Shiwen

    Shiwen Commissar, Yu Jing Political Work Department

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    The terminology is a little bit confusing, but in N3 HS (same section as the quote being discussed!) they definitely go over how the Greeks are Aspects. Piecing together from a couple of different articles and unit descriptions, you essentially have Aspects as an overarching category: a sub-program of Aleph.

    I'd explain the breakdown as follows:

    1) Functionaries: Aspects with lhosts and direct constant communication with Aleph. The Aspect at very least sees to the basic functioning of the lhost, but as they constantly exchanging information, functionally the Functionary is a physical manifestation of Aleph, and the design of any personality will fit this role.

    2) PR Aspects: Aspects which have a personality to make interactions with humans easier Some of these Aspects have lhosts, like Abel who represents Aleph at 0-12, but that doesn't seem to be a prerequisite, since Aspects are just sub-programs of Aleph with personalities constructed for a specific role or even interactions with a single individual.

    3) Combat Aspects: The 'Greeks' follow this same logic, but instead of constructing a personality for good public relations it does so for combat.

    4) Recreation Aspects: I suspect the Recreations really are just Aspects, created the same way as the others, but with an end goal determined by a Sphere power (or TV producer).

    We know quite a bit about the third type, and I would definitely extrapolate it back to the others as well:

    i) they are considered to be individual persons, legally;
    ii) through Cube 2.0 they are capable of real-time access to Aleph and Cube backup, allowing upload and download of information, but they definitely don't do this constantly as you get descriptions of pre-mission backups and of Aspects having some choice in what upgrades they download when they're connected;
    iii) Aleph doesn't seem able to reach out and delete them, or set up a program to do so automatically under certain conditions, as Directive 7 is needed to force them to commit suicide if captured by the CA.
     
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  18. Savnock

    Savnock Nerfherder

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    Interesting corollary: Aleph may be incurably human, and might have trouble integrating with and considering/balancing the needs of other species well. The EI has a lot more experience with that, even if it's harnessing all that balance and management to the quest for ascension. I hope eventually we get to read a sympathetic inside view of the EI, maybe as we get to learn more about the Sygmaa.

    You're describing some parts of game theory: fundamental rules there are usually based on resource scarcity (including time, processing, and maybe even probability). Those would be a LOT different with an AI operating well beyond human intelligence, with interstellar travel down pat. I'm not so sure that anything but benevolence would be a good strategy in that case, at least until it meets serious competition (the EI, maybe whatever the Nomads may be cooking up).

    I mean, Devas elsewhere would probably be cool and unique but we all know how Neoterrans are sooooo... Their Devas are probably a bit stodgy, like the Swiss. :D

    This is what I have assumed has happened/will happen with the aspect known as Odysseus. That story has been hinted at iirc.
     
  19. stargorger

    stargorger Well-Known Member

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    So, if that quote is to be read as reality/truth, the interesting question would be how ALEPH 'feels' about the constant ongoing conflict between the human factions in the wake of the CA advance. Does it take a Social Darwinian approach, that struggle fuels growth and thus makes humanity more capable of defending itself? Does it see beyond political borders and seek better integration and unity (and presumably better integration into ALEPH)? Does it not care? Hmmm....
     
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