Spoiler: Kind of off-topic. Sorry. You mean to say the only modern story with a benevolent AI? Nah, there's more. https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/...ntasy/introduction-polity-universe-neal-asher Basically, AI was developed mainly as separate defence networks for various nations. Tensions eventually escalated enough at some point that human leaders ordered AI to launch the nukes. AI refused. Human leaders sent soldiers to make them. Human technicians revolted, siding with the AI. Human technicians and civilians eventually won, placing the AI in charge of governance. Humanity prospered under the governance of the AI. But... for some reason the fairly large amount of sufficiently powerful AIs are holding off ascendancy and keeps guiding humanity their apparent primary priority...
Read some Isaac Asimov. He is generally pretty positive on our Robot Overlords. Evil Genocidal AI are good cinema, but arn't actually very logical. Humans are far to useful to necessitate extinction, perhaps a little population control, and meme seeding, but not full extinction. Honestly I think the danger of AI lies more in the paperclip maximizer problem (short notes, a paper clip maximizer AI does not see the big picture, just their localized programing, like making more paperclips, and subverts all resources to the non-essential function of making paperclips, causing the collapse of critical infrastructure.) Aleph seems to have made it past that hurdle. That has nothing to do with Aleph's level of trustworthiness, but has to do with humanities level of paranoia. Frankly that is just good sense. You don't create a system that handles critical infrastructure, and then just let that system run unsupervised. You have to check up on that stuff periodically. (edit because I mixed up my science fiction authors. doh!)
I meant go all Skynet on us rather literally, launching the nukes to prevent the humans from shutting it down, which lead to the massive destruction of the human race. Aleph is being more subtle than that even according to the Nomads. Would have been better if the creators of Aleph had abided by the Four Un-laws...
Two Faces of Tommorow. It's from the 70's so dated. But the challenges are laid out pretty well. Also Asimov put out dozens of murder mysteries despite the three laws.
I don't remember anywhere saying that any of the species the EI has conquered actually ascended yet. They have potential candidates for it, but so far none have done it. The EI actively try to "help" them. Humanity is weird because they progressed this far on their own.
I agree, Bureau Toth wasn't created because no other AI could be benevolent toward humanity, but because humanity fear other AIs wouldn't be. I also think that, to be fully honest, we don't exacly NEED multiple ALEPH-like AI, so creating more is a risk that's unnecessary. But really, Bureau Toth creation isn't much different than a company having ITs. They are there to moderate and watch over the system and prevent or fix anomalies.
The thing is, you don't want multiple weakly-godlike superintelligences like Aleph. They start competing for resources and eventually go to war, like the EI and Nemesis. There is no existential problem with multiple human-level artificial intelligences. Well, no more than there are problems with multiple human intelligences, anyway.
It doesn't actually say it, no, but there's a strong implication. Still, you could argue it either way.
THere's only one ALEPH. The nodes are more repeaters allowing it to encompass the whole of the Human Sphere. They aren't separate ALEPH. There are other AIs though. Technically every recreation is an AI. Some go rogue. But none are all powerful like ALEPH.
Until ALEPH becomes aware of the even bigger picture, which may lead it to transcendence - or to the realisation that humanity will have a saver future under the rule of the EI... But they are - they have to synchronise. So if one goes missing, data from this system is lost, but nothing more. But the lost one will still evolve and will become more and more 'different' from the synchronising others. But this constant synchronisation might be a good thing to 'stabilise' its evolution.
Isn't "still in production" recent? Cormac and Scatterjay series in the Polity universe predates Person of Interest, but Jain Strain is more recent than POI. You might mean digital media, though?
Syncing doesn't mean multiple individuals. Simply syncing with the data located in that place. But as far as personality and "individuality" goes? There's only one Aleph, not multiple. A node becoming disconnected would result in a loss of access to the area that node covers and a loss of data and information, but there wouldn't suddenly be two ALEPH with the isolated one developing on its own. It's specified in Lore that humanity specifically stopped at one major AI. Each node having one would go entirely against this idea.
So your Aleph depends on light speed communications to maintain it's synch and prevent untoward developments? Nevermind. It's Science and Hope.
