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Old 12-10-2009, 01:04 PM   #31
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Is Transhuman Space a "silly" genre?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrTim View Post
I think you might be selling LAIs short. IMHO, an LAI may not have as deep a worldview (world-simulation?) as an SAI, but it's a qualitative difference more than a quantitative one. An LAI is the equivalent of a human being with a sheltered upbringing, and possibly a moderate learning disability.

Remember, unlike an NAI, an LAI can buy off most of its disadvantages. That tells me they can change their worldview.
I don't see that it implies that at all. A dog—not a neo, but a plain garden variety mutt—can buy off disadvantages and acquire advantages, because it can learn through training. That doesn't mean a dog has a worldview.

In particular, LAIs have Low Empathy. To me that says that they don't have detailed internal models of the people they are interacting with, which implies that they don't have detailed internal models of themselves either; they have limited self-awareness and limited volition.

The Hidebound disadvantage also indicates that LAIs have a limited ability to innovate responses. I think of interacting with one as like playing a very sophisticated computer rpg where at any point you have a finite list of possible responses to a situation and the computer has a finite set of reactions to each, as opposed to a human-run rpg where if you say something unexpected the GM will think about their vision of the world and invent a consequence that makes sense.

Bill Stoddard
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