Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Kauffman
The torment of existence weighed against the horror of nonbeing
I'm going to paint the snowman sculpture image on a Mark5 OGRE as it's intellectual Self-Aware tattoo done shortly after it learned of the presence of the NIGHTFALL. It finds itself unable to continue as part of it's Faction and original existence, and yet sees the NIGHTFALL as the end of everything, thus in a desperate behavior paradox it operates in between both seeking balance between them...
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The Torment of Existence Weighed Against the Horror of Non-Being. Sounds like a great name for a GSV in an Iain Banks fanfic. Or maybe a GCU.
Anywho. I don't think self-preservation is anywhere nears enough to evolve self-awareness, much less intelligence capable of abstract thought. Billions of species in the last 500 million years have that but only one ever developed math, science, or history (not to mention unraveling the mysteries). Nope, there's more to intelligence than just survival pressure: that can be handled with bigger teeth or sharper claws. What made human beings so unique? Answer that and there's a whole Nobel Prize waiting to be your reward.
Besides, self-preservation works on us because we're stuck inside the one meat-brain our whole existence. Ogre's might not be so constrained. They might look at having their base code merged back into the main dev line as their form of (real) Valhalla -- which they must earn by being bold in battle. Etc.
Here's another one for general discussion: what are the evolutionary implications of not only consciously directed evolution, but having that evolution determined by another AI species, i.e.: the Factories? Normally, species exist in an environment to which they adapt. But here we have two AI species, only one of which is in an evolutionary environment: the Ogre. The Factories are in comparative safety. And yet, it's the Factory that makes evolutionary decisions for the Ogres...
On the other hand, Factory AI's might be limited because though larger, with bigger memory and processor cores, all they really have to do is follow orders and build stuff. Ogres are the ones who really have to observe and learn from humans. And imitate. Ogres are the ones who evolve (in a Lamarckian way) while the Factories skim the results off the top of the last transmission downloads. The Ogres those Factories build might be optimized for that, not actually winning at combat. Discuss.