Planetary Mass Computers

[AlexanderHowl]

One of the odd things that such a computer could do is support AI programs with very high intelligences. Even if we increased the required Complexity to emulate intelligence to 5 plus (average racial IQ/2, rounded up), a Complexity 33 computer could easily support 1,000 AI intelligences at IQ 50, 100 million at IQ 40, 10 trillion at IQ 30, or 1 quintillion at IQ 20. And a civilization that expanded across a volume 500 ly in radius could potentially have millions of such planetary computers, meaning that the potential intelligence supported by such an infrastructure would be staggering.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by scc

These problems tend to be things like simulating nuclear fission and fusion, they require high complexity computers to solve.

It's not necessarily the sort of complexity that gives a computer a meaningful chance of running, say, an emulation of a single human brain.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think that says that those problems are lower in complexity.

Lower complexity problems can make full use of high complexity computers by solving many such problems in parallel (through the rules which allow a computer to run 10 * complexity difference times as many programs for programs of lower complexity).

Originally Posted by whswhs

It's not necessarily the sort of complexity that gives a computer a meaningful chance of running, say, an emulation of a single human brain.

Due to the way brains work, there are very good reasons to think that their function can be represented by an algorithm which is parallelizable to a pretty good degree. The internal communication speed in the brain is after all very low by computer standards.

[Johnny1A.2]

Back in the 1970s, there was an SF series in which the galaxy was more-or-less ruled by a planet-sized computer called Supreme. It was never clear whether Supreme was conscious or not, but at one point the author (Lloyd Biggle) did mention that the galactic civilization (which existed in the present day, Earth was a non-member ignorant of its existence) was so huge and so old that nobody even knew how many worlds were members, much less how many individuals...except Supreme, which had the capacity to keep track of both.

The surface of the 'planet' is paradisical, but at one point a visiting human muses that this is secondary, most of the features are primarily there for the function of the computer, keeping its systems cool or warm enough, etc.

Interestingly, the speed factor is never mentioned explicitly, but its sort of implied. Supreme has vast knowledge, but it often takes days to ask a question in just the right way to get the information you want, the capacity is galactic but sometimes it's hard to get its attention, so to speak. It'll answer questions with answer that are entirely correct but that don't explain, until someone asks it the right question the right way.

[Antiquation!]

Practically speaking, the most important consideration given the existence of a planet-sized computer would be whether or not your Scooty Puff Jr. will remain intact for the duration of the blastwave.

[Micahel Silverbane]

Originally Posted by Antiquation!

Practically speaking, the most important consideration given the existence of a planet-sized computer would be whether or not your Scooty Puff Jr. will remain intact for the duration of the blastwave.

It is a well known fact that Scooty Puff Jr. sucks.

[AlexanderHowl]

Such a computer could potentially run artificial intelligences with IQ 50+, which might as well be 'god-level' AI. Would you attempt to use such an intelligence or would you just have it as a background entity? Would the 'AI God' effectively be the deity of the world, creating new inventions and new species with an effective skill of 50+, or would it just be contemplating the deep secrets of existence?

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Such a computer could potentially run artificial intelligences with IQ 50+, which might as well be 'god-level' AI. Would you attempt to use such an intelligence or would you just have it as a background entity? Would the 'AI God' effectively be the deity of the world, creating new inventions and new species with an effective skill of 50+, or would it just be contemplating the deep secrets of existence?

Without availiable superscience, it is very doubtful that a TL 12 society, which has existed for long enough to build computers that large, aren't already very close to the best inventions possible.

Rather than the highest IQ AI, what allows you to rule the world would likely be having more resources to spend on military than your rivals.

[AlexanderHowl]

High IQ is a military resource in GURPS. An AI with IQ 50 could easily possess Stragegy-50, giving the side in a conflict which possessed such an AI (or was led by such an AI) a massive advantage. Any force that depended on just human capabilities would be hopelessly outclassed, as their best strategists would only have Strategy-25. In that case, the side that depended on human capabilities will have lost before the first spacecraft is launched, they just would not know it until everything started going horribly wrong.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

High IQ is a military resource in GURPS. An AI with IQ 50 could easily possess Stragegy-50, giving the side in a conflict which possessed such an AI (or was led by such an AI) a massive advantage. Any force that depended on just human capabilities would be hopelessly outclassed, as their best strategists would only have Strategy-25. In that case, the side that depended on human capabilities will have lost before the first spacecraft is launched, they just would not know it until everything started going horribly wrong.

If you use Mass Combat perhaps, but those rules give blatantly unrealistic results for high very high strategy skill (and by strict RAW, AI IQ doesn't have much influence on their maximum skill levels anyway). Much of strategy is to just not make misstakes and you don't need skill 50 for that. Space combat in particular is in many ways simpler than terrestial combat. You have very long time to think over your plans and there is much less hidden information. It might very well be the case that non-AI expert systems can perform roughly as well there as both humans and IQ 50 AIs.

Also, a TL 12 force does of course not have to rely on human level IQ just because they don't have planetary sized computers.