Infomorphs Specializing in their owners

[wellspring]

In the original THS book, they point out that a digital mind (I'm assuming this means AIs) can take their owner as a specialty for Diagnosis and Social Skills. Is this rule still valid in 4e?

Under the old rules, you got +5 working with the person you specialize in, which more than counteracts the penalties from LAI/NAI features. (At the cost of being at -1 with others.)

In 4e, specialization is effectively only a +1. Which means that such an AI might be marginally less inept when dealing with its master at the cost of being even more at sea with anyone else (-2 with others). This seems a little more draconian than intended (the vignette on THS page 119 gives an example of this specialization in action), but I didn't see anything in Changing Times on the issue.

(This is obviously a minor quibble since your interface using social skill on you doesn't usually come up).

[vicky_molokh]

You should probably look for the hyper-specialization perk somewhere in PU:Perks.

[Phil Masters]

Yes, I'd still allow specialisation in an owner/wearer. Kind of took that as read, really. But I should say that I always thought of it as mostly for medical skills, for which NAIs and LAIs aren't too badly penalised, so you don'tneed a big bonus to make them worth having - though an effective +1 is nice to have. AIs shouldn't be looking to use social skills on their owners very often, should they?

An individual is really too big a specialisation for Hyper-Specialisation, if you ask me; remember, stuff that qualifies for Hyper-Specialisation is supposed to come up about once per campaign, as a rule. I might allow Hyper-Specialisation for "One person's specific kidney disease" or something. That's just a way of saying that dealing with that specific problem has become a routine task for the AI.

[PK]

I'm with Phil on this -- normal specialization now gives an effective +1 (not +5), which is far, far more balanced. But that doesn't change the fact that infomorphs will still commonly do so. Don't knock the +1 -- that's still a nice boost, often worth 4 cp.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Yes, I'd still allow specialisation in an owner/wearer. Kind of took that as read, really. But I should say that I always thought of it as mostly for medical skills, for which NAIs and LAIs aren't too badly penalised, so you don'tneed a big bonus to make them worth having - though an effective +1 is nice to have. AIs shouldn't be looking to use social skills on their owners very often, should they?

An individual is really too big a specialisation for Hyper-Specialisation, if you ask me; remember, stuff that qualifies for Hyper-Specialisation is supposed to come up about once per campaign, as a rule. I might allow Hyper-Specialisation for "One person's specific kidney disease" or something. That's just a way of saying that dealing with that specific problem has become a routine task for the AI.

*Shrug* A single person for a skill which potentially can be used on millions seems reasonable to me. No less reasonable than the top scientist working all his life on Cryptology (Elliptic curve-based encryption) and producing the cryptiest algorythms. [Warning: specialization name may not match real life; reconstructed from vague recollections of terms used by a cryptologist.]

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

An individual is really too big a specialisation for Hyper-Specialisation, if you ask me; remember, stuff that qualifies for Hyper-Specialisation is supposed to come up about once per campaign, as a rule. I might allow Hyper-Specialisation for "One person's specific kidney disease" or something. That's just a way of saying that dealing with that specific problem has become a routine task for the AI.

This is also accurate wrt real world computational intelligence, in fact it's considered a hazard to "overtrain" on the data in hand, lest performance drop off in novel cases.

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Yes, I'd still allow specialisation in an owner/wearer. Kind of took that as read, really. But I should say that I always thought of it as mostly for medical skills, for which NAIs and LAIs aren't too badly penalised, so you don'tneed a big bonus to make them worth having - though an effective +1 is nice to have. AIs shouldn't be looking to use social skills on their owners very often, should they?

Well, actually, I was thinking of the case of the personal assistant AI that lives in its owner's head 24/7 and has become hyperfamiliarized with his/her preferences and peculiarities.

And I think we DO want our infomorphs using their social skills on us. Not to influence us, mind you. But savoir-faire, diplomacy, and even (achem...) sex appeal, carousing and perform, are also useful since we're dealing with this personality every minute of every day.

I'm raising the issue because that -2 to all others, combined with low empathy, makes for a very socially inept AI, even if it's an advanced LAI with points invested in those skills. And that still leaves the AI with deeply mediocre scores in those abilities even for their owner's use.

After thinking it over, as a GM, I think I'll go ahead and allow Hyperspecialization in one person as an AI-specific exception, on the grounds that actual rolls involving the AI interacting with their owner using social skills are rare. As a house rule, I think it's a relatively minor point, but it's good to know the thoughts behind why it is what it is.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by wellspring

And I think we DO want our infomorphs using their social skills on us. Not to influence us, mind you. But savoir-faire, diplomacy, and even (achem...) sex appeal, carousing and perform, are also useful since we're dealing with this personality every minute of every day.

Dealing with someone you know without annoying them isn't really use of social skills, is it? It's just ... not being an ass.

(Though LAIs are good at being asses, to be sure. That's why they don't get treated as people. If you think of them as people, you end up wanting to punch them in the face. If you think of them as smart machines, you get along fine with them.)

(Now, you want a non-medical skill that people will want their LAI to be good at in specialised mode, try Erotic Art. Though I suspect the AIs will basically think of that as another medical skill.)

Originally Posted by wellspring

I'm raising the issue because that -2 to all others, combined with low empathy, makes for a very socially inept AI, even if it's an advanced LAI with points invested in those skills. And that still leaves the AI with deeply mediocre scores in those abilities even for their owner's use.

Yes, LAIs and NAIs are cr*p at social skills. That's a feature of the setting, and trying to fudge around it is kind of missing the point. The best reason for developing SAIs, as commercial projects rather than academic exercises in psychology, is that you may sometimes want AIs with which you can interact on a social level.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

The best reason for developing SAIs, as commercial projects rather than academic exercises in psychology, is that you may sometimes want AIs with which you can interact on a social level.

The SAI PCs and NPCs I have have met playing THS all tend to be either deeply ironic, or to deliberately discard important-to-humans social constructs, such as gender. Mind you, this probably has a lot to do with players and GMs embracing the weird. It would be interesting to meet an SAI who was very sociable, although I have this odd feeling that early attempts to create them may have emulated Antisocial personality disorder

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Dealing with someone you know without annoying them isn't really use of social skills, is it? It's just ... not being an ass.

(Though LAIs are good at being asses, to be sure. That's why they don't get treated as people. If you think of them as people, you end up wanting to punch them in the face. If you think of them as smart machines, you get along fine with them.)

I'd say it's the use of social skills. Savoir-faire consisting of "not being an ass" is like saying that dance is mainly about "not being a klutz". It's a highly reactive, adaptive skill that looks effortless until you put a foot wrong.

I'm not suggesting that we bypass the LAI's ineptitude with social skills in general, just that an AI might develop specialized patterns of behavior optimized towards their owner's individual preferences. Developers would like this for personal assistants, who mostly deal with their owner and other infomorphs-- and it sure beats having to make big investments in social skills training for infomorphs who will only deal with one biosapient. (As Jeff points out, this results in even greater problems dealing with everyone else.)

Also, yeah I imagine that an AI would treat Erotic Art as a medical skill, especially since it's reading your reactions right off your nervous system. But what about Sex Appeal? Or Performance? Actually, I should stop before I talk myself out of the feasibility of all this.

(BTW, is it just me, or does every THS conversation devolve into a debate about slavery, sex or both?)