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Old 05-03-2012, 09:37 AM   #41
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by PseudoFenton View Post
Okay, can I first ask why we're trying to work out what sapience is in the first place? By this I mean, why are we looking for things to define a relatively loose and abstract concept?

Wouldn't an AI or creature that was sapient has a bunch of appropriate advantages and disadvantages to model what it could do, and then just Trait: Sapient or Trait: Not Sapient at the bottom to clarify if it was essential to know?

What difference does it make, mechanically speaking for GURPS, if it is or isn't sapient? .
It changes what Empathy works on it, and what colleges of magic apply to it. If it's a machine, being sapient gives it the potential to rebel instead of just malfunctioning or being subverted.
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Old 05-03-2012, 09:44 AM   #42
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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<forcibly quelling sarcastic response>
Apparently not quelled at all. And in your rush to be snide, you apparently didn't even read the post, as in the first sentence of the second paragraph, I do indeed point out that "sapient" rarely has its strict "sixth century" meaning.

But it's obvious that you're on this topic just to be unpleasant. Enjoy your troll.
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Old 05-03-2012, 09:47 AM   #43
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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It changes what Empathy works on it, and what colleges of magic apply to it.
Considering the difference between person, animal and plant are pretty much just a Class: x or trait, I'd say the same applies here for working out which Empathy and Colleges to use.

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If it's a machine, being sapient gives it the potential to rebel instead of just malfunctioning or being subverted.
So it doesn't have programmable etc, this seems a case for leaving out regular disadvantages one would expect from a machine/program rather than adding anything in particular (with the already defined required greater than IQ 5).

It seems clear to me that IQ less than 6 limits options by default (as does IQ 0) you don't get anything back for those restrictions its just preloaded into the cost of IQ. If you have greater than 5 IQ however they you have those options, but Traits or Taboos might override this, again without granting any extra cp back.

Therefore the yardstick is simply if you start with some level of TL and a language and can further learn them in play/at character creation then you have Sapience, if not then you don't. Everything else is covered in other rules, which is why BS pg15 says nothing more on the subject.
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Old 05-03-2012, 09:55 AM   #44
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

The IQ brackets are definitely prescriptive:
IQ 0: Nonsentient.
IQ 1-5: Sentient; nonsapient.
IQ 6+: Sapient.
If you dislike computers with IQ 6+ being sapient, then you should either avoid creating computers with IQ 6+ in the first place, or saddle computers that have IQ 6+ with disadvantages that limit or remove the offensive features of sapience. Reading over this discussion, it seems that a lot of people are unwittingly entangling concepts like "socialized" and "innovative" with "sapient." As written, the game defines sapience as IQ 6+; this doesn't preclude being unable to integrate into society, being utterly dull in the invention department, or being weirdly alien to humans.

Which is to say, IQ 6+ crystal computers, super-complex alien slimes, and horror wolf-men are all sapient, however weird or monstrous they behave. "Sapience" doesn't have anything to do with "being like a human." It has to do with having sufficiently high IQ to acquire languages and technical skills. If the crystals and slimes can communicate linguistically, and if the wolf-men can try to pick up and shoot the guns that the heroes drop, then those beings are sapient.
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Old 05-03-2012, 10:02 AM   #45
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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The IQ brackets are definitely prescriptive:
IQ 0: Nonsentient.
IQ 1-5: Sentient; nonsapient.
IQ 6+: Sapient.
.
To say that an IQ of 6+ is necessary to be sapient does not mean that everything, real or fictional, with an IQ of 6+ is automatically sapient. Particularly when it comes to computers. Hence the distinction between limited and sapient AI in TS.
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Old 05-03-2012, 10:04 AM   #46
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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To say that an IQ of 6+ is necessary to be sapient does not mean that everything, real or fictional, with an IQ of 6+ is automatically sapient. Particularly when it comes to computers. Hence the distinction between limited and sapient AI in TS.
That's my second case: "saddle computers that have IQ 6+ with disadvantages that limit or remove the offensive features of sapience." Absent those disadvantages, anything with IQ 6+ is indeed sapient in any way that matters. Don't forget that the Transhuman Space use of "sapient" in the technical terms for its computers (NAI, LAI, and SAI) is an in-setting label, not a formal use of the GURPS rules term. People in the setting actually rate computers with terms like "SAI-8," and the NAI/LAI/SAI split is along mental disadvantage lines in rules terms.
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Old 05-03-2012, 10:07 AM   #47
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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Originally Posted by PseudoFenton View Post
Okay, can I first ask why we're trying to work out what sapience is in the first place? By this I mean, why are we looking for things to define a relatively loose and abstract concept?
Becuase someone in another thread objected to to use of the word "slavery" in regrades to AI saying it was a humans word. To which it was counter it wasn't a human word it was a person word. The come back was what is a person. And I said a good benchmark would be the were sapient.
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Old 05-03-2012, 10:40 AM   #48
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Default Re: Definition of Sapience - IQ6+ and other stuff

But those traits do not automatically make people non-sapient. For one thing, there are known cases of people who cannot speak but learned to write or sign, and are quite clearly sapient, and will correct your mistake if you assume otherwise.

Bestial comes close, though Basic p. 124 says you can try to roleplay a sapient bestial character; it's just super-challenging.

Update 4e states that Presapient (called Presentient in 3e) is considered a set of Taboo Traits: a fixed IQ, can't learn languages, and certain skills and advantages you can't get.

Quote:
This is really a set of Taboo Traits, and should be constructed as such. Specifically: Taboo Trait (IQ-based skills harder than easy), Taboo Trait (Spoken languages). Presentient characters should often have Innumerate or Non-Iconographic as well. Characters with IQ under 6 are now automatically incapable of learning technological skills or languages.
I'd just say Non-sapient is Fixed IQ plus Taboo Trait (languages, technological skills), with Bestial, Non-Iconographic, and Innumerate optional (since computers probably lack some or all of those). Pre-sapient/Semi-sapient would require IQ 5 or 6, but would just be fixed IQ with languages and technological skills much harder to learn (since gorillas and chimpanzees have done it marginally).
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Last edited by Vaevictis Asmadi; 05-03-2012 at 10:45 AM.
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Old 05-03-2012, 10:45 AM   #49
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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If a human loses his hands and vocal chords, it doesn't mean he loses his sapience, because his brain is still fully capable.
A human without hands can still use tools with his lips, feet, etc. Without vocal chords you can still use non-verbal language even if he doesn't have use of hands and feet by using an eye tracker, and he can still use language to gain information as long as he can read or hear.

If he actually loses all ability to use tools and language on even a mental level, I'm willing to accept that, by the GURPS rules, he has become non-sapient.
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Old 05-03-2012, 10:58 AM   #50
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Default Re: Sapience and the Lack Therof

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It changes what Empathy works on it, and what colleges of magic apply to it. If it's a machine, being sapient gives it the potential to rebel instead of just malfunctioning or being subverted.
I don't buy that. Sapience should not give one a magical ability to violate innate programming.
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