10-11-2014, 08:33 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
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I already stated that I preferred beaming of AI from Earth to Mars to be as common as in THS, because that opens up interesting avenues for GMing and playing a game. But in a game where the GM is trying to stop that? It should be his right to choose his mechanics, and my right to choose to play or not. I guess you could call my choice of hard vs. soft to be a soft choice, rather than a choice to be hard or soft.... |
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10-11-2014, 08:41 PM | #32 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
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10-11-2014, 09:27 PM | #33 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
I just don't see how the ability to send sapient A.I.s digitally at light speed is that fundamental to THS. It's definitely not among the first 10 things I think of when thinking of THS.
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10-12-2014, 03:25 AM | #34 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
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If you're doing it "hard", you need an explanation of why it's impossible, or impractical, and you need to consider what else that affects, and how that changes the setting. This is more work, but means that the result is internally consistent. That means that when the players want to do something creative, you have strong grounds for deciding how difficult it is. For this particular case, a "hard" justification for it being impossible to transmit AIs is tricky to achieve. Impractical is easier. The figures for how fast you can transmit data by laser are reasonably firmly based in simple physics and information science. To use an analogy, saying that it takes a couple of weeks to transmit 100TB in 2100 is like saying that it will take a couple of weeks minimum to travel from New York to San Francisco in 2100. It doesn't seem plausible, because we can do better than that now, and there's nothing about the setting that indicates that travel will get slower. Another way to restrict travel-by-laser might be to make smart AIs much larger. If that Complexity 8 AI is 1000 times larger, 100PB rather than 100TB, it takes 1000 times as long to transmit, which takes 2-3 months. This is a much less attractive way to travel, so we're looking good so far. However, the much larger AI still has to be able to run on a computer, and your computer needs 1000 times as much storage to hold it. That means that either storage needs to have 1000x the capacity, which is going to have effects that I'd need some time to work out, or the computers that run AIs need to get a lot bigger and more expensive. That breaks something that is a THS trope: that AIs can run on computers that fit into human-sized bodies. You can salvage that trope by changing the size progression for program complexity to something like this: no change up to Complexity 4 (still 10GB, the largest programs we have today) then Complexity 5 is 1TB, Complexity 6 is 100TB, Complexity 7 is 10PB, Complexity 8 is 1000PB, and so on getting 100 times larger for each +1 complexity. That allows not-very-smart AIs to be mobile, but smart ones need huge computers. How does that seem? |
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10-12-2014, 03:46 AM | #35 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
I like my idea for ground up A.I.s and why transmitting them would cause major problems.
It allows the transmission of completely fresh out of the box A.I.s which might be a good or bad thing depending on how the GM wants the setting to progress. I can't think of a reasonable way to give ghosts the same limitation.
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10-12-2014, 05:21 AM | #37 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
That would have the secondary effect of making computers housing such A.I.s much larger.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
10-12-2014, 05:41 AM | #38 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Platform Zero, Sydney, Australia
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
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10-12-2014, 07:27 AM | #39 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
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So maybe you can beam AIs but it's no good without someone at the receiving end to oversee the installation into hardware.
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Fred Brackin |
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10-12-2014, 02:04 PM | #40 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Transhuman Space in Infinite Worlds
I'm a little confused here, anyway. If an SDV is transported to Steel, then where are they going to be sending their infomorphs to exactly? I'd think transmitting an infomorph to a zonemimd would be a really bad idea, essentially giving them an editable POW.
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infinite worlds, transhuman space |
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