Keeping humans relevant in the shadow of TL10 AI.

Michael Thayne · 08-02-2018, 06:05 PM

One major omission is Ultra-Tech is any sense of the availability of AIs with various skill levels. This represents a huge unanswered question about any ultra-tech setting. If AIs with skill-18 are ubiquitous, there's nothing for humans to do. But Ultra-Tech seems to assume that TL10 societies will still be fairly recognizable, with human obsolescence not becoming a real threat until TL11 or even TL12. But how do you enforce this in-game?

Transhuman Space vaguely gestures at ways of doing this. The first Personnel Files book is explicit that AIs with skill levels above what it calls "ordinary expert" are rare. In practice, many off-the-shelf AIs have as few as 4 points in their main skill. While AI software can theoretically have complexity as high as 10, I'm only aware of one stray reference to such a powerful AI in any of the sourcebooks. Most of the examples of AIs mentioned are NAIs and LAIs that are at best as smart as the average baseline human. The smattering of SAI examples range from SAI-7 to SAI-9, with the latter being implied to be mostly in use in the military or cutting-edge research facilities.

Ultra-Tech uses slightly different rules for AIs, but you could do something similar. Make AIs more complicated than a fast non-volitional AI with IQ 10 (a Complexity 8 program, requiring a microframe or fast personal computer to run) at least unusual. Don't be afraid to limit AIs to 4 points in their main skill, and 1 or 2 points in other skills. You can make exceptions to the 4 point rule - maybe 8 points in some Electronics Operation specialty is common because most electronics in the setting "just work" even for untrained users.

Thoughts on this approach? What have other people done? At some point, I want to try working out the effects of this approach on the role of drones in spaceship combat, but that's a project for another day.

08-02-2018, 06:05 PM	#1
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	Keeping humans relevant in the shadow of TL10 AI. One major omission is *Ultra-Tech* is any sense of the availability of AIs with various skill levels. This represents a huge unanswered question about any ultra-tech setting. If AIs with skill-18 are ubiquitous, there's nothing for humans to do. But *Ultra-Tech* seems to assume that TL10 societies will still be fairly recognizable, with human obsolescence not becoming a real threat until TL11 or even TL12. But how do you enforce this in-game? *Transhuman Space* vaguely gestures at ways of doing this. The first *Personnel Files* book is explicit that AIs with skill levels above what it calls "ordinary expert" are rare. In practice, many off-the-shelf AIs have as few as 4 points in their main skill. While AI software can theoretically have complexity as high as 10, I'm only aware of one stray reference to such a powerful AI in any of the sourcebooks. Most of the examples of AIs mentioned are NAIs and LAIs that are at best as smart as the average baseline human. The smattering of SAI examples range from SAI-7 to SAI-9, with the latter being implied to be mostly in use in the military or cutting-edge research facilities. *Ultra-Tech* uses slightly different rules for AIs, but you could do something similar. Make AIs more complicated than a fast non-volitional AI with IQ 10 (a Complexity 8 program, requiring a microframe or fast personal computer to run) at least unusual. Don't be afraid to limit AIs to 4 points in their main skill, and 1 or 2 points in other skills. You can make exceptions to the 4 point rule - maybe 8 points in some Electronics Operation specialty is common because most electronics in the setting "just work" even for untrained users. Thoughts on this approach? What have other people done? At some point, I want to try working out the effects of this approach on the role of drones in spaceship combat, but that's a project for another day.