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Old 09-28-2016, 03:15 AM   #1
Boomerang
 
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Default Tips on role playing as a robot

I am looking for tips on how to role play as a variety of different robots in a Reign of Steel campaign. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the setting, machine intelligence ranges from non-sentient semi autonomous "dumbots" to fully sentient super intelligent computers. Any general advice would be appreciated.
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Old 09-28-2016, 09:31 AM   #2
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Default Re: Tips on role playing as a robot

First, remember that the AI is much more separated from the robot than biological life is from its body. If there are a variety of kinds of AI, then you're going to need a variety of strategies. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Self-Preservation: Biological life is terrified of its own death; AI is frequently not. If necessary for the mission, many bots will not hesitate to sacrifice themselves. They won't consider this noble, simply appropriate.

Shame: A stupid AI probably knows it's stupid. It's also probably not ashamed of that. It may say something like, "I'm sorry, but I'm not advanced enough to understand that. Would you please rephrase?" and if the rephrase isn't good enough it may just repeat itself until it does understand. If it can't do something, it will just say that. If it thinks something else is better, smarter, or more valuable, it will say that too.

Inflection is hard. When speaking, inflecting a single word correctly is pretty easy, but putting the correct emphasis on a sentence is difficult. Humans can turn a statement into a question by raising the pitch at the end of a sentence. This is a hard concept for machines. Have all but the most advanced AI speak with a constant pacing and tone. Don't go for a total monotone, but think of it like every word was recorded separately.

Variety: Humans naturally seek variety, but AI doesn't. There is nothing wrong with doing the same thing the same way 10,000 times in a row. Similarly, word repetition will not bother machines. If the word "confirmed" was the appropriate word in each of the last three sentences, it may well be the right one in the next sentence too. There is no need to choose different, less efficient, methods just for the sake of their difference.

Decisiveness: AI won't waffle. Once an action has been deemed necessary, it will be pursued with alacrity and efficiency. Once a person has been deemed trustworthy, past suspicion is erased. AI deals in absolutes with no room for things like residual resentment or sentiment or reluctance.

Last edited by khorboth; 09-28-2016 at 12:05 PM.
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Old 09-28-2016, 09:57 AM   #3
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Default Re: Tips on role playing as a robot

Well done Khorboth!

I might humbly add...

Let your subtlety and nuiance go up with Complexity.

In the same way that one boolean value can give you a Black Square or a White Square, but MILLIONS of boolean values can give you crystal clear photographs. Allow interpretation and Nuiance to go up with machine complexity.

For simpler machines, what to do, where to do it, and how to do it will be rigidly defined parameters.

Im a roomba. I vaccuum the living room on Mondays by executing a spiral pattern while my vaccum fan motor is engaged.

Alternately, for more advanced machines, instead of a value, you can institue a range of values and conditionals.

I am Ultron. I vaccuum the house as it needs it (During spring when pollen count is high, whenever the reflection fo the coffe table is reduced by dust or whenever the floor imager detects a random jumble of small particles indicating a spill) when Im not occupied by higher priority tasks using one of several 'least path' algorithms and variable speed vaccuum fan motor to conserve energy.

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Old 09-28-2016, 03:45 PM   #4
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Default Re: Tips on role playing as a robot

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Im a roomba. I vaccuum the living room on Mondays by executing a spiral pattern while my vaccum fan motor is engaged.
I am ablative armor. Life is boring, then briefly exciting, then over.

Just don't make your smart missiles too smart...
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Old 09-28-2016, 06:05 PM   #5
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Default Re: Tips on role playing as a robot

Great advice there, thanks!

I like the idea of the dumbots just repeating the same phrase over and over again. I think I will make language awkward for all the machines except for the zone minds who will be sophisticated enough to speak fluently in any language and may even have insights into human behaviour that we are not even aware of giving bonuses to skills like detect lies.

I was pondering why it is that people don't like to repeat words in conversation, upon reflection that is a little weird, anybody have any thoughts on that?
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Old 09-28-2016, 06:59 PM   #6
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Default Re: Tips on role playing as a robot

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Originally Posted by khorboth View Post
...
Inflection is hard. When speaking, inflecting a single word correctly is pretty easy, but putting the correct emphasis on a sentence is difficult. Humans can turn a statement into a question by raising the pitch at the end of a sentence. This is a hard concept for machines. Have all but the most advanced AI speak with a constant pacing and tone. Don't go for a total monotone, but think of it like every word was recorded separately.
..
I gather this means you're under 30. Nearly everyone I've ever heard under 30 puts that questioning tone at the ends of statements now. I try not to let it irritate the crud out of me.
I remember back in the 80s/90s when only young women did it. But now it's nigh universal for those lacking grey hair. ;)
But we rapidly gloss over obvious perfunctory words to get to the meaningful nouns and actions. Lacking that, so sentences "travel" at a steady state would probably sound really weird. I'm not sure I could even do it.
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Old 09-28-2016, 07:04 PM   #7
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Default Re: Tips on role playing as a robot

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Originally Posted by khorboth View Post
...
Decisiveness: AI won't waffle. Once an action has been deemed necessary, it will be pursued with alacrity and efficiency. Once a person has been deemed trustworthy, past suspicion is erased. AI deals in absolutes with no room for things like residual resentment or sentiment or reluctance.
I remember a study involving dogs. They cannot understand the concept of liars. Either friend or enemy, but not intentional unreliability in truthfulness.
I'm not sure if it makes sense for more mentally intelligent A.I.s to also lack that ability to remember and correlate data.
I just imagine a reliability quotient which may cause an opposite problem. Your number is low, because of something you did years ago, but people change and you're now much more trustworthy.
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Old 09-28-2016, 09:24 PM   #8
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Default Re: Tips on role playing as a robot

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I gather this means you're under 30. Nearly everyone I've ever heard under 30 puts that questioning tone at the ends of statements now. I try not to let it irritate the crud out of me.
I remember back in the 80s/90s when only young women did it. But now it's nigh universal for those lacking grey hair. ;)
But we rapidly gloss over obvious perfunctory words to get to the meaningful nouns and actions. Lacking that, so sentences "travel" at a steady state would probably sound really weird. I'm not sure I could even do it.
That increase in pitch at the end of a sentence is really common in Australia and has been for a very long time, so much so I barely notice it anymore.
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Old 09-29-2016, 04:00 AM   #9
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Default Re: Tips on role playing as a robot

Back to the original topic: what disadvantages would be suitable for a robot personality? I am thinking no sense of humour and slave mentality are obvious ones.
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Old 09-29-2016, 05:21 AM   #10
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Back to the original topic: what disadvantages would be suitable for a robot personality? I am thinking no sense of humour and slave mentality are obvious ones.
Slave mentality would render an A.I. completely non-sapient in effect. They wouldn't do anything to fulfill goals except what they were specifically ordered to do. They would have no goals, just pre-programmed functions.
No Sense Of Humor makes sense if they weren't intended to interact with humans and our metaphorical language and predilection for the absurd and disconnected from reality jokes.
The chicken crossed the road most likely, because it saw food.

Though one of my all time favorite jokes may make sense to even a robot;
How many men would it take to shingle an average house?
One, if you slice him very thinly.
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