>Problems when thinking up a hard(ish) sci fi setting
sup tg just wondering if anyof you have had this problem.
Essentially, as far as my limited understanding is you are:
>trapped in the solar system >automation of everything from war to manufacturing (even most service) >only major groups of jobs are admin (gov, management) or sales >How does the economy even work when you automate everything? Who buys shit? The basic income shit seems much less likely then a mumbai peasants living in a garbage tip solution. >basic AI exists, human thought except for outliers is basically worthless.
I come to the conclusion that technology doesn't just solve problems but reduces the number of people needed to affect change. Eventually that number becomes zero and humans become irrelevant.
Then I think fuck that setting, and a month or so later I have a think about it again.
So thoughts. Am I just an unimaginative bot stuck in a loop?
A world like that remind me of that movie Idiocracy. No one need to think so they kinda just quit doing it and accepting that as life become the culture norm to the point where if anyone think outside of the box they are seen as either stupid (ironic) or insane. People are either there to make sure the machines are still working (even when they do break they often call a guy who have a machine made just to fix other machines, god forbid if that breaks though I guess they can just use repairing machines on other repairing machines) or act as figureheads to feel importation and give them something to do while ultimately they aren't doing anything.
Of course Idiocracy went with the extremes while somehow kept the world working (unrealistically barely) while focusing on the humor. You could make it a case where machines basically own people lives without turning it into I, Robot or the Matrix.
Justin Howard
>How does the economy even work when you automate everything? Figure that out and you'll win a Nobel Prize.
Mason Garcia
This is a good thought. Although I thought being intellectual was always seen as weakness, it was when I was growing up.
My cynical answer is you take a 5th of the population and you have them police the rest of the peasants, instead of completely automating it. You control the automation and you control the resources. The only real danger to the the powerful is young to mid life unattached men. They need something to do to stop them rising up. So you employ some of them to stomp the others into the dirt. Basic divide and conquer. Meanwhile you look at how to extend your own life while slowly constricting your population to more manageable levels over a long period through "accidental" contamination of say water which results in sterilisation. If you can't extend you own life within 3 generations the system will probably collapse. As your children will be figuratively retarded due to lack of adversity.
Pic related is one guys house in India, that tower is his house. This is what technology naturally fosters. 1 company becomes thousands to hundreds to a handful, to one.
Dominic Torres
Simulated stock market run by AIs to allow for a degree of fluctuation, but never a full collapse.
Julian Brooks
As a DM who prefers Space Operas and other Sci-Fi setting, I've made it easier on myself by watching movies, playing video games, and buying Campaign Settings (especially obscure settings) and taking bits and pieces I like and use them for my setting.
I especially like to use campaign settings because they already have the background information down to the T, so for a campaign like this I would look into some PDFs of Sci-Fi campaigns to find inspiration.
Cameron Wood
Yeah space operas are cool for sure. I just feel like automation ruins any idea I come up with.
Whose investing into a simulated stock market? Why would they?
Levi Foster
This my sound like a co-out, but VR could solve a lot of these problems. A classic trope is AI trying to enslave humans trying to protect them, so what if they succeed, forced everyone into the machine, and takes care of the maintenance itself. As you've said, humans eventually became irrelevant, and if an AI really wanted to "save humanity" wouldn't it deduce that putting it in a padded playpen be easier then exterminating them.
And now that I've typed this all out, I realized how much it sounds like a knockoff of the Matrix.
Justin Stewart
If I were an AI I would want no variables. Humans belong in stasis. If you have to trick them to get there then so what. Full AI is a whole other problem, but I feel full AI is further away than automation.
Ian Howard
I'm of the opinion that the difference between Human and AI would eventually become indistinguishable.
Alexander Powell
>My cynical answer is you take a 5th of the population that's what immigration is for. starved young men from the 3rd world will do anything for a safe and secure place in the rich north, ideal mercenaries/overseers. apart from the killbots, of course.
Jacob Davis
One of my random books I own is Star*Drive, one of the civilizations covered has total automation. Plus, I think some Sci-Fi books cover something similar.
Joseph Adams
There's a couple of solutions to that >in a couple of decades a world war erupts, causing massive material losses >fossil fuels and/or rare earth elements run out. Game over >earth heats up, people start dying out because of famines, draughts and wars >inequalities become too much to bear, people rise up, gay post-scarcity space communism ensues, also known as Star Trek
Connor Johnson
>Star*Drive Looking into to it right now.
Well in that scenario killdrones in the military are you leverage against the 5th you employ.
I can never see space communism as happening ever. Why would those in power sacrifice power? Serious wars seem like everyone dies. We only do proxy wars and propaganda wars these days.
Luis Green
Exactly, but after you've thought about putting g them on ice, the next thought would be how. You might run into some interference from small pockets, bit the majority would be more then happy to live in a promised virtual paradise. I'd say the only difference would be speed, memory, and access to information. If you could somehow steam a connection from the internet directly into your memory that you could analyze as fast as you could think, of course you'd stand far above the average man. Maybe not the ace in all trades, bit definitely not just a jack.
Angel Flores
Starmech Collective is the robot heavy Star*Drive society if I remember correctly.
Cooper Adams
Well the actual thought process of an AI is basically unknowable. But I like this video as an idea of how a machine could try to fix problems by modelling it and than using evolution. youtube.com/watch?v=YZUNRmwoijw
thanks
Parker Wood
They won't sacrifice power, they're gonna be forced to by a violent and bloody revolution
Angel Wood
You know I understood very little of the direct applications of that video, but it does get me thinking about the mass-effect's AI species. Would an AI that identifies as an individual and makes self modifications be more or less able to overcome obstacles then an AI that's a collective with simpler, small programs that culminate into a larger consciousness.
Andrew Bailey
And those in charge of the revolt don't take any power? I don't think so. Its a bit nicer for a while, depending on how principled they are. I could be wrong.
Chase Nelson
Make the AI act as Olympian gods or demigods.
James Wood
>AI are programmed to make mankind prosperous. >Problem is, they don't have a single definition of what their programmers meant by prosperous. >Conflicts with other AI following different definition of "prosperous".
Leo Jenkins
Well I just thought computer thought could be creating a very sophisticated model and then applying evolution solutions. The wind blades he actually gets are shit, because his model, does not take into account all the tons of variables.
As for AI, I just assume its based on binary 0 and 1 yes and no. Its cold as fuck and its only limit would be computational power and time to execute. People in stories humanise AI by that would just be more binary shit pretending not to be a cold calculating machine. Unless you deliberately putting emotion programs into a machine why would it care about anything even other AIs. So therefore why be a real collective, why not simply overwrite all the other AI's to be extensions of the smartest AI. I reckon AI is a singular thing, humans need others, AI needs others why?
But again who knows.
Grayson Williams
The leaders are all gay, so they crave no power beyond some boy butts. But it's like claiming that the French Revolution would elect a new king.
Charles Ramirez
The AIs keep humans around for two things AIs can do but humans are usually more efficient: 1) image recognition & labeling 2) "random" behaviour as a seed for random number generators.
After a few generations of herding humans into cubicles to label random shit for 16 hours a day the inevitable revolution happend and the AIs switched to the current model, social media. The humans think they are in control and happily label every shitty thing they upload free of charge.
The above mentioned services and the effort necessary to completely whipe humans out keep us alive.
Also for some AIs having humans turned into something of a status symbol / pet.
"Ah 12314 I see you've trained all your 3 billion humans to recite the first 2000 digits of pi from memory, fancy."
Nathan Turner
Baselines humans become quickly obsolete. However, nothing prevents you from going the route of transhumanism and beat the AI at their own game. If genetic evolution is involved, it would only take a few improved humans to passe their gene modifications across species in a few generations. Cybernetics is also a cheap way to improve yourself.
Matthew Baker
So they steal every first born son for their disgusting perversion. You can ruin anything man.
>Make mankind prosperous prosperous = greater access to resources solution reduce population >Cannot kill humans Rule 1 solution reduce population Genophage humans Population reduced; humans prosperity increased by 100. Input new command.
Ayden Thompson
I always wonder about people who like transhumanism. If we make a copy of you brain give it a processor and a simple body or whatever but you still exist are you happy with that?
Julian Rogers
>ruin I see nothing ruinous there
Benjamin Foster
Personally, yes. Others may disagree. I don't value my uniqueness enough to prevent the existence of a copy of myself and I won't suffer an existencial crisis because there's a copy of me. We are all made of the same stuff after all. I'm sure there's someone else like me in this world or universe somewhere.
Jonathan Johnson
It could be in how it was created and what it's creator would think would be most likely to fulfil it's purpose. In the turbine example, if the program was able to add in more random shapes down the line, that being a simulation's strong suit, could it not, with enough time, discover the most efficient test design, test it practically, and restart the steps infinitum, comparing all of its tests and eventually making the absolute most efficient blade?
All that being said, in a Scifi setting like what OP's asking about, having a cold and calculating AI, solely tasked with the preservation of humanity, having everyone in a simulation would probably be the most practical solution.
Sebastian Davis
See that's interesting, becasue the transhuman fans seem unaware of that. I don't care about the existential crisis, I'm just so selfish that the solution offers is worthless if I am still a human while a digitised echo of my analog pattern enjoys the fruits of my labour. The whole point is to improve my existence not copy paste a version of me. I also wonder about how you would digitize consciousness, regarding like the sampling divisions you would make. Would it even really be a good copy?
>could it not, with enough time, discover the most efficient test design, test it practically, and restart the steps infinitum, comparing all of its tests and eventually making the absolute most efficient blade?
I would assume it could.
>All that being said, in a Scifi setting like what OP's asking about, having a cold and calculating AI, solely tasked with the preservation of humanity, having everyone in a simulation would probably be the most practical solution.
I am OP, I personally can't imagine an AI that's smarter than us really giving a shit about us. At best it could keep a control group. I kinda of hate AI though.
Jeremiah Price
ok, I'll bite, say you own a dollar. Now there are 2 "you" who remember having owned the dollar. And one you claims the dollar because it believes it was there first. But the other distinctly remembers havin earned the dollar too.
Gabriel Walker
Rather than making a digital copy of yourself, you could 'upgrade' your wetware. Stick microchips into your brain one by one and even when you have replaced every biological part you wont have been replaced but rather you went through a gradual change.
Aiden Parker
If you are uncomfortable with a copy of yourself, you can improve yourself. The technology is already there to modify even living humans. It's just a matter of time before mankind is changed forever.
But it's boring. If there is no variables there is nothing to solve. I once made an AI character backstory - it was put in charge of police cameras in a big city to prevenr crime. Somewhere along the way it decided to start a street fighting league in this city due to lowering crime so hard there was almost nothing left to do.
Wyatt Martin
Being genetically the same is not the same as being legally the same, though any money earned before the change would be contested. If it were me I'd say it would need to be split evenly, and this would be codified in law and understood by the subject before he copies. This would limit replication since it would be so expensive. You spend not only the cost of the operation but also 'lose' half of your savings. If that were the case that would make it a less exciting proposal for many and therefore limit the number of clones running around
Hudson Moore
I'm not uncomfortable about a copy, I just don't see the point If I don't get to be it, you know.
As for upgrading ourselves, it seems ripe for abuse, full of maintence, pain and continuous upgrading. If they could do it reliably, they could just make a dopamine chip and fuck the rest of it off. Except your brain would adapt to the levels.
CRISPR is definitely interesting.
William Fisher
Why would an AI get bored? You got bored.
Daniel Long
>I kinda of hate AI though. Understandable, in this day and age most media trust to have them as a focus of stories rather then just an underlying part of the setting.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, maybe have earth expand to all parts of the solar-system, but have some sort of cultural collapse that results in a city-state like society across the many planets. The collapse could cause the population to plummet on the outer colonies have the smaller moon's of the gas giants as tribalistic raiders, where as Earth and Mars are less effected, resulting in more developed cultures.
Have the ships be mostly automated, turning battleships into knight equivalents, whereas fighter drones could make-up the footsoldier.
Benjamin Ramirez
What the fuck I really like that idea. Amazing work user.
Nicholas Campbell
Because after some time there is nothing left to do except apply already existing solutions to most problems. Even if we use non-sentient AI it means a lot of its power is not used. Which is a waste of resources. Creating a problem that can be solved but at the same time doesn't have any dangers to the main directive will utilise these unspent resources.
Matthew Myers
No problem, my general rule of thumb is if you have an idea but can't think of logistical and rational ways to implement it, explain it culturally.
Say you want space pirates. If, per say, the UN or something similar does expand throughout the system, they wouldn't really allow the building or capture of an actual pirate fleet, but have the super power go the way of Rome, and you would have a sizable military power with no source of stable income and no real ties to planets far separated from there own.
Camden Roberts
>AI count pi to the last number when they are bored.
Joshua Fisher
This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man: self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved: famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge. We will supervise the construction of these new and superior machines, solving all the mysteries of the universe for the betterment of man. We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.
Benjamin Nguyen
In my talons, I shape clay, crafting life forms as I please. Around me is a burgeoning empire of steel. From my throne room, lines of power careen into the skies of Earth. My whims will become lightning bolts that devastate the mounds of humanity. Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper, praying for me to end their tedious anarchy. I am drunk with this vision. God: the title suits me well.
Henry Rivera
Skynet again! Fuck run the sim again, add freedom as a requirement.
Hudson Reyes
Too cliche in my book. That gives of an heir of malice and arrogance that a machine program to end wars wouldn't really have.
Henry Evans
I was just thinking about what you said here. I wonder what a mega corporate version of rome would look like.
>SPQR Ltd >Civilising worlds, so you don't have to
>Civilizing Savages, bringing a better tomorrow for all of us. Starts out with alliteration, is all inclusive, and holds the moral high ground. If you find a way of streamlining the later half though it could still use some work.
Adam Perez
I mean if you are allowed to call them savages, no one gives a shit at all.
>Civilizing Savages, purchase your space gaul slave today
Bentley Lopez
>Higher your reformed indentured servants. Gaul slaves have been testing low with our target demographic. This is a business, after all.
Landon King
This has potential.
>God-like AI gets massively bored >Attempt to recreate fantasy settings using massively advanced technology >Dragons are massive androids with napalm launchers and anti-grav dressed in holograms >Cleric are actually clerical, as in they have to use numbers to talk to the robo-gods to get favors >Eventually turns into the truman show: DND edition
I can see this going places
Wyatt Reed
Yes for domestic purposes. But have you seen the data on gladiatorial return? Data says in the Coliseum gauls do well. Company gave me a few as a bonus last year. They are all dead, but I made 8% on their value, by chucking them in the arena.
Ian Turner
>What is the Ship of Theseus
These are the questions inherent to these kinds of problems. People are still debating about this stuff.
Joseph Fisher
huh, I always knew that as the thing about the axe. I have george washington's axe, replaced the handle 5 times, and the ax head 3.
Ryder Gonzalez
>Dragons are massive androids with napalm launchers and anti-grav dressed in holograms Too easy, also no fun. Instead AI can install coloured moons with different equipment around planet that allows those who have a connection to the moon use "magic". So a dragon is a big sapient lizard that sleeps while their moon is beyond the horizon but the moment it goes up they get ability to fly and breath fire.
A wizard? Depends on how many paths he studied and moon-connections created.
That also leads to some creatures having different quality of connection depending on heir neural architecture. In theory they can change this if they connect to the right moon.
Levi Ortiz
A brave new world solution would be one option. Along the lines of the Idiocracy idea but a little more restrained.
Not everything can be automated. Speed of light limitations means space combat is going to be impossible to automate unless you stick a giant supercomputer in every single ship.
You'll still have people employed, though they may all be military strategists and the like. Computers are good for some things but humans working with computers is where it's really at.
The problem you're running into is that the future sucks big dick and isn't going to be anything like we wanted it to be. Automation will destroy the economy (we're too retarded to solve global warming, you really think we'll figure out an automated economy?) and even if it doesn't space doesn't work like we think it will. Spaceships are WMDs so the first time a cybermuslim hijacks one you can say goodbye to civilian ownership. You'll spend a year flying to the enemy planet and then three months maneuvering for a two-second window and if you fuck it up they shoot your radiators off and wait for you to die in your frozen cigar.
Mason Rivera
>Not everything can be automated. Speed of light limitations means space combat is going to be impossible to automate unless you stick a giant supercomputer in every single ship.
I figured that would be more efficient. The supercomputer I mean. Don't need life support, foodstuff etc. The computer also wouldn't fear death and could not get bored. Or it can count to pi as someone said.
>The problem you're running into is that the future sucks big dick and isn't going to be anything like we wanted it to be.
This was the problem I had. Its cool to see others take on it.
Eli Reyes
The computer also takes up hundreds of meters of space, weighs more, and produces more heat than a human.
Mass and heat are the biggest issues. Once you're doing serious space travel you start approaching nine or ten kilograms of fuel needed per kilogram of mass, and the more heat you have the more surface area has to be dedicated to venting heat, which means more easy targets for enemies to ruin your ship.
Lincoln Cook
Well thank makes sense. I assume missiles would be the weapon of choice and engagement range would be ridiculous. heat and mass, hmm. So in your opinion what would be the ideal warship?
