Infomorphs

From Gothpoodle

Revision as of 14:56, 19 July 2012

AIs are artificial intelligence software running on computers. AI refers to the capacity for sentience and intelligent action, but not necessarily self-awareness. AI labor is partially responsible for the increases in global productivity characteristic of the last half-century.

AIs is a function primarily of software rather than hardware. An AI can be housed in a machine body (“cybershell”) or a living body controlled through computer implants (“bioshell”).

There are three classes of AI:

Nonsapient AIs (NAIs) are capable of sentient behavior and can learn, but lack self-initiative, reasoning ability, empathy, and creativity.

Low-Sapient AIs (LAIs) are capable of self-initiative and a degree of empathy, but lack human-level creativity. Still, it can be hard to tell an LAI from a sapient AI just from conversation. There have been a few rare instances where an LAI (or gestalt of LAIs) evolved into a sapient AI.

Sapient AIs (SAIs) are capable of human equivalent or higher sapience when run on appropriate hardware. This is sometimes referred to as “self-awareness.” Sapient AIs are usually carefully raised by humans or human-programmed SAIs. This socialization process teaches them how to interact with humans. Most SAIs cultivate human-like personas. Sapient AIs almost always have names and many create human-like avatars (software images). Personal ownership of a sapient AI is licensed or restricted in many nations, and copying or modifying them without permission is generally illegal.

There are about as many AIs as people. Approximately one-third of the human population of Earth owns a nonsapient or low-sapient AI who serves as a constant personal companion, inhabiting a home computer or virtual interface (see Augmented Reality). The population of sapient AIs is smaller: there are fewer than 100 million in existence, primarily due to hardware costs and legal controls.

AIs are programmed to obey the law and their owners. NAIs and LAIs are generally seen as property, but views on sapient AI differ. The Islamic Caliphate considers SAIs to possess souls, and allows them to be citizens. The European Union and some space colonies also grant SAIs “human rights.” Most other places disagree, and treat SAIs as property. Sapient AIs created outside the European Union or Caliphate are raised to agree with this view.

Uploading and Mind Emulation

Memories are encoded within the physical structure of the brain on the molecular level. Uploading is the process of copying all this information into a digital form. These upload recordings can be used to create a mind emulation, a computer program that, when run on a sufficiently potent computer, emulates the workings of the original person’s mind.

A mind emulation is not merely a recording, but a conscious, self-aware, working digital model of the way a particular living being’s brain functions. This requires simulating much of the rest of the body and its environment as well: “naked consciousness” bereft of context rapidly becomes insane.

Mind emulations can be housed in computers contained within bioshells or cybershells. Those without mobile bodies inhabit virtual reality simulations of, at minimum, a room. They are often permitted to access the wider Web itself, allowing them to partake of online virtual realities.

Emulations are usually made of human minds, but animals can be emulated. The legal status of human mind emulations varies between nations: some treat them as artificial intelligences, others as people. There are three types of mind emulation:

Ghost

A “ghost” is created via a destructive uploading (or “brainpeeling”) process. A living or newly dead patient (or his severed head) is placed into nanostasis. The brain is removed and carefully sliced by robotic surgeons into multiple tiny segments. Each segment is then scanned by a hypersensitive magnetic resonance imager (HyMRI) or other instrument. The data is used to create a digital reconstruction of the patient’s brain configuration, called a ghost.

Brainpeeling is fatal to the original person, so ghosts are controversial. Is it suicide or transcendence? A ghost is a perfect mind emulation, mentally indistinguishable from the original person. Whether it is a “human being” remains in question. People and religions that believe in souls differ on whether ghosts have them. Ghosts require a great deal of computer power to run, equivalent to a sapient AI, but current computers are sophisticated enough that a ghost can be built into a computer small enough to be implanted in a brain.

Most ghosts are the product of individuals who deliberately underwent destructive uploading in order to obtain a form of immortality, often out of a desire to live as a posthuman entity in a superhuman cybershell body or series of bodies. Ghosts have certain advantages: for example, they allow rapid travel across the solar system and beyond, if a receiving station has been set up. Ghosts are also cheaper than full-scale cellular rejuvenation technology. Perhaps most significantly, a ghost can be copied indefinitely. It is against the law in nearly all nations for a person to exist as more than one conscious ghost, but it is legal to create backups of the original or the ghost’s current state. Copying either is as simple as copying any other computer program: each backup requires hundreds of terabytes of storage, but that is easy to come by.

The big drawback of ghosts is the question of whether it’s really you or just something that thinks it is. The other drawback is that uploading is a complex medical procedure, and once in a while, the operation fails. This usually results in a badly flawed copy or no copy at all.

Fragment

A “fragment” results from a failed attempt to create a ghost. It has little or no memory of its past existence, but may retain vestiges of its original personality and skills. Fragments are often produced when attempting to destructively upload a person who, after dying, was not immediately placed in nanostasis. If he was frozen using older cryonics techniques, or there was a delay of several minutes or more, then there is a high likelihood of retrieving only a fragment rather than a ghost. In areas where ghosts are treated like people, fragments are treated like people with mental illness or amnesia.

Shadow

Shadows have all the advantages of ghosts, can be run on less powerful computers, and take up less data storage space. They have one big disadvantage: it is clear they aren’t quite identical to the original.

Shadows are generally created through a nondestructive mind emulation process (“brainscanning”). This process uses nanoprobe monitoring to provide data for a computer model. A shadow is basically a low-sapient AI that has been taught to behave like a person. (A sapient AI has already become a person.) Editing a ghost or fragment can also produce a shadow. This is as much an art as a science, but it will generally produce a more compressed copy suitable for running on a less powerful system.

Shadows are legal in most blocs except the Islamic Caliphate, but are generally treated as property rather than actual people. Multiple copying of shadows is legal in some areas, strongly regulated in others.

Rights

Non-Sapient AIs

NAIs are universally considered nonpersons, owned property.

Low-Sapient AIs

LAIs are considered in the same category as domestic animals or pets everywhere but the Islamic Caliphate, where they have limited citizenship. Emergent LAIs aren't treated differently in Duncanite territories but are considered wild animals everywhere else.

Sapient AIs

SAIs are considered in the same category as domestic animals or pets in Pacific Rim, South African, Transpacific, United States, and Duncanite territories. They have limited citizenship in Chinese territories and full citizenship in the European Union, Islamic Caliphate, and transhumanist territories. In India, they are considered nonpersons. Creation of new SAIs is tightly controlled in China, the South African Coalition, and Transpacific Socialist Alliance. Emergent SAIs are citizens in transhumanist colonies, animals in Duncanite territores, wild animals in the European Union, Islamic Caliphate, and USA, and are immediately destroyed in all other nations.

Mind Emulations

Ghosts have full citizenship in the European Union, Pacific Rim Alliance, South African Coalition, USA, and Duncanite and transhumanist colonies and limited citizenship in China and India. The Transpacific Socialist Alliance treats them as domestic animals and they are illegal in the Islamic Caliphate, subject to immediate incarceration and destruction. Fragments have limited citizenship in all territories that grant ghosts citizenship with the exception of Duncanite colonies, which treat them as animals. The Transpacific Socialist Alliance considers fragments property. Shadows are treated as normal LAIs or SAIs except for the Islamic Caliphate, where they are illegal. Creation of ghosts is restricted in China, the European Union, and India.

Bioshells

AIs in control of bioshells are subject to immediate destruction in the European Union, India, and Islamic Caliphate. The only exceptions are ghosts. In India a ghost (or fragment) is allowed to inhabit a bioshell, and in the EU a ghost is allowed to inhabit a clone or necromorph bioshell of its original body. Additionally, it is illegal for emergent AIs to inhabit bioshells in China, the Transpacific Socialist Alliance, or USA.

Special Cases

Rogue AIs are subject to immediate destruction everywhere but transhumanist colonies, where they are considered citizens but creation of them is restricted. The same is true of xoxes except that Duncanite colonies treat them as animals, essentially property of the original AI.