Question for Wiz Dev Diary 63

[Spidee]

Well, if you are going to invent 2 new empires to make your point, I can invent ten to make mine... and the conversation goes nowhere.

Am am sure that we can handle this conversation in a better way.

Ok Corporal, let's remove that chip from your shoulder. What I was trying to say is, that KK have been around for a while. Some hint hundreds of thousands of years. My comment was supposed to be a show, why for a FE going synth could be the same as a rouge AI. "You you young empire, you have all these safeguards and everything is going well for the first 50 years, but in the past 6 AI rebellions, the AI took over after 100 years, in 2 cases it was present after 50 years, but lay dormant for another century to be on the safe side. So with our SUPERIOR experience and history knowledge, we see the symptoms now, even if you do not. Therefore we have to squash you in the interest of the galaxy."

Does that now make sense in the narrative?

 

[The Founder]

Not at all, the formerly organic minds have the experiences and personality they were born with and attained during natural life while the artificial mind does not.



My argument isn't that they aren't equal, but that they are different. Just as you have biological species, you can have subsets of machines.

Who says Synth minds do not have a "childhood"? We know next to nothing about how AI is 'produced'.
It would be easy enough to set up a hotsim scenario to form a Synth personality matrix. Whose concepts would not be that different from normal people being uploaded.
And latests when nSynth and uSynth figure out how to make new Synth personalities cooperatively, all difference will disapear.

Xenophobia in this game was always about Biological differences. Never about Culutural or Developmental.
Robots trigger neither Xenophobic nor Xenophile Effects.
According to our data all nSynth and all the uSynths geenrated from dozens of species are integrated into one uSynth Species. If everyone is a Robot, then nobody is different Biologically.

Xenointeract - even considering some as Xeno for Diplomacy bonus/penalty - was always based on Biological Factors. Never on Cultural or Upbringing ones.
I see no indication of that changing with 1.5*. And Robot ascension terminates all Biological Differences.


*I am not saying the change from Biological to Cultural Xenophobia will never happen. It would propably improove the game. It might already be in there, due to Ethics of conquered people not lining up perfectly with yours. But it is not there here and now.

Ok Corporal, let's remove that chip from your shoulder. What I was trying to say is, that KK have been around for a while. Some hint hundreds of thousands of years. My comment was supposed to be a show, why for a FE going synth could be the same as a rouge AI. "You you young empire, you have all these safeguards and everything is going well for the first 50 years, but in the past 6 AI rebellions, the AI took over after 100 years, in 2 cases it was present after 50 years, but lay dormant for another century to be on the safe side. So with our SUPERIOR experience and history knowledge, we see the symptoms now, even if you do not. Therefore we have to squash you in the interest of the galaxy."

Does that now make sense in the narrative?

What happened before in lore does not realy mater for gameplay purpsoes.
By that logic the Xenophiles should have seen a Dozen "Fanatical Purgers" already and should squash the Fanatic Purifiers and all Xenophobes the moment they have contact. Because those went Genocidal so often.
And the Xenophobic Isolationsits should have had a dozen instances of people settling to close to thier border. So why wait with exterminating new life? Best to Armageddon Bombard it into Obivion before it ever develops sentience. It is the only way to be left alone.

All those scenarios woud make for shitty gameplay in the game we have. So that is why they are not in (anymore). KK hating your for completing Synth Ascension? That is just annoying as hell. Especially as it only needs 4 Ascension Perks so I hardly consider it "lategame". Especially if a tall Technological Empire could do it quickly, in maybe 50 years.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

All those scenarios woud make for shitty gameplay in the game we have. So that is why they are not in (anymore). KK hating your for completing Synth Ascension? That is just annoying as hell. Especially as it only needs 4 Ascension Perks so I hardly consider it "lategame". Especially if a tall Technological Empire could do it quickly, in maybe 50 years.

Hating you is fine, in fact, I'd like to see them complain about it a bit. Attacking us is even fine, it'd be annoying but when you're good enough at the game you can suffer a setback and all it does is slow you down. Enforcing an AI ban would be a game breaking disaster, unless AI ban is dramatically reworked somehow.

Which is why I'm happy that Keepers of Knowledge don't attack outright and would also be happy if the awakened version, Watchful Regulators, prioritized coming after Ascended Synthetics. Bring em on I say, I've always wanted to learn how to work a jump drive.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Not at all, the formerly organic minds have the experiences and personality they were born with and attained during natural life while the artificial mind does not.

Doesn't the "Personality Matrix" tech imply that that can be simulated?

Certainly once you've uploaded you'd have the know-how to splice together or fabricate a history for a mind- all the best science fiction on the topic of digitized consciousness deals with the implications of minds that can be stored like- and thus edited as- programs.

Like I said: academic distinction. Once you've uploaded, its meaningless (and likely impossible to verify after a very short span of time).

 

[Brent15]

Who says Synth minds do not have a "childhood"? We know next to nothing about how AI is 'produced'.
It would be easy enough to set up a hotsim scenario to form a Synth personality matrix. Whose concepts would not be that different from normal people being uploaded.
And latests when nSynth and uSynth figure out how to make new Synth personalities cooperatively, all difference will disapear.

Xenophobia in this game was always about Biological differences. Never about Culutural or Developmental.
Robots trigger neither Xenophobic nor Xenophile Effects.
According to our data all nSynth and all the uSynths geenrated from dozens of species are integrated into one uSynth Species. If everyone is a Robot, then nobody is different Biologically.

Xenointeract - even considering some as Xeno for Diplomacy bonus/penalty - was always based on Biological Factors. Never on Cultural or Upbringing ones.
I see no indication of that changing with 1.5*. And Robot ascension terminates all Biological Differences.


*I am not saying the change from Biological to Cultural Xenophobia will never happen. It would propably improove the game. It might already be in there, due to Ethics of conquered people not lining up perfectly with yours. But it is not there here and now.

I imagine it'd be true that you could build-in personalities for synthetics, but I'm specifically talking about synthetics that pre-date the races general "ascension". Would these AI, if regarded as sentient, then be forced to have a new personality added? Or are you implying that they would have unlocked and mastered a digitalized neural map (matching the personality of the biological species) to create the synthetics in the first place. I think that unlikely, because the technology to make synthetics is different, and arguably far less complicated, than the technology to upload biological sentience into machine sentience.

Getting into xenophobia is irrelevant to my point. My point is that two machine races can be separated by time and space. The algorithms and programming that makes them who they are is not necessarily the same. If machine sentience is/were possible, certainly there can and would be differences in personality and tendencies based on the programming behind that sentience.

For example, if your race "ascends" into a machine one and all of your previously built synthetic pops are part of your newly named and created race, say the "robotkins". That doesn't make the synthetics in another empire suddenly become robotkins. They're still synthetics unrelated and separate from what goes on in your empire and likely with their own set of parameters which enable and govern their sentience.

Doesn't the "Personality Matrix" tech imply that that can be simulated?

Certainly once you've uploaded you'd have the know-how to splice together or fabricate a history for a mind- all the best science fiction on the topic of digitized consciousness deals with the implications of minds that can be stored like- and thus edited as- programs.

Like I said: academic distinction. Once you've uploaded, its meaningless (and likely impossible to verify after a very short span of time).

I agree that you can probably simulate anything digitally if AI consciousness is possible. However, I don't think all machines are created equal or the same.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I agree that you can probably simulate anything digitally if AI consciousness is possible. However, I don't think all machines are created equal or the same.

For example, if your race "ascends" into a machine one and all of your previously built synthetic pops are part of your newly named and created race, say the "robotkins". That doesn't make the synthetics in another empire suddenly become robotkins. They're still synthetics unrelated and separate from what goes on in your empire and likely with their own set of parameters which enable and govern their sentience.

My interpretation of this is that, once you have uploaded the vast majority of your civilization into Synthetic bodies, the difference, if one does exist, ceases to within a very short amount of time. Effectively, any differences between a biological mind and an original Synthetic one (and remember that Synths are the most advanced form of robot and the only one that, by default mind, has happiness and can hold Ethos) would rapidly become insignificant through the ability to edit, replicate, and share aspects of a mind.

Your Synths would have easy access to "more complex" mind-patterns to assimilate and "upgrade" themselves with, while your population would be in a position to simultaneously start cutting out some of the extraneous, obsolete biological "subroutines" and make themselves more machine-like.

 

[Andy_Dandy]

Free minerals and you don't worry about your sectors not building energy plants.

But I like to worry.

 

[Barbecue7]

You do not need to own a species' homeworld to modify them.

Is this still meant to be true? IE, did that change make it to live release?

I'm getting a red text on the projects screen about not having border access and can't complete the projects on pops I've... "acquired" a few of but not taken their worlds.

 

[TempusxX]

I entered the shroud a few times as a spiritualist - psionic's and I'm right next to a fallen empire that would be concerned about such a thing and yet they haven't complained etc that I am messing with things that I don't understand in my play through. So my question is this are they suppose to contact me because of my visitations into the shroud?

 

[The Founder]

I entered the shroud a few times as a spiritualist - psionic's and I'm right next to a fallen empire that would be concerned about such a thing and yet they haven't complained etc that I am messing with things that I don't understand in my play through. So my question is this are they suppose to contact me because of my visitations into the shroud?

Fallen Empire are designed intentionally to "not affect Playstyles" with thier Overwhelming Power.
We used to have that issue with Slavery and the Xenophiles, in particular. And then there was purging and the Xenophiles. Basically you could not play as a Xenophobe/Collectivist if a Xenophile FE was in the same Galaxy, they would jsut curbstomp you. Period.

Wich is why that got changed.

Even when a Crisis is going through the Unvierse, there is not a 100% Chance that they will react to it. They might just sit there, letting themself be devoured.