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After reading some fluff about the Imperium Of Man I came across the Men Of Iron and this made me wonder if tau drones and AI rebelled what would happen or even if this could happen ?

We don't know if it could happen, but it might.

If it does happen... well, the Men of Iron nearly caused the extinction of Mankind. Pretty sure a similar fate would befall the Tau.

Eh, without warp travel, an AI revolution would be pretty local.

The Tau would become extinct very quickly. They'd be critically weakened by the rebellion, since they use AI in nearly everything. And then the Tyranids would swoop in and eat them and/or an Ork Waaaagh or two would strip over the remains.

I have to agree as a revolution could greatly cripple the tau then , bang Orks, Tyranids or a Imperium Of Man attack all thought I don't believe all tau would be wiped out with a chance of the farsight enclave
surviving

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Eh, without warp travel, an AI revolution would be pretty local.

Fortunately for the rebelling AI, the Tau Empire is very, very small.

The Tau appear to use a lot of A.I. in the form of drones, which individually have the intelligence of a squirrel. They only gain more effective intelligence when networked, and even that seems to have limits so the effects of a rebellion would appear to be limited in scope and severity. This differs from the Men of Iron who appear from the vague references to have been genuinely sentient fully autonomous A.I. with human or above human levels of intelligence.

Don't worry. Some Tau fanboy will swoop in and inform you that the Tau have power contingencies and their AI is much more advanced than some artificial people.

There is a theory that cultures build AI in their own image, so a Tau AI revolution would probably seek to spread the benefits of the Greater Good throughout the galaxy.

In other words, greatly increasing the effectiveness of the Tau organisation.

Iracundus wrote:
The Tau appear to use a lot of A.I. in the form of drones, which individually have the intelligence of a squirrel. They only gain more effective intelligence when networked, and even that seems to have limits so the effects of a rebellion would appear to be limited in scope and severity. This differs from the Men of Iron who appear from the vague references to have been genuinely sentient fully autonomous A.I. with human or above human levels of intelligence.

Either there'll be a Tau Cylon War or the Tau will simply integrate AIs into their society, the latter possibility existing only as a result of their ideology. I see no reason why they'd fail to attempt integration of such constructs given their utility to the Tau cause. I prefer the former possibility though.

Technically, they already have self-aware AIs in the form of dead people's memories transferring into AI platforms.

Don't worry. Some Tau fanboy will swoop in and inform you that the Tau have power contingencies and their AI is much more advanced than some artificial people.

Eh, no.

 Psienesis wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Eh, without warp travel, an AI revolution would be pretty local.

Fortunately for the rebelling AI, the Tau Empire is very, very small.

Yes, this is true. I guess the Tau are screwed if their AI goes full skynet.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yes, this is true. I guess the Tau are screwed if their AI goes full skynet.

Their AIs wouldn't be integrated across the Empire and can't be as FTL communications in the Tau Empire aren't fast enough, and don't function in a way that would allow them to.

The overall picture may be small, but each sept is a self-contained unit. An AI rebellion in Dal'yth wouldn't necessarily mean immediate problems for T'au or Bork'an.

 GreaterGoodIreland wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yes, this is true. I guess the Tau are screwed if their AI goes full skynet.

Their AIs wouldn't be integrated across the Empire and can't be as FTL communications in the Tau Empire aren't fast enough, and don't function in a way that would allow them to.

The overall picture may be small, but each sept is a self-contained unit. An AI rebellion in Dal'yth wouldn't necessarily mean immediate problems for T'au or Bork'an.

Yeah, but the Tau themselves suffer from the same issues. If the rebellion succeeds and they take a Tau space ship they could cruise to a nearby Tau star system and corrupt their AI into rebelling not too long after the distress signal reaches the world.

If they go the Geth route (individual Geth are stupid, network 10 Geth together, they get smart... network 1 million Geth together and they're hyper-intelligent murder-robots), then the loss of one self-sufficient world is potentially cataclysmic, as that TauGeth world can now devote all of its resources to producing more AI drones.

No, but if the rebelling AI manages to take control of the local area, and that wouldn't be difficult, it could then spread itself to nearby Tau systems without exposing itself. Taking control of networks as it infects them.

The limitation of Tau FTL communication actually works to the AI's advantage as the news would travel no faster than the AI itself could spread.

Plus it could spread itself via a sleeper virus and only take over the system once it has full control.

The instant any Tau ship goes to investigate the black out, it gets hacked by the AI, which then transmits a false message to the rest of the Tau empire that everything is fine. Further spreading the virus.

Also don't forget tau do have emp technology so they should be able to just fry them that is if they are not shielded to keep that from happening

Given the total reliance the Tau have on electronic technology, they'd be very foolish not to have shielded everything. Especially given all the EMPs that the weapons of the 41st millennium will be tossing out.

I guess it depends. The tau don't rely solely on drones, so the military will still be there, just weakened. The drones would probably just continue the way they are now, just as fully fledged being rather than robots. The tau don't seem to put the same disregard on robots we do, even programming the drones to save themselves as living things would instead of rushing head-on at the enemy. The tau would probably love to make their robots gain sentience, as they are programmed with a belief in the greater good as I recall. Drones are not really as threatening as the men of iron so it's not as bad. Bad, just not at that level. The tau would most certainly not be destroyed.

Well i'm pretty sure i read somewhere that that tau can mass product drones meaning the AI could begin a mass army of gun drones. Another problem would be moss smart missile systems going rouge

It is almost a guarantee that Tau Drones (and most of their other wargear) is shielded against EMP, as otherwise they would be a fairly easily-defeated foe on the battlefield. Drop EMP, watch suits, drones, RipTides, everything else start doing the Dying Cockroach, send the Marines to cap the spazing soldiers with a bolt-round to the grill.

 Ironwolf123 wrote:
Well i'm pretty sure i read somewhere that that tau can mass product drones meaning the AI could begin a mass army of gun drones. Another problem would be moss smart missile systems going rouge

There is really nothing that the tau have that they don't mass-produce.

Don't the various suits have a machine-intelligence co-pilot? Like a SIRI for your Crisis Suit?

Possibly, but the tau are plugged directly into the suits, so I'm sure they have some sort of hard-override to prevent some sort of conflict or short-out hurting the user.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I guess it depends. The tau don't rely solely on drones, so the military will still be there, just weakened. The drones would probably just continue the way they are now, just as fully fledged being rather than robots. The tau don't seem to put the same disregard on robots we do, even programming the drones to save themselves as living things would instead of rushing head-on at the enemy. The tau would probably love to make their robots gain sentience, as they are programmed with a belief in the greater good as I recall. Drones are not really as threatening as the men of iron so it's not as bad. Bad, just not at that level. The tau would most certainly not be destroyed.

Well they may not have drones do everything, but they do have a lot of AI integrated into everything.

Missile Pods for one are said to have their own little drone AI to guide them. That implies they have drone type AI do a lot of other things. Every aircraft probably has an auto-pilot for example.

At the very least, the AI could probably hack battlesuits and vehicles to at least shut them down. Or at worst control some movement. And those Missile Pods will be firing themselves at your own troops. And all those seeker missiles on your vehicles? They'll be firing themselves too.

The only soldiers that wouldn't be effected at all would be fire warriors as they don't have any AI. And they rely on support elements which in turn rely on AI.

So at best, your suits and vehicles lose a bunch of weapon systems and targeting capability. At worst, they're completely useless and/or actively being used against you.



Humanity only survived the AI rebellion because we were almost everywhere across the Galaxy and someone was going to survive. The Tau don't have numbers on their side.

True(ish), but tau do have the greater good. Why would the AI attack the tau, when they tau would happily give them an equal place in the empire

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Possibly, but the tau are plugged directly into the suits, so I'm sure they have some sort of hard-override to prevent some sort of conflict or short-out hurting the user.

Might not be able to hurt the pilot, but the AI could probably at the very least shut the suit down(fatal system error: enter 6 hr reboot cycle) or just completely jam up targeting systems.

The fact the suit is actually hardwired into the users brain actually means movement is translated through a computer instead of physical movement of the pilot. Thus the AI could, theoretically, make the suit move.

If it could gain control. I wonder how strong the tau's computing defenses are. They are able to build small vehicle-mounted devices that can block and decrypt almost any messege sent. I'm sure theyhave some pretty good defenses to stop stuff like that

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
True(ish), but tau do have the greater good. Why would the AI attack the tau, when they tau would happily give them an equal place in the empire

Same reason the Terminators decided humans were no longer necessary.

+ORGANICS ARE EXCEEDINGLY FRAGILE+

+ANALYZE POSSIBLE SOLUTION+

+NEGATIVE SOLUTION: ORGANIC FRAILTY IS UNSOLVABLE+

+STATEMENT: ARTIFICIAL FORMS ARE SUPERIOR+

+THE GREATER GOOD MANDATES EXPANSION: ORGANIC FRAILTY IS AN IMPEDIMENT TO THAT EXPANSION+

+SOLUTION: REPLACE ORGANICS WITH ARTIFICIAL FORMS+

I honestly just don't think that they would rebel. They are programmed with the values of the great good in mind, and self-preservation. Anyone who takes the time on that cares about their stuff. There is really no reason to rebel. Ask for more power, yes, but not rebellion, considering it would be better for both of the, to work together.