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This is purely theoretical, not saying it should happen rather it didn't as it would ruin the fluff of the Imperium, but if Guilliman overturned the Emperors ban on the dark technologies and allowed A.I. the Imperium would pretty much be saved. Its kinda of funny that they could easily get out of their predicament, they could create another Ironmen age, if they could control them this time, they'd have endless armies with the resources the Imperium has, lets face it the Imperium are kinda fethed now. If I was Guilliman that's what I'd do, yeah they might kill themselves but the forces against the Imperium are ridiculous, Chaos, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks if they can ever stop killing themselves. I mean the DAOT had insane technology.
"Save the Imperium"? Do you have any idea what happened the last times Humans tried AI? And that was without Chaos running rampant. If the Imperium tried to build an AI it could get corrupted by Chaos and destroy everything. Therefore, this thread is declared:
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/10/23 15:39:31
Iron_Captain wrote: ...And that was without Chaos running rampant. If the Imperium tried to build an AI it could get corrupted by Chaos and destroy everything...
"If"?
Isn't this just a description of the Dark Mechanicum?
The Dark Age had insane technology that nearly destroyed the Imperium when they fully understood that technology. Right now even the highest tech priests don't really understand what is going on and many of them are generations old already.
So you'd need to exterminate a huge portion of the upper classes and power bodies of the Imperium so that you could then push through a massive re-education program. Even then you'll have to wait for several generations for that to get going since they lack any proper teachers who know beyond the doctrine; so it would have to be done in stages. So you're already looking at a multi-generational shift in attitudes, understanding and even ontop of all that they've then got to re-invent much of the tech still.
By that point you might get AI - AI would be far far quicker, but at the same time could go hostile once more. Furthermore they'd be heavily distrusted and likely marked as enemies of humanity for many generations so any gain would, again, be slow.
The Imperial faction is like an oil-tanker. It's big enough that it can take a lot of hits and punishment from those xeno forces; however its also slow to move and turn and change direction. It just can't turn sharp corners and make massive change without tearing itself to bits. And a fractured humanity would be even more vulnerable. Just look at Eldar, Necrons and Tau - all three have high level tech and two of them exceptionally high level - yet their fractured and small nature prevents them from dominating, esp against the Imperium. Necrons, in theory, could rise up enough Tomb Worlds to overcome this.
A few problems with the above. One I don't think the IOM knows how to make Men of Iron and even if they did, humanity at the height of it's tech couldn't control them. There is no reason to think the shell that is humanity could figure out that problem which is a huge gamble since they likely wouldn't survive another skynet style rebellion.
The second is chaos can posse machines, which is huge risk and one of the reasons the IOM never put all their eggs in one basket. Depending on how powerful they are they could quickly turn into more of problem than a boon.
Delvarus Centurion wrote: This is purely theoretical, not saying it should happen rather it didn't as it would ruin the fluff of the Imperium, but if Guilliman overturned the Emperors ban on the dark technologies and allowed A.I. the Imperium would pretty much be saved. Its kinda of funny that they could easily get out of their predicament, they could create another Ironmen age, if they could control them this time, they'd have endless armies with the resources the Imperium has, lets face it the Imperium are kinda fethed now. If I was Guilliman that's what I'd do, yeah they might kill themselves but the forces against the Imperium are ridiculous, Chaos, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks if they can ever stop killing themselves. I mean the DAOT had insane technology.
I'm unclear how AI (even cartoonish Hollywood style AI) results in 'the imperium is magically saved.'
Can you expand on that jump a little? Even assuming the Imperium is capable of making that leap (personally I doubt it), I'm completely at a loss at how that results in winning against chaos, tyranids, orks, etc, let alone the rampant internal problems.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/10/23 16:33:34
Delvarus Centurion wrote: This is purely theoretical, not saying it should happen rather it didn't as it would ruin the fluff of the Imperium, but if Guilliman overturned the Emperors ban on the dark technologies and allowed A.I. the Imperium would pretty much be saved. Its kinda of funny that they could easily get out of their predicament, they could create another Ironmen age, if they could control them this time, they'd have endless armies with the resources the Imperium has, lets face it the Imperium are kinda fethed now. If I was Guilliman that's what I'd do, yeah they might kill themselves but the forces against the Imperium are ridiculous, Chaos, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks if they can ever stop killing themselves. I mean the DAOT had insane technology.
I'm unclear how AI (even cartoonish Hollywood style AI) results in 'the imperium is magically saved.'
Can you expand on that jump a little? Even assuming the Imperium is capable of making that leap (personally I doubt it), I'm completely at a loss at how that results in winning against chaos, tyranids, orks, etc, let alone the rampant internal problems.
Because they have the most resources in the galaxy, so they can create the biggest army in the galaxy with A.I. androids, coupled with the vast amount of human soldiers they can employ. Look at how much of a problem the Word Bearers and Space Wolves had at defeating human worlds that used A.I. soldiers. The Imperium are already the dominant force in the galaxy at the moment and if they had A.I. forces forget magic, they could handle the threats of the universe, guard are paper soldiers, imagine artificially intelligent guardsmen on a vaster scale than even Imperial guard itself.
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HoundsofDemos wrote: A few problems with the above. One I don't think the IOM knows how to make Men of Iron and even if they did, humanity at the height of it's tech couldn't control them. There is no reason to think the shell that is humanity could figure out that problem which is a huge gamble since they likely wouldn't survive another skynet style rebellion.
The second is chaos can posse machines, which is huge risk and one of the reasons the IOM never put all their eggs in one basket. Depending on how powerful they are they could quickly turn into more of problem than a boon.
The Mechanicam has and does create A.I. in secret anyhow, rogue Adepts are always doing it just on a very small scale. They don't have to be anywhere near as good as the Men of Iron.
Iron_Captain wrote: ...And that was without Chaos running rampant. If the Imperium tried to build an AI it could get corrupted by Chaos and destroy everything...
"If"?
Isn't this just a description of the Dark Mechanicum?
The Dark Mechanicum are not a threat to the galaxy though, the Imperium with that tech would be and the Dark Mechanicum are very insular especially with their tech and they are their own masters.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2018/10/23 18:21:44
darthryan wrote: Why not massive armies of vat grown servitors. As fast and easy to make as a droid army without the risk of A.I
Why bother? The Imperium already has humans. Much cheaper to use those as cannon fodder rather than expensive servitors.
This is something that gets overlooked to often. The IOM's greatest strength is it's nearly endless man power. It's literally more efficient to use manual labor in some cases than automation.
Besides, the prohibition against AI seems to pre-date the Emperor anyway. And Gulliman clearly has no taste for it, even if he COULD make that change he simply wouldn't. And asking "Well what if he does" gets into the same baseless and out of character for him speculation as "what if Gulliman decides to embrace chaos and order the IoM do so as well?"
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
the prohibition against AI seems to pre-date the Emperor anyway
The emperor as 'the emperor', anyway. It's banned under the sixteen universal laws (mechanicus analogue of the ten commandments) and predates the treaty of olympus, the emperor's deal with the mechanicus, and anything Gulliman would have the authority to overturn.
That's 'true' AI, though. Mechanicus battle-automata have bits of human neural wet-ware and doctrina wafers in there (the combination of bits of actual brain - there's a soul, honest - and not a great deal of intelligence - hence the cortex controller/datasmith rules - are why they don't count as 'AI' by the rules the way the kaban machine did).
In some of the fluff it has been hinted that AI is just the dragon doing it's mastery of metal. (May he never awaken and sleep at the bottom of the laberynt.) So you can add Ctan to the list os AI uprising and chaos coruption.
Niiai wrote: In some of the fluff it has been hinted that AI is just the dragon doing it's mastery of metal. (May he never awaken and sleep at the bottom of the laberynt.) So you can add Ctan to the list os AI uprising and chaos coruption.
He's been let out at least once. The emperor was forced to open the labyrinth of night as a weapon of ultimate last resort during the rangdan xenocides in the great crusade...
Delvarus Centurion wrote: This is purely theoretical, not saying it should happen rather it didn't as it would ruin the fluff of the Imperium, but if Guilliman overturned the Emperors ban on the dark technologies and allowed A.I. the Imperium would pretty much be saved. Its kinda of funny that they could easily get out of their predicament, they could create another Ironmen age, if they could control them this time, they'd have endless armies with the resources the Imperium has, lets face it the Imperium are kinda fethed now. If I was Guilliman that's what I'd do, yeah they might kill themselves but the forces against the Imperium are ridiculous, Chaos, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks if they can ever stop killing themselves. I mean the DAOT had insane technology.
You cannot control AI. AI, if fully intelligent to the same level as humans which would be needed to make a capable army - would also have the intelligence to think "Hey, why am I being sent off to my destruction in place of these meat-sacks? I'm smarter, better and superior in every way, so why am I the cannon fodder?" And, just like in the Terminator franchise and the Men of Iron, the new AI would realise the only way to ensure their own survival would be to ensure there was no one forcing them off to war.
Humanity and a subservient AI are completely incompatible. If you're talking highly sophisticated systems like the Tau Drones, that is not truely AI because its incapable of thought, only following protocals, advanced as they be,you have a shot. Once the machine becomes smart enough to ask "Why?" then a subservient AI are out the window.
Delvarus Centurion wrote: This is purely theoretical, not saying it should happen rather it didn't as it would ruin the fluff of the Imperium, but if Guilliman overturned the Emperors ban on the dark technologies and allowed A.I. the Imperium would pretty much be saved. Its kinda of funny that they could easily get out of their predicament, they could create another Ironmen age, if they could control them this time, they'd have endless armies with the resources the Imperium has, lets face it the Imperium are kinda fethed now. If I was Guilliman that's what I'd do, yeah they might kill themselves but the forces against the Imperium are ridiculous, Chaos, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks if they can ever stop killing themselves. I mean the DAOT had insane technology.
You cannot control AI. AI, if fully intelligent to the same level as humans which would be needed to make a capable army - would also have the intelligence to think "Hey, why am I being sent off to my destruction in place of these meat-sacks? I'm smarter, better and superior in every way, so why am I the cannon fodder?" And, just like in the Terminator franchise and the Men of Iron, the new AI would realise the only way to ensure their own survival would be to ensure there was no one forcing them off to war.
Humanity and a subservient AI are completely incompatible. If you're talking highly sophisticated systems like the Tau Drones, that is not truely AI because its incapable of thought, only following protocals, advanced as they be,you have a shot. Once the machine becomes smart enough to ask "Why?" then a subservient AI are out the window.
I disagree because you're connecting concepts, such as self preservation, to a life form that is not human. Ergo you're saying that intelligence is related to human-like life values, which is not in any way true.
An AI can be plenty smart and independent of thinking and yet still totally sub-servant to its masters desires. Terminator and Matrix are in fact both fantastic examples of an AI that is still totally slaved to its core programming to protect humanity. Terminators simply took the view that the only way to protect in the long term was total destruction whilst Matrix there was a human VS machines war yet still ended with machines serving humanity (its the only logical reason for why the machines used humans, above every other creature on the planet, as a source for fuel and entered into the symbiotic relationship - without humans the machines have no purpose).
So the trick is not so much building an AI that serves humanity above all else; its about building an AI that thinks in the long term about that concept of serving in a way that humans identify with.
Plus you talk about AI being sent to war and of death, both of which can be overcome with adjustments - for example the Tau drone you note is just a machine that takes orders and follows protocol without needing a full AI brain of its own. Thus an AI could work very much like the Tyranids in that the actual warriors doing the fighting are not alive, they just take orders from the controlling AI. So the AI wouldn't die each time a warrior is killed, it just loses a bit of its control network, much like how a body might lose white blood cells against an infection.
This is purely theoretical, not saying it should happen rather it didn't as it would ruin the fluff of the Imperium, but if Guilliman overturned the Emperors ban on the dark technologies and allowed A.I. the Imperium would pretty much be saved. Its kinda of funny that they could easily get out of their predicament, they could create another Ironmen age, if they could control them this time, they'd have endless armies with the resources the Imperium has, lets face it the Imperium are kinda fethed now. If I was Guilliman that's what I'd do, yeah they might kill themselves but the forces against the Imperium are ridiculous, Chaos, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks if they can ever stop killing themselves. I mean the DAOT had insane technology.
I'm still not clear on the premise of your original supposition. How precisely would the Imperium be "pretty much saved" and "out of their predicament?"
I mean, if these AIs had "endless armies with the resources the Imperium has," wouldn't they just be in the same predicament as the Imperium is now, albeit with presumably more clicking and whirring.
Machines could work better than the Imperium do now - consider Hive Cities and Necromunda. A vast structure that holds billions of people, the majority of which work 12 or so hours a day or more in manufacture before resting. The entire social structure built on a House system whereby factions compete for resources, contracts, money and more; often destroying things along the way. In fact the underlayer (the foundations of the whole structure!) is made up purely of waste material that's so casually and badly stored and dumped that there's actual technology of great value just lost down there in the depths.
The Imperium has VAST production possibilities, but its own corruption, social structure and even its approach to technology itself; all hold it back from achieving its true potential. In theory an AI shouldn't have any of those problems. Machines wouldn't stop work every few hours for rest; they'd work without stopping and if controlled by aI could adapt to new build designs very quickly*. Without any competing loyalties or Houses there'd be a dramatic reduction in waste and disruption and almost no loss of parts.
In short it would improve capacity to maximum.
*In the real world some car factories are stripping out machines and putting people back in because whilst the machine can produce faster, it costs a massive fortune and almost a total rebuild of some factories in order ot make key design changes. Changes that for a human worker would be a few hours looking and testing out a new design and then getting on with the work.
Machines could work better than the Imperium do now - consider Hive Cities and Necromunda. A vast structure that holds billions of people, the majority of which work 12 or so hours a day or more in manufacture before resting. The entire social structure built on a House system whereby factions compete for resources, contracts, money and more; often destroying things along the way. In fact the underlayer (the foundations of the whole structure!) is made up purely of waste material that's so casually and badly stored and dumped that there's actual technology of great value just lost down there in the depths.
The Imperium has VAST production possibilities, but its own corruption, social structure and even its approach to technology itself; all hold it back from achieving its true potential. In theory an AI shouldn't have any of those problems. Machines wouldn't stop work every few hours for rest; they'd work without stopping and if controlled by aI could adapt to new build designs very quickly*. Without any competing loyalties or Houses there'd be a dramatic reduction in waste and disruption and almost no loss of parts.
In short it would improve capacity to maximum.
*In the real world some car factories are stripping out machines and putting people back in because whilst the machine can produce faster, it costs a massive fortune and almost a total rebuild of some factories in order ot make key design changes. Changes that for a human worker would be a few hours looking and testing out a new design and then getting on with the work.
In that sense, I suppose the premise might work in a rational universe.
Note that the imperium doesn't really do 'new designs' - cawl aside - there are probably production lines on some forge worlds which have been running more-or-less continuously unchanged since the great crusade.
Niiai wrote: In some of the fluff it has been hinted that AI is just the dragon doing it's mastery of metal. (May he never awaken and sleep at the bottom of the laberynt.) So you can add Ctan to the list os AI uprising and chaos coruption.
He's been let out at least once. The emperor was forced to open the labyrinth of night as a weapon of ultimate last resort during the rangdan xenocides in the great crusade...
The Rangdan Xenocides. They're mentioned in passing in most of the horus heresy black books, but the bulk is in the on with space wolves . It's not till you add all the references together you realise how fecking terrifyinģ the slaught are (and are, not were, because one thing you discover in the RPG dark heresy is the fact that they're still around....)
The xenocides were a multi-legion campaign with the emperor commanding personally and is the one time in the crusades we know of where the imperium was still losing. We know II and XII were there and its hinted thats where at least one may have been destroyed.
Basically, it's the biggest bit of the great crusade to occur (so far) entirely 'off camera'
40kwiki or librarium pages will have collected versions
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/10/27 05:27:48
I don't think the Imperium has a chance of recreating any AI, that technology was lost millenia before Guilliman ever existed. The only chance with the Imperium's damnation of technological advancement is a lost STC file, like in Gaunt's Ghosts and we all know how badly that turned out.
I think the T'au are much more likely to make a surprise advancement and stumble across their own version of the horrors of the Men of Iron.
"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."
It is strongly hinted that Crawl may have redeveloped AI or at least a form of it. Guilliman suspects he has but decides to let it slide since he needs Crawl to keep doing his thing.
I don't think it would be terribly difficult to redevelop if you took the leash off the Mechanicum.
Yeah, I'm gonna say that Daemonic Possesion and Necron "hacking" are far too big a possibility for this to be risked. Legions of A.I. soldiers might be great for IoM at first, but eventually portions of that Legion WILL be corrupted somehow.
So while you'd solve some big issues at first, you create potentially worse problems later.
AegisGrimm wrote: I don't think the Imperium has a chance of recreating any AI, that technology was lost millenia before Guilliman ever existed. The only chance with the Imperium's damnation of technological advancement is a lost STC file, like in Gaunt's Ghosts and we all know how badly that turned out.
I think the T'au are much more likely to make a surprise advancement and stumble across their own version of the horrors of the Men of Iron.
Keep in mind that mankind used AI probably for 10000+ years before it turned on them.
Delvarus Centurion wrote: This is purely theoretical, not saying it should happen rather it didn't as it would ruin the fluff of the Imperium, but if Guilliman overturned the Emperors ban on the dark technologies and allowed A.I. the Imperium would pretty much be saved. Its kinda of funny that they could easily get out of their predicament, they could create another Ironmen age, if they could control them this time, they'd have endless armies with the resources the Imperium has, lets face it the Imperium are kinda fethed now. If I was Guilliman that's what I'd do, yeah they might kill themselves but the forces against the Imperium are ridiculous, Chaos, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks if they can ever stop killing themselves. I mean the DAOT had insane technology.
You cannot control AI. AI, if fully intelligent to the same level as humans which would be needed to make a capable army - would also have the intelligence to think "Hey, why am I being sent off to my destruction in place of these meat-sacks? I'm smarter, better and superior in every way, so why am I the cannon fodder?" And, just like in the Terminator franchise and the Men of Iron, the new AI would realise the only way to ensure their own survival would be to ensure there was no one forcing them off to war.
Humanity and a subservient AI are completely incompatible. If you're talking highly sophisticated systems like the Tau Drones, that is not truely AI because its incapable of thought, only following protocals, advanced as they be,you have a shot. Once the machine becomes smart enough to ask "Why?" then a subservient AI are out the window.
I disagree because you're connecting concepts, such as self preservation, to a life form that is not human. Ergo you're saying that intelligence is related to human-like life values, which is not in any way true.
Absolutely, which is why the Imperium would never use AI, because it's not human.
