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One thing that always stuck with me was the role of AI in the 40K universe, especially human beings not using it.
And, I have become interested in the unfolding storyline with Cawl (heretic or hero?) and now the new edition.

If you have answers to any of these for me, then I would be most interested to hear them!

Has Cawl been using AI to speed up human technological development, thereby explaining now grav tanks and super super human soldiers as significant improvements over prior generations?

Is Cawl himself (mostly?) AI?

Is the Machine God an AI or AI? I guess this would mean that the Void Dragon is basically code, and the Emprah a hacker chained to his golden keyboard, galactic Starcraft till the end of days. Sure, sounds right. The glorification of old stories are just that, glorifcations through old stories. What the truth might be is that the emperor is a planet full of hackers all dedicated to keeping the code that is the Void Dragon in check. Or maybe one old dude, basically a brain in a vat running code though his throne.

As Necrons get near, Cawl is corrupted, Bobby G is misled, would this cause a shift in balance of power towards AI, and on the other hand the so-called "psychic" awakening?

As some had turned to chaos, might some turn to the machine mind, and might this not be seen as heretical, so a civil war?
Poor Bobby.

Could we see a new dark mechanicus as a sort of Necron "GSC"-type hybrid, in the flavor of the Borg?

 jeff white wrote:
Has Cawl been using AI to speed up human technological development

No - Cawl is very aware he is walking a thin line and cannot afford to do anything that is 'definitely' heretical.

 jeff white wrote:
Is Cawl himself (mostly?) AI?

No, but he has backed up his memories and had them wiped so many times his personality is a bit fractured.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

To Speak as One wrote:Interesting, interesting, interesting,’ said Qvo. It was impossible to tell where the magos ended and the ship began. Primus had known all the iterations of Qvo. He still wasn’t sure if he was a machine or not. ‘You will not provoke more interest in me by repeating the word interesting,’ said Primus. His voice was low and miserable as a leaden bell. ‘You are irritatingly predictable.’ ‘I am, aren’t I?’ said Qvo brightly. ‘I do wish that the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl had seen fit to give me a broader range of self-determinative logic patterning.’ He gave Primus a mock-serious look. ‘But that would break the lore.’ ‘I care not at all that your red-robed brethren would find you an abomination,’ said Primus. ‘Lucky me, I am unique,’ said Qvo.

The new technology doesn't have an explanation. They went from not having materials to having them coming out the wazoo. Basically GW can't write.

I believe Cawl himself isn't AI but has lots of knowledge he pinched from other people so his brains messed up and there's an AI copy of him that people pretend is a very smart Machine Spirit.

We don't really know what the Machine God is. It could be the Void Dragon, it could be the big E, it could not exist and it could be a warp entity born of worship.

There's probably not going to be a shift in favour of AI. Cawl is lucky to not be shot as it is so any kind of move towards more heresy and he'll be dead before you can say "wait he has a point".

You'd be lucky to get any Dark Mechanicus out of GW and it would probably be the chaos peeps.

Sounds to me like Cawl is a heretic or a tool, and may have been corrupted - say a bit of the Void Dragon (if it is code-like) slipped into Cawl's memory backups and now... perhaps into other AI.

Depending on how you look at it most of the Imperial organisations have heretical parts. Really the main decider is how useful they are. Cawl is very useful so he gets away with things that would have a normal adept hurled into a star.

pm713 wrote:
The new technology doesn't have an explanation. They went from not having materials to having them coming out the wazoo.
...

There's probably not going to be a shift in favour of AI.

.

Sorry, what I meant there was shift in like galactiuc power balance, like the force, and to restore the balacne we see the psychic awaken on the other side... this is what explains the psychic awakening.

So, on the one hand, we see the arising machine god/void dragon now calling the Necrons back and in the future we might see some mechanicus splintered off, perhaps some led by Cawl's corrutped memory backups, and a borg type faction might emerge that could ally in with Crons...

 jeff white wrote:

pm713 wrote:
The new technology doesn't have an explanation. They went from not having materials to having them coming out the wazoo.
...

There's probably not going to be a shift in favour of AI.

.

Sorry, what I meant there was shift in like galactiuc power balance, like the force, and to restore the balacne we see the psychic awaken on the other side... this is what explains the psychic awakening.

So, on the one hand, we see the arising machine god/void dragon now calling the Necrons back and in the future we might see some mechanicus splintered off, perhaps some led by Cawl's corrutped memory backups, and a borg type faction might emerge that could ally in with Crons...

I doubt it. Necrons generally hate the C'Tan, Cawl is extremely unpopular and there's already at least one Borg faction they could add with Dark Mechanicum so adding more seems unnecessary unless GW actively wants to give the finger to Chaos players.

I figure that the tension between warp critters and void dragon types might spawn this need for balance that causes this psychic awakening, and a factioning of the imperium along these lines might happen with some interesting Necron interactions. I understand your point, though, and maybe these would be like the Necron's chaos instead of allies, and the Necrons are currently coming out of the woodwork and the silent king from the far reaches of wherever because of .... dragon activity on Mars through corrupted Cawl or backups thereof of rampant AI ... corrupted by dragon code. Maybe.

jeff white wrote:Has Cawl been using AI to speed up human technological development, thereby explaining now grav tanks and super super human soldiers as significant improvements over prior generations?

Not to our knowledge. Cawl has certainly used xeno-tech in his Blackstone research, but from what it seems, his Imperial developments are based in human technologies, without any explicit xenos involvement.

Basically, I doubt Cawl has AI, and his xenotech seems to be relegated to his own useage, much like many tolerated Inquisitors.

Is Cawl himself (mostly?) AI?

No. Cawl is Cawl + plus remnants of other sentient once-organic beings and personalities.

Is the Machine God an AI or AI?

No idea.

40K has a lot of implications. The people who know rarly wants to share with humanaty, and there is a lot of 'faulty narator' tropes in the fiction. Also, people are suspiecius.

The idea of bannings AIs can be trased to other fictions, like Dune. There AI's are banned because they grew counsius and tryed to kill us. I do belive Dune (1965) presedes that notion in 40K. Therefore a lot is mirrored.

If course 40K has exspanded upon this.

What is an AI? It is hard to define. We know that some remain. The 'Iron Men' for isntance, some work perhaps for the mechanicus. We know one fuctional AI is in the blackstone fortress game as a playable character.

The Tau has automated drones. Do they fall within the defenition of AI? I could be.

The imperium being hypocritical have no problem making cyborgs out of men to the point where it is dubius if they are more men then machine. They can be counted as AI, but they are rarly highly fuctional.

Space Wolves (5th edition codex) said they fed their landraiders elk stake. During the night the hungry landraider ate it. (Superstcion in my book.)

How ever, the race that truly deals with AI is of course the necrons. Are they AI themselves? Is the soul inside the metal body, or is it just the person being programed into the machine? Suposebly the Ctan ate the souls, so the machine is pure AI. But that is stil just a machine mimicing a human (or a necrotyn in that case.) An AI could be so much more. Depending in your personal belief in a soul IRL, 40K is not methological naturalist. A methoogical naturalist means we can not investergate any supernatural claims because we do not have the means to investergate it if it exists. (Never mind defining supernatural.) However, 40K does have some supernatural notions:

The pre-rework of the necrons did have some cool stuff. The most promenent was that the C'tans where so powerfull that they could manifest consepts into realaty. For instance take the nightrbinger (from the wiki)
Are they talking metaphoricaly or literarly? In the old floff they might have ralked litherarly. I know the 40K dawn of war necrons played into this. Humanaties tecnology there was stolen from necron technology, and they could reclaim in in a sense. (A bit like how Prometheus stole the fire from the gods.) This is further backed up by a former techpriest who claimed to see the truef. He has removed all pieces of machinery from himself and is counted as a madman. Fantatic and faulty narator or something else. This of course links bak to the Void Dragon on Mars. Does human tecnology spring from it, or does it not? Does the dragon excist?

It would indicate that he is there. (Necrons landed on mars trying to find something.) Also, the emperor is reported defeating a dragon and imprisoning a dragon. But that would be about as much as we know about it. After that time the defenition of C'tans have changed a bit with the 5th edition codex.

Also, it apears you can have demon AI. How that works I do not know, but chaos can manifest in code. Since C'tans have no dominion over chaos, it could indicate that AI does not come from the necrons. Or perhaps it is many sources. (Thought experiment. If the souls go to the imaterium upon death, how did the C'tan eat them?)

Most of this we will never know. 40K is a setting best experienced witout peeking behind the courtain so to say. If the emperor ever turned out to be the wizard of oz people would be disapointed.

There’s also the question of how much, or indeed little, the Adeptus Mechanicus actually understand Abominable Intelligence.

That they know it’s bad is a given. But do they even have a set definition? Probably not. Where are certain lines drawn? Are senior adepts more at liberty than others?

Cawl for example has literal multiple personalities, and copies of his consciousness. Rather than a programme pretending to be Cawl, these seem to straight up copies. We know Techpriestd can and regularly do backup their memories. Is installing one of them in a spare body crossing into AI? I mean, it’s not exactly organic - but then, it is a copy of a genuine, flesh and blood being.

And what exactly does this process involve? Just because a spare body may have fleshy bits doesn’t in itself mean there’s the old grey matter involved. But that may be the fine line that isn’t crossed. Mindscrub some poor rube, and install your own memories and you’re on the right side of it. Upload into a pure cogitation engine? Perhaps the wrong side.

Adeptus Mechanicus being Adeptus Mechanicus, the answer is probably both, neither and somewhere in between.

As for Cawl’s inventions? He was part of the original Astartes Programme (one of his personalities worked on the Black Carapace, if memory serves), and was entrusted by Guilliman with what remained of the Emperor’s research.

We know that with the abduction of the infant Primarchs, the Astartes were essentially an emergency bodge job. A way to make the best use of what resources and little time remained. So it seems very likely the Firstborn were only ever a work in progress, and not intended to tie the definite article. And importantly, he hasn’t redesigned any existing Geneseed, only added new organs. So overall, it’s hard to say with the knowledge, permission and backing involved that he’s a Heretek for that project.

As for his inventions? Are they his inventions, or carefully researched STCs? Again, the answer could could be both, neither and somewhere in between.

Take the Bolt Rifle. It’s an improvement to the standard Astartes weapon of choice. Did Cawl actually design it, or just lay his semi-mechanical hands on a new STC?

If it’s an STC, it’s possible that as with many things during the Great Crusade, it’s greater manufacturing complexity saw it’s more basic version favoured, as so many were required to arm His forces. But with 10,000 years to play with, the complexity is less of an issue.

And even if he’s not in fact using STCs, and all his new toys are original designs? How does anyone prove that? The Adeptus Mechanicus are a curious bunch of weirdos. Individual Adepts and Forgeworlds aren’t exactly keen on sharing. With Cawl’s resources, and let’s face it stellar results, who actually has the time, inclination and opportunity to even check? If they did, what would they find? The truth? Frankly there is no truth, not in The Imperium. Records can be faked, lost, mistranslated, misfiled, genuine, partly genuine etc.

This is awesome info! Really interesting...

pm713 wrote:
The new technology doesn't have an explanation. They went from not having materials to having them coming out the wazoo. Basically GW can't write.

He had 10,000 years to develop existing tech, and somewhat fewer of the usual barriers. The primaris tanks are basically Land Raider + Land Speeder = Grav Tank. For the product of 10K years of development, that isn't revolutionary, its an obvious outgrowth of existing tech (which was higher at the starting point of the 10K years anyway- he didn't have the AdMech traditions shouting experimentation down).

Even the primaris are outgrowths of the expertise of people who'd worked on the original space marines for centuries.

Give someone a city-sized lab (in the form of a space ship), centuries of scientific experience, a free pass and 10,000 years of trial and error, and nothing produced seems particularly unreasonable. It actually seems quite conservative.
Production of the gear for however many thousands of primaris isn't that difficult either, not on a galactic scale.

Its weird that Cawl and his creations came out of nowhere in terms of the lore, but what he did and produced isn't even vaguely beyond the bounds of the timeline or materials.

Voss wrote:

pm713 wrote:
The new technology doesn't have an explanation. They went from not having materials to having them coming out the wazoo. Basically GW can't write.

He had 10,000 years to develop existing tech, and somewhat fewer of the usual barriers. The primaris tanks are basically Land Raider + Land Speeder = Grav Tank. For the product of 10K years of development, that isn't revolutionary, its an obvious outgrowth of existing tech (which was higher at the starting point of the 10K years anyway- he didn't have the AdMech traditions shouting experimentation down).

Even the primaris are outgrowths of the expertise of people who'd worked on the original space marines for centuries.

Give someone a city-sized lab (in the form of a space ship), centuries of scientific experience, a free pass and 10,000 years of trial and error, and nothing produced seems particularly unreasonable. It actually seems quite conservative.
Production of the gear for however many thousands of primaris isn't that difficult either, not on a galactic scale.

Its weird that Cawl and his creations came out of nowhere in terms of the lore, but what he did and produced isn't even vaguely beyond the bounds of the timeline or materials.

It doesn't really matter how long you have to work on things you can't suddenly have materials you didn't have before and you certainly can't just have the Imperium in general be able to produce all the new stuff. Forgeworlds in particular seem unwilling to change which is why technology gets lost all the time.

Voss wrote:

pm713 wrote:
The new technology doesn't have an explanation. They went from not having materials to having them coming out the wazoo. Basically GW can't write.

He had 10,000 years to develop existing tech, and somewhat fewer of the usual barriers. The primaris tanks are basically Land Raider + Land Speeder = Grav Tank. For the product of 10K years of development, that isn't revolutionary, its an obvious outgrowth of existing tech (which was higher at the starting point of the 10K years anyway- he didn't have the AdMech traditions shouting experimentation down).

Even the primaris are outgrowths of the expertise of people who'd worked on the original space marines for centuries.

Give someone a city-sized lab (in the form of a space ship), centuries of scientific experience, a free pass and 10,000 years of trial and error, and nothing produced seems particularly unreasonable. It actually seems quite conservative.
Production of the gear for however many thousands of primaris isn't that difficult either, not on a galactic scale.

Its weird that Cawl and his creations came out of nowhere in terms of the lore, but what he did and produced isn't even vaguely beyond the bounds of the timeline or materials.

But it is completely the opposite of how the setting is supposed to work. The whole point of the IoM is that it's so backward and averse to new ideas they've actually regressed from a much more technologically sophisticated age. It's kind of the defining irony of the AdMech that the keepers of the Imperium's knowledge and their entire scientific/engineering caste are completely incapable of inventing new things and barely understand most of the technology they oversee. That's not to say you can't have Cawl be a radical Techpriest, willing to actually do science and go against standard orthodoxy but the way GW handled it was terrible, IMO. There was some rich material there for creating genuine tension and conflict within the Imperium but instead we just get "everything is better because Cawl" which just seems really lazy.

It’s not so much a lack of specific resources though, so much as a relative scarcity, and few Forgeworld’s having the know-how.

Now, when we’re discussing scarcity with The Imperium (1,000,000+ inhabited worlds) surely that’s relative? Not having enough to go round is not the same as lacking enough for a specific project.

We also need to consider Cawl’s reach. It seems entirely possible his projects are the very cause of the scarcity - just alter a few supply lines, overrule requisition orders.

And I’m not sure it’s a scarcity of materials, so much as a scarcity of the knowledge and design plans necessary. Cawl is Mars based, and we know Mars can produce anti-Grav technology. So he’s always had access to the required technologies.

and yet again none of the tech is mind bogglingly new, the repulsor tank is pretty much standard imperial tech, nothing new there.
The bolt rifle is just a bigger boltgun. the grand advancement being "yeah so we made our guys bigger to se also made the barrel of their guns longer, now look! it goes further!"