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I get that the Imperium fears an AI uprising, but what makes using insecure, emotionally fragile, vain, selfish, potentially insane or corruptable humans as the primary base component a better idea?

Because humans are human, they must be born, raised and then interfaced. They have (at least in this fictional setting) a "soul".

AI can spread and build and self-replicate like a virus. There is no soul to connect it to the race it must serve.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Because humans are human, they must be born, raised and then interfaced. They have (at least in this fictional setting) a "soul".

AI can spread and build and self-replicate like a virus. There is no soul to connect it to the race it must serve.

You are saying that machinery is less reliable than people?

Also, servitors reduce the need for penal colonies around the galaxy, as it is normally a punishment for a variety of crimes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@sinistersamurai AI and machinery aren't the same thing. My toaster isn't aware that it is toasting, nor does it desire to choose what it toasts.

 SinisterSamurai wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Because humans are human, they must be born, raised and then interfaced. They have (at least in this fictional setting) a "soul".

AI can spread and build and self-replicate like a virus. There is no soul to connect it to the race it must serve.

You are saying that machinery is less reliable than people?

It's moreso that heavily lobotomized individuals can still carry out menial tasks with some intelligence and at the same time wont try to self improve and destroy humanity.

 SinisterSamurai wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Because humans are human, they must be born, raised and then interfaced. They have (at least in this fictional setting) a "soul".

AI can spread and build and self-replicate like a virus. There is no soul to connect it to the race it must serve.

You are saying that machinery is less reliable than people?

In the mind of the Imperium, yes. Remember the IOM is not a logical or rational organization. To our minds what should be simple and logical is heresy and evil in theirs.

 SinisterSamurai wrote:
I get that the Imperium fears an AI uprising, but what makes using insecure, emotionally fragile, vain, selfish, potentially insane or corruptable humans as the primary base component a better idea?

They're not really vain, insecure, insane, selfish or fragile though. They're completely mindless. As for corruptible it doesn't matter much as the machine is corruptible too and is probably more vulnerable anyway.
Plus they're cheaper. Humans can breed to make more servitors but that metal machine won't reproduce will it.

Simple answer, humanity learned its lesson from the whole Men of Iron cluster feth.

Machines have spirits that must be placated and administered to. Servitors don't. Machines are complex with arcane and lost technology. Servitors do not Machines don't come with built in camera and audio command systems. Servitors do. Machines don't all have the ability to manipulate objects, perform complex and varied tasks, maneuver wherever humans can go, with a built in highly capable,flexible computer. Servitors do. Even a lobotomized brain can perform complex tasks and make independent decisions based on programmed preferences. Finally, machines are ineffable and untrustworthy. Servitors are not.

Other than the encoding that controls the tasks the servitor is capable of performing, they are mindless. They start out as a criminal convicted of some crime (usually tech-heresy of some variety). Their minds are then purged of all traces of sentience and sapience, and filled with engrammatic commands that permit gross motor functions, control of grafted augmetics (suitable to the tasks at hand) and operational parameters for their tasks.

That's it. They otherwise have no such thing as hopes, fears, dreams or desires. They are mindless automata.

 SinisterSamurai wrote:
I get that the Imperium fears an AI uprising, but what makes using insecure, emotionally fragile, vain, selfish, potentially insane or corruptable humans as the primary base component a better idea?

Because they're cheaper, they lobotomies them so those emotions vanish and the ad mech's religion.

Because at one point in time, AI tried to wipe out humanity. So instead of dealing with that problem arising again, they use brainwashed, modified people.

Also it's more grimdark when it's much more easier to rationalise lobotomising and augmenting a person to be a can opener, for example, than it would be to build an electric can opener.

 Psienesis wrote:
Other than the encoding that controls the tasks the servitor is capable of performing, they are mindless. They start out as a criminal convicted of some crime (usually tech-heresy of some variety). Their minds are then purged of all traces of sentience and sapience, and filled with engrammatic commands that permit gross motor functions, control of grafted augmetics (suitable to the tasks at hand) and operational parameters for their tasks.

That's it. They otherwise have no such thing as hopes, fears, dreams or desires. They are mindless automata.

In later novels, some Servitors are more sentient. They are automatons, but not mindless. Capable of tasks such as operating defense lasers, which requires both technical skill and the ability perform complex targeting and tactical decisions. Or, operating various stations on starship bridges. They accompany combat units, operating weapons and other devices. Mindless drones can't be programmed to deal with every situation encountered on the battlefield (from climbing cliffs to crawling though tunnels, to seeking optimum firing positions to finding best cover). It would not make sense to mindwipe a Servitor, and start from scratch. That would eliminate the major advantages a Servitor offers over a machine. And, if the very limited capabilities of robots in the Compendium are a guide (I don't know if robots have been updated), the Imperium does not have thinking machines. Or, does not want them. Even the Eldar equivalent of a robot,the Wraithguard, use an Eldar spirit. Dreadnaoughts use an interred Space Marine.

Not saying Servitors are closer to human than machine. Only that they are not mindless.

They're not actually mindless per se, but they are monotask.

Yes, a servitor might be able to crew a defence laser, but that's the only thing that servitor will be able to do. Their entire cognitive existence will be focussed on calculating ballistics.

They tried the machine intelligence thing and it didn't go very well for them (shades of the Butlerian Jihad from Dune crossed with Skynet).

As a result, it pretty much pushed them away from playing with it - brink of annihilation stuff tends to do that.

The real reasoning is probably lost in the mists of time but the current belief is that AI is soulless sentience and therefore heresy. A servitor or any machine with a living component has s soul and is therefore not heresy.

Its a monotask-drone. Its cheap and expendable. It follows orders to the letter.
Thats enough reasons to use them.

At least for mankind, technology devolves. Gets less reliable. Less capable. More mysterious. Has its own disturbing Cult with its own near heretical version of the Imperium's god. It's own ineffable High Priests, with their closely guarded secrets, and suspicious agendas. Your dishwasher Servitor is reliable as long as your Housekeeper Servitor feeds it and cleans up after it. But, a mechanical dishwasher? When it breaks, how long do you think you will have to wait for a house call from a Mechanicus from Mars?

There's also a religious element to it for the AM.

Their faith revolves around the machine god and bonding man and machine. In some ways turning an ordinary mortal into a servitor is saving him, making him part of the machine.

While for the Imperium he's also being saved since he has a chance to redeem himself in the emperor's eyes through service and labor.

It's win-win for all!

Except the poor lobotomized jaywalker of course.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
There's also a religious element to it for the AM.

Their faith revolves around the machine god and bonding man and machine. In some ways turning an ordinary mortal into a servitor is saving him, making him part of the machine.

Yeah, that too. For the Omnissiah!

 SinisterSamurai wrote:
I get that the Imperium fears an AI uprising, but what makes using insecure, emotionally fragile, vain, selfish, potentially insane or corruptable humans as the primary base component a better idea?

Lobotomy and vat grown brains are cheaper in an age where more and more machine-based technology is being forgotten. The Human brain in 40k has gone back to being the best computer in the world, thanks to the machine uprising in the distant past. Plus, manpower (i.e. source material for new servitors) is the most abundant resource in the 41st Millennium.

And as other have said, the poor bastards they lobotomize are mono-taskers. That makes them safer to use than even Machine Spirits.

 Gobbla wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Other than the encoding that controls the tasks the servitor is capable of performing, they are mindless. They start out as a criminal convicted of some crime (usually tech-heresy of some variety). Their minds are then purged of all traces of sentience and sapience, and filled with engrammatic commands that permit gross motor functions, control of grafted augmetics (suitable to the tasks at hand) and operational parameters for their tasks.

That's it. They otherwise have no such thing as hopes, fears, dreams or desires. They are mindless automata.

In later novels, some Servitors are more sentient. They are automatons, but not mindless. Capable of tasks such as operating defense lasers, which requires both technical skill and the ability perform complex targeting and tactical decisions. Or, operating various stations on starship bridges. They accompany combat units, operating weapons and other devices. Mindless drones can't be programmed to deal with every situation encountered on the battlefield (from climbing cliffs to crawling though tunnels, to seeking optimum firing positions to finding best cover). It would not make sense to mindwipe a Servitor, and start from scratch. That would eliminate the major advantages a Servitor offers over a machine. And, if the very limited capabilities of robots in the Compendium are a guide (I don't know if robots have been updated), the Imperium does not have thinking machines. Or, does not want them. Even the Eldar equivalent of a robot,the Wraithguard, use an Eldar spirit. Dreadnaoughts use an interred Space Marine.

Not saying Servitors are closer to human than machine. Only that they are not mindless.

All of those things you mentioned don't require sapience, just mathematics, which is easily accomplished by machine intelligence. After all, all computers in the modern world function on mathematical principles (1s and 0s). Yes, a mindless drone can be programmed to deal with all battlefield conditions, because the code-base has been developed over the last twenty thousand years for such tasks. Once you have a program subroutine that drives the motor functions to climb a cliff, navigate a tunnel, seek cover, determine optimum firing lanes, etc, you can continue to use that program in every servitor ever produced. Target priority, acquisition, tracking and elimination is all geometric/trigonometric calculations... which require zero human input (which is how all of our current automated defense systems work today).

Servitors are superior over robots because the human mind can contain and process an exponentially larger amount of data than any physical hard drive. Especially when you remove all those pesky things like desires, dreams, sense of individuality, and emotional responses.

Other than the reasons already stated, humans are easier to kill than a well built machine if they turn on you.

John Blanche liked drawing human robot hybrids with excessive amounts of cables, rivets and so on.

That too. Half the grim, gothic feel of 40k is body horror.

Necrons and Tau have managed to keep their AIs under control, so the whole men of Iron thing appears to be a uniquely human screw up. Then again it could be argued necrons are AI pretending to be a species that went extinct millions of years ago, and thus do not have that whole AI thing under control. The later doesn't bode well for the Tau.

 Grimgold wrote:
Necrons and Tau have managed to keep their AIs under control, so the whole men of Iron thing appears to be a uniquely human screw up. Then again it could be argued necrons are AI pretending to be a species that went extinct millions of years ago, and thus do not have that whole AI thing under control. The later doesn't bode well for the Tau.

The necrons are machines with the minds of organic life, servitors are organic life with the mind of a machine. I've never thought of it that way but your post just prompted that connection. With Tau its a great part of them being a young race in that all the mistakes of the others are still in their future.

I've always chalked servitors up as being an example of the decayed state of technology. The human mind is a really complex computer system that the mechanicus uses as a natural resource.

TheBrushKnight wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Necrons and Tau have managed to keep their AIs under control, so the whole men of Iron thing appears to be a uniquely human screw up. Then again it could be argued necrons are AI pretending to be a species that went extinct millions of years ago, and thus do not have that whole AI thing under control. The later doesn't bode well for the Tau.

The necrons are machines with the minds of organic life, servitors are organic life with the mind of a machine. I've never thought of it that way but your post just prompted that connection. With Tau its a great part of them being a young race in that all the mistakes of the others are still in their future.

I've always chalked servitors up as being an example of the decayed state of technology. The human mind is a really complex computer system that the mechanicus uses as a natural resource.

Eeyup. Necrons don't really use "AI" because their own souls have been infused into all their machines. As for Tau, they haven't had an AI revolt yet, but some fluff has indicated that it still could well happen. Tau aren't really anywhere near the technological miracles of the Dark Age of Technology. What they have looks impressive because they actually understand their technology, so they can mass produce the best stuff and build things with functionality in mind. Their AI is nowhere near as advanced as the Men of Iron likely were though. Drones are pretty limited.

Also, if the Void Dragon really was subtly influencing mankind's technological boom, there may have been alien influence in this "uniquely human screw up."

Actually, Necrons do make extensive use of AI.

Tomb complexes are run by AI entirely, while the Necrons sleep. Wraiths, Spyders, Scarabs, Sentinels, Stalkers and Pylons are all pure-AI machines, with no hint of a Necrontyr intelligence involved.