Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have been argueing with ym freind about this I think they are and the admech excuse it becuse there hypocrites. and my freind thinks there not ai but completely different. according to the wiki we determined some are some arent but I feel like there is a more concrete answer. also sorry for the bad spelling im just bad at spelling

Of course not, AI are banned.

But yes, basically.

See also: Fenrisian Rune Magic which is not warpcraft, or how Sisters of Battle are not “men at arms”

Depends what you call AI. We call the programming for video game enemies AI when it's generally just a tree or flowchart.

To some the targeting system in a weapon is a machine spirit, or sensors in armor and more. It's just how backwards the 40th millennium is that people will chant and pray to a bloody calculator or a projector.

Some of them use a SoB style get out clause by using a biological brain modified with enough gubbins that it’s effectively an AI, but because it’s not ‘silica animus’ it’s technically ok by the rules.

The fifth edition space wolf codex claim they sett out roasted animals for their landraiders. The day after it is eaten. So you decide.

Fourth edition Necron codex implied heavaly a connection between all human based machines and Necron magic-technology. Possible by ay of the void dragon buried underneath Mars. If so it is something different then AI. You decide.

In many warhammer sources and adaption the admech treat their machines with superstition. Thinking holy inscence will treat bad problems. Look to the computer game Mecanicus where they battle Necrons. You decide.

It's complicated. And often somewhat unclear in the fiction. The AdMech doesn't forbid 'Artificial Intelligence', it forbids 'Abominable Intelligence', also called 'Silica Animus'. There are things we would call AI that the AdMech are fine with, and things we wouldn't classify as true AI that the AdMech would still regard as heretical. And 'machine spirit' is a very imprecise term that is used for some very different things.

Imperials believe even the simplest machine has a 'spirit'. Is this just a silly superstition? Is it a silly superstition that has become real due to the way human belief interacts with the Warp? We don't know.

The AdMech are reluctant to use silicon-chip-based computing for anything but the simplest processes. A fully sapient intelligence, capable of self-improvement, running on a silicon-chip-based system, is pretty unambiguously an Abominable Intelligence.

But run that exact same intelligence within a partially lobotomised human brain, or a chunk of dog brain, and it's a 'machine spirit' and probably OK. Maybe.

Most Imperial computer systems use bits of human or animal brain tissue as the medium rather than silicon chips. This is why, for example, the computer terminals and door locks on a lot of scenery pieces have human skulls embedded in them. A human brain is basically a computer in a handy case as far as the AdMech are concerned. Warhound titan machine spirits run on dog brains, which gives them their distinctive character.

A Thousand Sons sorcerer once used his brain-damaged sister's body as a vessel for his starship's machine spirit. She eventually ended up as the machine spirit of Abaddon's flagship the Vengeful Spirit. The Vengeful Spirit is definitely fully sapient and self-aware. But not an Abominable Intelligence. Probably.

Land Raider machine spirits seem to be able to learn and improve themselves, and at least some can take over and run the tank without any crew. But as long as they don't use silicon chips, they're defnitely not 'Men of Iron' or anything. Maybe. Probably.

Even proper tech-priests probably don't really know where the red lines are, or should be, or why. They just do what they've always done. This is OK. That is forbidden. It's religious dogma based on millennia of ignorance and superstition.

As a coworker (who's much more knowledgeable in AI than I am) once explained to me: you shouldn't confuse artificial intelligence with artificial sapience. Even if an AI is advanced enough to learn things and appear smarter than a biological person, that doesn't mean they are capable of "real" thought. In the end, an AI acts according to its programming. 40k machine spirits almost certainly fall under that category.

Machines that can actually think for themselves is what is forbidden by the AdMech. Of course, they don't seem to have a standard set of criteria to decide what is and what isn't "abominable intelligence" so it all depends on how conservative a techpriest is.

If your going to use servitors as door locks. Well.
And frankly brains in jars is so far above AI, its not funny.
Far more future tech.

 Niiai wrote:
Fourth edition Necron codex implied heavaly a connection between all human based machines and Necron magic-technology. Possible by ay of the void dragon buried underneath Mars. If so it is something different then AI. You decide.

1) There wasn't a 4th edition Codex: Necrons.
2) No the 3rd edition didn't say that. It implied that the early Adeptus Mechanicus/Martians were possibly influenced by the Necrons/C'tan (whether directly through interaction, or indirectly by recovering technology etc. wasn't elaborated upon).
3) When the powerful machine spirit of a Mechanicus starship and Necron tecnology interact in Hellforged, it is extremely antagonistic, so any early connection seems not to have extended to ongoing similarities.

 Duskweaver wrote:
It's complicated. And often somewhat unclear in the fiction. The AdMech doesn't forbid 'Artificial Intelligence', it forbids 'Abominable Intelligence', also called 'Silica Animus'. There are things we would call AI that the AdMech are fine with, and things we wouldn't classify as true AI that the AdMech would still regard as heretical. And 'machine spirit' is a very imprecise term that is used for some very different things.

Imperials believe even the simplest machine has a 'spirit'. Is this just a silly superstition? Is it a silly superstition that has become real due to the way human belief interacts with the Warp? We don't know.

The AdMech are reluctant to use silicon-chip-based computing for anything but the simplest processes. A fully sapient intelligence, capable of self-improvement, running on a silicon-chip-based system, is pretty unambiguously an Abominable Intelligence.

But run that exact same intelligence within a partially lobotomised human brain, or a chunk of dog brain, and it's a 'machine spirit' and probably OK. Maybe.

Most Imperial computer systems use bits of human or animal brain tissue as the medium rather than silicon chips. This is why, for example, the computer terminals and door locks on a lot of scenery pieces have human skulls embedded in them. A human brain is basically a computer in a handy case as far as the AdMech are concerned. Warhound titan machine spirits run on dog brains, which gives them their distinctive character.

A Thousand Sons sorcerer once used his brain-damaged sister's body as a vessel for his starship's machine spirit. She eventually ended up as the machine spirit of Abaddon's flagship the Vengeful Spirit. The Vengeful Spirit is definitely fully sapient and self-aware. But not an Abominable Intelligence. Probably.

Land Raider machine spirits seem to be able to learn and improve themselves, and at least some can take over and run the tank without any crew. But as long as they don't use silicon chips, they're defnitely not 'Men of Iron' or anything. Maybe. Probably.

Even proper tech-priests probably don't really know where the red lines are, or should be, or why. They just do what they've always done. This is OK. That is forbidden. It's religious dogma based on millennia of ignorance and superstition.

Pretty much this, and whilst its buried in dogma and techno babble the danger is if machines develop warp reflections/souls/whatever and are then prone to being meddled with by Chaos, didnt the STCs get demonhacked during the HH rendering them unusable ?