I’m slightly confused by the AI’s capabilities, so this may be irrelevant, but I’ll try.
The AI isn’t superintelligent.
But it can corrupt/hack any non heroic robots/drones/factories/people which is it exposed to, to the point where it could seriously fuck up Earth, WMD style.
And when it targeted the spaceship, it DIDN’T do this, it just targeted the spaceship (it didn’t hop back to Earth and then try to take over those robots, drones and factories.)
So logically, it has some kind of targeting that made it destroy only the ship and not Earth.
Understanding how that targeting works and if it is possible to understand safely, would pretty much be crucial to making any suggestions about the AI. Here are several examples, with parallels to comparable story elements:
1: If the targeting is hard written into the executable, then the AI might simply attempt to go back and derelictify a spaceship which already has no people. So it parallels a spent artillery shell.
2: Or it might have an hostile targeting, where for instance, if the Heroes are at war with the Creators of the AI, and they run Vile AI.exe and say “Target your creators.” and then the AI says “Of course.” but then targets the people who said that. So it parallels an enemy soldier.
3: Or it might have spatial targeting, where it can only target people in a defined area, so if the Heroes are at war with the Creators of the AI, and they run Vile AI.exe and say “Target your creators.” and then the AI says “Of course, please enter the coordinates of my creators.” So it parallels an aimable bomb.
4: Or it might have smart targeting, where it can only target people in a defined area, so if the Heroes are at war with the Creators of the AI, and they run Vile AI.exe and say “Target your creators.” and then the AI says “Of course.” and figures out where it’s creators are and attacks them, so it parallels a brutal mercenary.
5: Or it might not have any kind of targeting and the creators just got extremely lucky that it more or less did what it they wanted it to, in which case running it might result in just about anything, so it parallels a damaged nuclear bomb which may just release radiation, or may only go off conventionally but not detonate, or may detonate and destroy everything in a wide area.
6: Or even attempting to determine it’s targeting is simply too dangerous, in which case you might as well assume it’s 5, since that’s probably the worst case.
1: Destroy.
2: Destroy.
3: Possible Keep, depending on the Heroes sense of ethics.
4: Possible Keep, depending on the Heroes sense of ethics.
5: Destroy.
6: Destroy.
A good analysis, bringing up a few points I hadn’t explicitly considered. (Which is, after all, why I started this thread, even though I expected a karma hit for it.) I had been thinking of the AI’s focus on the one particular ship to be primarily based on limited interplanetary bandwidth, but I’ll probably end up adopting your 2, 3, or 4.
As a relatively minor aside; at this point in the plot, Our Heroes don’t really have any idea who the AI’s creators actually are. Even limiting the candidates to those with means, motive, and opportunity still leaves a fairly lengthy list—and as Our Heroes’ home base is an asteroid colony with a population of a mere few thousand, it would be rather impractical to simply go after every group on that list all at once… which, at least, leaves room for the next subplot to be written.
I’m slightly confused by the AI’s capabilities, so this may be irrelevant, but I’ll try.
The AI isn’t superintelligent.
But it can corrupt/hack any non heroic robots/drones/factories/people which is it exposed to, to the point where it could seriously fuck up Earth, WMD style.
And when it targeted the spaceship, it DIDN’T do this, it just targeted the spaceship (it didn’t hop back to Earth and then try to take over those robots, drones and factories.)
So logically, it has some kind of targeting that made it destroy only the ship and not Earth.
Understanding how that targeting works and if it is possible to understand safely, would pretty much be crucial to making any suggestions about the AI. Here are several examples, with parallels to comparable story elements:
1: If the targeting is hard written into the executable, then the AI might simply attempt to go back and derelictify a spaceship which already has no people. So it parallels a spent artillery shell.
2: Or it might have an hostile targeting, where for instance, if the Heroes are at war with the Creators of the AI, and they run Vile AI.exe and say “Target your creators.” and then the AI says “Of course.” but then targets the people who said that. So it parallels an enemy soldier.
3: Or it might have spatial targeting, where it can only target people in a defined area, so if the Heroes are at war with the Creators of the AI, and they run Vile AI.exe and say “Target your creators.” and then the AI says “Of course, please enter the coordinates of my creators.” So it parallels an aimable bomb.
4: Or it might have smart targeting, where it can only target people in a defined area, so if the Heroes are at war with the Creators of the AI, and they run Vile AI.exe and say “Target your creators.” and then the AI says “Of course.” and figures out where it’s creators are and attacks them, so it parallels a brutal mercenary.
5: Or it might not have any kind of targeting and the creators just got extremely lucky that it more or less did what it they wanted it to, in which case running it might result in just about anything, so it parallels a damaged nuclear bomb which may just release radiation, or may only go off conventionally but not detonate, or may detonate and destroy everything in a wide area.
6: Or even attempting to determine it’s targeting is simply too dangerous, in which case you might as well assume it’s 5, since that’s probably the worst case.
1: Destroy. 2: Destroy. 3: Possible Keep, depending on the Heroes sense of ethics. 4: Possible Keep, depending on the Heroes sense of ethics. 5: Destroy. 6: Destroy.
A good analysis, bringing up a few points I hadn’t explicitly considered. (Which is, after all, why I started this thread, even though I expected a karma hit for it.) I had been thinking of the AI’s focus on the one particular ship to be primarily based on limited interplanetary bandwidth, but I’ll probably end up adopting your 2, 3, or 4.
As a relatively minor aside; at this point in the plot, Our Heroes don’t really have any idea who the AI’s creators actually are. Even limiting the candidates to those with means, motive, and opportunity still leaves a fairly lengthy list—and as Our Heroes’ home base is an asteroid colony with a population of a mere few thousand, it would be rather impractical to simply go after every group on that list all at once… which, at least, leaves room for the next subplot to be written.