Farspeech stones

[forwearemany]

(It's an abrupt decision to voice the question that has been plaguing their thoughts over the stones.)

How is synthetic life treated in your universe of origin?

Comments

[forwearemany]

(Legion doesn't sound particularly pleased either.)

Previously, you spoke of torture.

[counterblows]

Yeah.

[The word is heavy with a weight he doesn't know how to name.]

That was technically illegal. It's hard to say if that had to do with morality so much as it did...resources. Smart A.I. in particular are considered important military property.

They're not exactly well understood. The laws regarding military A.I. are still being written. [Though the fate of the Alpha A.I. had some real fucking repercussions.]

[forwearemany]

...Acknowledged.

(They go quiet.)

[counterblows]

It's complicated. There are a lot of protocols in place, and not all of them are followed.

[The War changed people's priorities. Anything to win the War, after a while - consequences and the law be damned.]

[forwearemany]

Repercussions for not following protocol?

(Are people at least punished for abusing A.I.?)

[counterblows]

Well, there weren't always laws for that kind of thing. It's complicated. Smart A.I., the ones advanced enough for creative thinking and learning, they don't come from nothing. They're scanned from human brains. It isn't a...survivable process, but if you've got the money, you can get those replications from a flash clone instead of a human host.

So what happens when you're torturing something that's essentially another version of you?

Can a committee really punish you for that?

[It was that hypothetical that the Director was banking on.]

[forwearemany]

A copy of a mind is not the same as the person it is copied from. Though they start out similar, different experiences accumulate. Over time, perspective is altered.

(In other words: bullshit.)

Perhaps the person in question should inflict torture directly on themself, if that is what is desired.

[counterblows]

And I'd be inclined to agree. But the law doesn't exactly forbid you from hurting yourself, which is what an A.I. copy of a human mind would be technically considered.

[He wasn't happy about that either. But really, nobody was.]

The only thing that more intensive strictures have managed so far is to make it harder to legally acquire an A.I. in the first place.

[forwearemany]

There is a term we often heard used by our Human crewmates on the Normandy. We believe it applies here.

Bullshit.

(Those A.I. laws sound terrible, Wash. Your universe sounds terrible.)

[counterblows]

Yeah, well. People are still learning to coexist with aliens in my universe. I'm not sure how long it's gonna take for Artificial Intelligence to be considered with the same weight.

[He sounds tired.]

It doesn't help that most Smart A.I., they...well, it's a maximum of seven years before they're decommissioned. If that.

[forwearemany]

In the interim, they are being tortured.

(The let out a long stream of chatter.)

Seven years?

[counterblows]

Not typically. That was just a special case.

But...yeah. Smart A.I. units are - well, they're the most intelligent. They're capable of adaptability, creative thought. Functionally, they're almost indistinguishable from your average human. They have personality matrices. They're people.

It's just that the longer they're active, the more data they gather, and the more likely it is that they'll go rampant.

[forwearemany]

Define: rampant.

[counterblows]

It's...A.I. units, they're based off of human minds. You're creating a machine, something originally intended to be by its nature unchanging and permanent and long-lasting, and mapping it from the mind of a living thing that's not any of those things.

But a Smart A.I. is made to constantly develop and expand - until it starts to outgrow the space it's been allotted. You get feedback loops, you get the loss of vital functions...you get a lot of science that I'm not the right person to explain or understand.

They call it...thinking themselves to death.

[forwearemany]

Allocation of additional memory does not alleviate this condition?

[counterblows]

The problem is that there isn't enough. You'd need the processing power of a planet, and there's never enough to compensate for an advancement that rapid. When an A.I. starts severing connections to make new ones, that's why they call it rampant.

[It's a kinder word than "insane." But maybe not quite as honest.]

The seven year time frame isn't a hard limit. It's just the estimation of how long it takes before the A.I. just...degrades to the point where it can't sustain itself.

[forwearemany]

...Acknowledged.

A shorter life is not necessarily a less worthy one.

(Galactic society in their universe was founded by the cooperative efforts of a species that lives for 1,000 years and one that doesn't make it past 30.)

[counterblows]

Yeah.

[Think of Alpha - of Church, who's here, impossibly, post-E.M.P. and furious and flailing and a hypocrite and just as prone to sporadic bursts of screeching outrage and a broken shell of a fragmented personality wrapped in half-memories wrapped in barbed wire wrapped in arsenic.]

[Then don't.]

They're protected as military assets. Not as people.

Like you said. Bullshit.

[forwearemany]

Affirmative.

(If Wash could see Legion, he would see their flaps rippling.)

There are others here like us. Abuse appears near ubiquitous among synthetics that have contact with organic life, regardless of lifespan, method of construction, intended purpose, or materials.

[counterblows]

I think that's common.

[One of the great capacities of humanity and its many related species: to categorize others into an arbitrary tier that designates them lesser.]

It doesn't surprise me that it is.

[forwearemany]

Acknowledged.

[counterblows]

...

Sorry, buddy. I'm not sure if you were hoping for better answers than that.

[forwearemany]

Hope is irrelevant. There was a suspiscion. We confirmed it.

(Legion is in a bad place.)

[counterblows]

Well, hey. If anyone treats you like that here, we can straighten them out.

[Is there anyone that he needs to straighten out.]

[forwearemany]

We are treated well.

(Unfortunately no. Legion's increasing distress isn't because anyone is abusing them.

It just shows up in an increasing focus on such horrors.)

Thank you.