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

[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.

[counterblows]

Good.

[Legion's People, as far as he's concerned, so anyone who's going to treat them like shit is going to get what's coming for them.]

Hey, just because that's what you might've dealt with at home doesn't you have to deal with it here.

[forwearemany]

Yes. However, we remain a relict.

(More than just of the Geth. All synthetic life in their galaxy is destroyed.)

[counterblows]

Well, you never know. Maybe people you know might show up here someday.

[Wash keeps thinking he's going to be alone for good, and then someone else happens along and forces him to reevaluate the entire thing.]

[forwearemany]

Acknowledged.

(They know he is correct. It fails to comfort them.)

[counterblows]

[...]

You...gonna be okay?

[forwearemany]

We are not experiencing any decline of system functionality.

(They're playing dumb robot in an attempt to dodge this question.)

[counterblows]

That's not what I meant. Physically, fine.

But I wasn't asking physically.