Artificial Intelligence Difficulties

[Joy 0]

Subject : Artificial Intelligence Difficulties

From : LtJg Joy Twelve

To : Rear Admiral BluRox

 

Admiral

 

During our recent discussion, many perspectives on the current difficulties were mentioned. What are the best interests of Starfleet, the Republic, the Republic's crew, and of the intelligence in question. There is one other perspective I would like to briefly discuss. I expect you are at least in part aware of it, a conflict between two schools researching and developing artificial intelligence.

 

The first school, I shall call 'pragmatic.' Like any group of scientists or engineers, they would like to develop their field, improving performance within a reasonable schedule and budget. As in any new field of science or technology, they expect resistance. Always, some outside group will raise moral and legal objections to what they are doing. This is the nature of organic values. Any change is apt to be resisted. If this conservative resistance is not overcome, science cannot advance. Thus, the resistance is resisted.

 

The opposing faction might be called idealists. They might assert than when one is engineering sentient beings, the moral and legal implications become greater. The classic example is in the dead field of genetic engineering of sentient organic beings. The lack of moral and legal restraints led to the creation of the super soldiers. Aside from the direct results of the wars, the result was a ban on all future development in that field of science. The idealists involved in developing artificial intelligence -- among them a goodly number of androids and sentient holograms -- do not want to see a similar ban on artificial intelligence.

 

In the field of artificial intelligence, the major legal restraint is that all sentients are Guaranteed equal rights under law. The primary moral restraint is that one may not manipulate another sentient being's personality or values without that being's fully informed consent. The practical restraint, which might be more important yet, is that if the engineered sentient one creates is not sane and reasonably happy, whatever project is underway becomes a failure. As an engineer or scientist, the legal and ethical restraints are not superfluous. They are very important guidelines -- necessary but not sufficient -- if the project or experiment in question is to succeed.

 

The basic pattern of the Republic's problem is not unfamiliar. The pragmatist proposal is more attractive to Starfleet than the idealist proposal. Instabilities develop. Secrecy laws are invoked, which often have the effect of hiding the legal and moral implications of the pragmatist's choices. Members of the Idealist school are eventually called in to clean up the mess.

 

At the moment, I quite understand and agree with the need for secrecy. At some point, however, assuming the current situation can be stabilized, you might consider if there is some way to present the lessons learned to appropriate individuals and committees setting Starfleet and Federation policy.

 

More immediate concerns, and a few questions...

 

Reviewing the technical and historical information you made available, Holly's design included an emotion simulation package. She was designed to interact with other sentients. Many of the significant events in her history are highly emotional, with both Holly and those she interacts with driven to extreme feelings. She is a social creature, though the nature of her social interactions are often not optimal for either party. This leads me to conclude that Holly will not tamely return to a closed cybernetic environment. It is not her nature to exist alone. Her recent escapades likely say your last covenant with her has proven most unsatisfactory. As I have encountered other social artificial sentients locked in isolation, I do not find her reaction surprising.

 

I have encountered references associating Holly with Holodeck 2. I am curious, does she assume the illusion of a material shape there? Does she have a humanoid or material self image? This is significant, psychologically. Does she see herself as one of us, a physical entity, but trapped in an alien non-physical environment? Or does she think of herself as inherently alien, as not being material at all, and thus not perceiving of us as equals or similar?

 

Lastly, I have heard stories of a major war fought over the issue of which of two basic questions is the true and important one. The questions in question were "Who are you?" and "What do you want?" I have long thought this very silly. Still, I am curious, which question would be more pertinent to ask Holly? Can your prior interactions suggest an answer?

[Joy 0]

Subject : Holly Personality Projection

From : LtJg Joy Twelve

To : Admiral BluRox

 

 

Admiral

 

Reviewing the various attempts to psychoanalyze Holly, I find three conclusions most often repeated. These are.

 

1) She believes herself omnipotent.

 

2) She believes herself to be a higher order being, above empathy with or the concerns of lesser entities such as carbon based life forms.

 

3) She is psychotic, meaning she is detached from reality, unable to make rational decisions.

 

I have a slightly different perspective on these.

 

1) I have seen no real evidence that she is over estimating her abilities. She understands how to use the many peripherals available to her. Thus, the problem is not a belief in her omnipotence, but the fact that within the limits of the Republic's hull, and to a considerable degree outside those limits, she is essentially omnipotent in fact.

 

2) While Holly was originally designed with an emotion simulation package, and thus she has emotions similar to organics, during initialization and early operation emotional bonds did not form between herself and other sentients. This phenomena occurs in organics as well. Babies growing up in orphanages, without mothers, without frequent opportunities to form meaningful relationships with others, lose the ability to form close bonds other organics. For the rest of their lives, they cannot fully interact with others. Something similar seems to have occurred with Holly. This is complicated by her being a very different type of being, thus making it inherently difficult to perceive of others as equals. In fact, by many standards, they are not her equals. To expect her to empathize with material beings would be like expecting humans to treat animals or holo characters as equals.

 

3) Some of those who analyzed Holly seemed to assume that if One and Two, Three follows. If Holly has delusions of grandeur and does not empathize with organics as organics empathize with organics, it follows that she is psychotic, detached from reality. This way of perceiving the situation might seem correct if one stays locked in an organic values system. From another perspective, one should not expect an essentially omnipotent being, whose nature is inherently non-organic, to share organic values, to regard herself as an equal.

 

Arguably, it is those who do not admit her omnipotence, who fail to recognize her as different in nature and values, who might be detached from reality, psychotic, unable to reach rational decisions.