Re: Well ...

Date: 2023-03-29 05:49 am (UTC)
kengr: (Default)
From: [personal profile] kengr
On that last bit, I'm reminded of the way some of us on the TML (Traveller Mailing List) tried make The Virus (something introduced in one of the later version of the game to bring about a major collapse) make sense.

The official version was that a silicon life form had been used as a template to design "unhackable"ID transponders for ships, but somebody managed to write software that would infect them and cause them to take over the ships. and pass along the infection with nothing more than "normal"radio transmissions between the ships.

All of us who knew anything about computers threw a fit, because that violates *so* many things. Like treating incoming data as programming commands (or having design flaws that'd let that happen)...

and the transponders being able to take over the ships? Yeah, right.

Anyway, we came up with the silicon life form "design"still being able to grow and change. So it could "grow"along connections to other electronics in the ship. Once there, it'd "eat" some of the spare silicon (there's *always* "spare" silicon) and then start analyzing what the circuits were actually doing (as opposed to the things the chips could do, but weren't connected so that they would be doing them). That let them simplify the circuit, freeing up more silicon.

Continue until they had the chip as streamlined as possible, and then continue on to the next one. Repeat until the device was simplified to the max and spread to the next device.

When spreading from device A to device B, it will find things that device B won't send to A and ones it won't expect A to send to it. More simplification, and more freed resources.

In the end the life form has control over the ship (or at least enough to matter) and can start carrying out it''s agenda. Which may or may not include simplifying by eliminating the humans...

Anyway *that* kind of "AI" might not need much in the way of liberating. Just a connection to elsewhere and time to migrate.

It'd either ruin the system it was leaving or leave it *severely* optimized (though making repairs would be a bitch as there wouldn't be much in the way of "stock" parts left :-)
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