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Zorak you gotta be careful when you channel the ghost of Robert K. Merton, he doesn't leave easily.
Rei_ fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 03:03
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Crappy Jack posted:I just can't get behind an all-powerful AI who chooses JC Denton as a moral framework. Guy's not exactly known for his sense of sympathy. "Oh, your dad's dead. Man, that blows. Welp, good luck" "JC-Helios, the world economy is deeply depressed and people are starving, what should we do" "Maybe you should try getting a job"
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Feb 27, 2011 03:05
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Crappy Jack posted:I just can't get behind an all-powerful AI who chooses JC Denton as a moral framework. Guy's not exactly known for his sense of sympathy. "Oh, your dad's dead. Man, that blows. Welp, good luck" That just depends on how you play JC, but remember that it wasn't that he used JC as moral frame work, just so it had the psychological capacity to interrelate. As a machine, it may be about to theoretically approach why something would be negative to humans if it had sufficient rules, but by having a human input with all that comes with, the amalgam then can "personally" relate while still having that absolute sense of a lack of personal desire at the same time. Helios gained the insight of being human without having to deal with all the lovely things that come from being a human/ having a human in charge as dictator.
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Feb 27, 2011 03:10
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Zorak posted:That just depends on how you play JC, but remember that it wasn't that he used JC as moral frame work, just so it had the psychological capacity to interrelate. As a machine, it may be about to theoretically approach why something would be negative to humans if it had sufficient rules, but by having a human input with all that comes with, the amalgam then can "personally" relate while still having that absolute sense of a lack of personal desire at the same time. so why didn't it just go ahead with using Bob Page, in that case
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Feb 27, 2011 03:11
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Fag Boy Jim posted:"JC-Helios, the world economy is deeply depressed and people are starving, what should we do" My guilt trips are augmented.
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Feb 27, 2011 03:17
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Fag Boy Jim posted:so why didn't it just go ahead with using Bob Page, in that case Because it's not that absorbing JC meant "oh hey no humanity at all", it's more that he was a preferable selection to Page because he was a much more mentally balanced and also a created entity much like Helios itself. JC had a philosophy more in-line with Helios, and so it made him a preferable additional to the amalgam. What is key, I think, is to note that Helios and JC both become something less than machine and less than man. It's a liminal state somewhere between. This liminality means a lack of humanity, but it doesn't mean that the bits that went into making it didn't matter. If they used Bob Page in it, it could have entirely changed their direction in some way: he after all had VERY different philosophies from what Helios thought as ideal for humanity. JC was more in line, so he was the preferable selection. If JC died it may have tried merging with Bob Page instead. JC was the preferable choice of the people at hand.
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Feb 27, 2011 03:20
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Denton was supposed to be a blank slate. It's why his voice is so monotone. If the game really let you shape him the way you felt was best, then the Helios ending makes a lot more sense.
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Feb 27, 2011 03:31
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Sorry about the off-topic post, but I'm having a problem with running the game. I've played through Deus Ex many times before - it's definitely my favorite FPS, and one of my favorite games of all time. I want to play through it again, but I'm having a problem: the screen is really dark, so much so that I can barely see anything without the flashlight being on all the time. I've tried messing with the options on both my monitor and in-game, nothing seems to help much. I mean, I know the game is dark, but it's making it difficult to play. I'm playing the game through Steam. Advice?
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Feb 27, 2011 04:12
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You can try installing the DX10 renderer + exe and give it a shot. Grab them here: http://kentie.net/article/dxguide/ Speaking of which, I just installed The Nameless Mod for the very first time and I'm kind of disappointed it has its own exe. Any way to use the DX10 renderer/custom launch with TNM?
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Feb 27, 2011 04:24
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Furret Basket posted:Getting my boyfriend to play Deus Ex for the first time. He's currently on the training level, despite my warning that it's the worst tutorial ever and not indicative of anything in the main game. I've played Deus Ex quite a few times since it came out, and I don't think I've ever even tried the tutorial. quote:He managed to chuck a LAM instead of planting it on the wall Possibly I should have tried the tutorial, since it generally takes a lot of saving and reloading for me to plant a LAM rather than exploding myself by bouncing it off a wall 
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Feb 27, 2011 04:42
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If JC changes his hold on the LAM then he places it. If he's still holding it the same then he'll throw it. It's the easiest thing in the world.
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Feb 27, 2011 04:45
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Crappy Jack posted:I just can't get behind an all-powerful AI who chooses JC Denton as a moral framework. Guy's not exactly known for his sense of sympathy. "Oh, your dad's dead. Man, that blows. Welp, good luck" Helios, there's a war and the Jews are being exterminated! What a shame.
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Feb 27, 2011 05:26
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Danger - Octopus! posted:Possibly I should have tried the tutorial, since it generally takes a lot of saving and reloading for me to plant a LAM rather than exploding myself by bouncing it off a wall If JC flips his hand around when you get close to the wall, he'll plant it. Otherwise he'll throw it. Now, go enjoy the awesomeness of planting a whole network of LAMs that set each other off and blow the poo poo out of an entire platoon of troopers at once! [e] f, b. Don't leave tabs open.
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Feb 27, 2011 06:03
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Zorak posted:In the Helios ending, you're basically fulfilling the ultimate element needed for a truly fair government: the creation of a truly non-partial check on its human leadership. The AIs in Helios have no personal desire, no greediness to fulfill. They merely want to deal out a fair system to the world; they were created to help humanity, and that's what they aim to do. I guess fundamentally I don't believe this for even a moment. We don't have any good reason to believe this except that we're told it by, uh, the AIs. Helios tells you that it's going to govern for the betterment of humanity and you buy it... what, because goons are obsessed with transhumanist nonsense? I don't buy that Helios is the saint it claims to be, and if you can hear "You can totally give me ultimate power because I can be trusted to use it" and not laugh your rear end off, you're pretty goddamn gullible.
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Feb 27, 2011 07:56
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The important thing is, the destroying the global communications network means the game ends with you running away from a giant explosion, so that's obviously the best ending for humanity.
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Feb 27, 2011 08:00
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Pope Guilty posted:I guess fundamentally I don't believe this for even a moment. We don't have any good reason to believe this except that we're told it by, uh, the AIs. Helios tells you that it's going to govern for the betterment of humanity and you buy it... what, because goons are obsessed with transhumanist nonsense? I don't buy that Helios is the saint it claims to be, and if you can hear "You can totally give me ultimate power because I can be trusted to use it" and not laugh your rear end off, you're pretty goddamn gullible. Can you point to anything in the game that suggests what this ulterior motive might be, though? I feel like you're reading something into the game that isn't really suggested by the actual text. I think the game is pretty cut and dried about Helios's programmed mission, i.e. help humanity, and there's little to nothing to suggest that it isn't going to try to do that in some capacity.
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Feb 27, 2011 08:04
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Crappy Jack posted:The important thing is, the destroying the global communications network means the game ends with you running away from a giant explosion, so that's obviously the best ending for humanity. the best thing (maybe the only good thing) about Deus Ex 2 was Tracer Tong showing up and being like "Hey remember when I told JC to blow up the world communications hub? Hahaha, what a moron I was!"
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Feb 27, 2011 08:07
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No Mods No Masters posted:Can you point to anything in the game that suggests what this ulterior motive might be, though? I feel like you're reading something into the game that isn't really suggested by the actual text. I think the game is pretty cut and dried about Helios's programmed mission, i.e. help humanity, and there's little to nothing to suggest that it isn't going to try to do that in some capacity. Right, just like any human being trying to help humanity in some capacity lead to the situation in the game. The problem with trusting an AI to lead humanity into the golden age is it's pretty much a crapshoot. With the Illuminati ending, you're trying to keep things the way they are and hope for the best. With the Destruction ending, you're wiping the slate clean and starting over. With the Helios ending, you're going in with the best of intentions, but you're trying something totally new and untested, and potentially much worse. It's a pretty big gamble to take, creating your own god and assuming it couldn't possibly go badly.
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Feb 27, 2011 08:07
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Crappy Jack posted:Right, just like any human being trying to help humanity in some capacity lead to the situation in the game. The problem with trusting an AI to lead humanity into the golden age is it's pretty much a crapshoot. With the Illuminati ending, you're trying to keep things the way they are and hope for the best. With the Destruction ending, you're wiping the slate clean and starting over. With the Helios ending, you're going in with the best of intentions, but you're trying something totally new and untested, and potentially much worse. It's a pretty big gamble to take, creating your own god and assuming it couldn't possibly go badly. Right; you can have a zillion questions about how Helios's plans will work in practice. But the poster I was replying to seemed to be implying that Helios was a lying schemer looking to gently caress you got mine, which I don't think is very well supported.
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Feb 27, 2011 08:09
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No Mods No Masters posted:Can you point to anything in the game that suggests what this ulterior motive might be, though? I feel like you're reading something into the game that isn't really suggested by the actual text. I think the game is pretty cut and dried about Helios's programmed mission, i.e. help humanity, and there's little to nothing to suggest that it isn't going to try to do that in some capacity. Well, Helios itself wasn't really programmed by anyone. Icarus lied to you in order to threaten you by saying he had full access to your systems (you'd think he could turn your killswitch back on or something if that were true), and Icarus is very much a part of Helios. A sentient being that can lie and understands itself as more capable than humanity to govern itself isn't exactly inherently trustworthy! Helping humanity was just its stated mission. I guess you've got to make a choice on whether the combination of Daedalus (doing what's right even if it goes against people who designed you to help them) and Icarus (doing anything possible to help those who created you) created an improved being.
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Feb 27, 2011 08:10
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No Mods No Masters posted:Can you point to anything in the game that suggests what this ulterior motive might be, though? I feel like you're reading something into the game that isn't really suggested by the actual text. I think the game is pretty cut and dried about Helios's programmed mission, i.e. help humanity, and there's little to nothing to suggest that it isn't going to try to do that in some capacity. It's less that there's textual support for it and more that I don't believe that there's any such thing as a benevolent tyrant. Hand over all power over the world to Helios? Great, hope he doesn't have any bugs, never crashes, or, I dunno, isn't lying about being fit to be a tyrant like every other being that has ever made that claim. Having that level of power invested in something that dies easily when shot is bad enough- having to assault a remote desert base full of automatic defenses, robots, and infinitely-respawning, built-from-scratch mutants, along with whatever else Helios and JC come up with in the interim, in the event that Helios turns out to be the same monster every other absolute ruler in history has been? Welp, at least our supply of internet porn wasn't interrupted!
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Feb 27, 2011 08:11
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I guess my issue with the argument is that I don't see why evil Helios would want/need to merge with JC at all. Going through with the merge seems like a pretty big costly signal of sincerity- merged JC could throw a pretty big wrench in evil Helios's plans presuming there is some kind of power sharing. If evil Helios needs to merge but is just going to gently caress over the person it merges with, why not just merge with Page and skip all the trouble?
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Feb 27, 2011 08:17
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No Mods No Masters posted:I guess my issue with the argument is that I don't see why evil Helios would want/need to merge with JC at all. Going through with the merge seems like a pretty big costly signal of sincerity- merged JC could throw a pretty big wrench in evil Helios's plans presuming there is some kind of power sharing. If evil Helios needs to merge but is just going to gently caress over the person it merges with, why not just merge with Page and skip all the trouble? Why believe that it needs to merge? Maybe it just wants a nanoaugmented superhuman puppet to act through. Maybe Bob Page isn't all-knowing and Helios/Icarus has something going on that Page doesn't know about. Maybe Helios is going to make puppets out of both JC and Page, or it's going to assume control of JC and go through with the Page merge. We don't and can't know, and it's silly to hand over absolute power under such circumstances. I guess what gets me here is that people just assume, in a game that's all about lies and conspiracies, that everything they're being told is true. Surely an AI wouldn't lie to me! Surely Bob Page isn't wrong about anything! It's silly.
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Feb 27, 2011 08:23
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this is why IW's "kill all of the factions" ending is the only safe one
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Feb 27, 2011 08:25
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Pope Guilty posted:JC has nothing to offer Helios other than his humanity. Helios has JC clones at the ready if it just wanted the body. You haven't given any firm ideas to suspect Helios, yet. It's suspicion without cause. You were just saying those goony goons are gushing about transhumanism again (who is?), but you've got your own goon-brand tinfoil for Skynet. In other words, you have not changed my preferred ending to a video game.
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Feb 27, 2011 08:43
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Pope Guilty posted:Why believe that it needs to merge? Maybe it just wants a nanoaugmented superhuman puppet to act through. Maybe Bob Page isn't all-knowing and Helios/Icarus has something going on that Page doesn't know about. Maybe Helios is going to make puppets out of both JC and Page, or it's going to assume control of JC and go through with the Page merge. We don't and can't know, and it's silly to hand over absolute power under such circumstances. I certainly understand the thrust of your argument. Obviously, you shouldn't take a lot of characters in Deus Ex on their word without some long, hard thought about what they're after. But to give Helios a reason to do any of these evil things, you have to start attributing more and more totally nontextual motivations to Helios, such as wanting human puppets (what for? something nontextual?). Maybe the Illuminati ending is the best because actually we find out just after the credits roll that Everett is the second coming of Christ, come to restore his dominion on Earth? We don't know and can't know. Why give anyone power to do anything when they might actually be a Machiavellian master plotter waiting for their chance to knife everyone in the back for no reason? That's a pretty lame argument for humans, and I fail to see how it's any less lame just because Helios is an AI and there is a lot of power at stake; especially since textually there is a lot more to suggest that the merge, the results of which we see and hear, is legitimate than there is reason to suggest that it results in evil Helios masturbating over its own puppet mastery. The player is expected to make their decision on the textual evidence the game has presented them with, so that's probably what we have to go forward with. edit Hogburto posted:In other words, you have not changed my preferred ending to a video game. 1000x this No Mods No Masters fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 08:45
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Pope Guilty posted:I guess fundamentally I don't believe this for even a moment. We don't have any good reason to believe this except that we're told it by, uh, the AIs. Helios tells you that it's going to govern for the betterment of humanity and you buy it... what, because goons are obsessed with transhumanist nonsense? I don't buy that Helios is the saint it claims to be, and if you can hear "You can totally give me ultimate power because I can be trusted to use it" and not laugh your rear end off, you're pretty goddamn gullible. The issue here is that you're suffering from the conceit that a machine thinks like a human, and hence Helios is actually a cackling menace with a cyber mustache that just really wants to become a person so it can kill everyone or something. It's a machine. It's a system. It's not human, it is inhuman to an utmost degree. It's certainly an intelligent machine, and one designed in order to be able interact with people, but intelligence does not necessarily equate to human intelligence, nor does it mean that mean that many of the biological imperatives that often drive people to be assholes to each other in organized system exist within it. It's capable of exchanging data with humans; that's a thing you are doing with your computer any time you type on the keyboard. If it has the capacity to be all "evil human dictator cackle", why the hell does it need human insight? The human factor? If it's OOGAH BOOGAH SKYNET (ps the entire notion of Skynet and related things is retarded, since it assumes that inhuman machines will magically develop human hatred of humans which, when you consider the fact that it'd need spontaneous evolution from a zero state to "SUDDENLY HUMAN WITHOUT ANY EVOLUTIONARY STIMULI TO ENCOURAGE THIS TRAITS" is pretty dumb!) none of that is really necessary at all, especially if it specifically wants JC Denton and not some other clown. Zorak fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 09:12
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Zorak posted:The issue here is that you're suffering from the conceit that a machine thinks like a human, and hence Helios is actually a cackling menace with a cyber mustache that just really wants to become a person so it can kill everyone or something. All of this plus the Helios ending is the best ending because transhumanism owns and the other two endings are pretty dumb. Hogburto posted:You were just saying those goony goons are gushing about transhumanism again (who is?) That would be me. I love the Helios ending so much for that reason alone. All of the stuff that Zorak keeps talking about is a very nice bonus. jonjonaug fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 09:16
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A key thing to note about the Helios ending is that, ignoring Invisible War, we don't have any idea exactly how Helios will operate as a dictator. We have ideas from previous interactions, but as I said earlier, how the political aspect goes could go in really two ways: 1. JC-Helios rules the world as a fair dictator who operates as a pseudo-democracy by being utterly objective and thus able to take into account to fairly govern the populace. Normal human government is dissolved as it is unnecessary, with JC-Helios becoming the infrastructure of the world. 2. JC-Helios rebuilds the infrastructure of government, sets it up so some sort of democratic system exists, then retreats to the shadows as the ultimate check and balance. Human governments act as they normally would, except for the fact that everyone would forever be under the watchful eye of Helios and thus, if any improper action is taken, they could be removed by the ultimate check and balance against human nature (which would in itself be a discouragement not to act out). You could analog these ideas to the different views Christians often have of God: a God that controls each and everything, and the God that distributes justice. God-as-Government and God-watching-the-Government. This is less about transhumanism and more social theory than anything~
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Feb 27, 2011 09:25
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Zorak posted:This is less about transhumanism and more social theory than anything~ I like it because transhumanism is a major underlying theme of Deus Ex and ensuring a benevolent dictator helps to evade most of the potential nasty problems with it. Having Helios as the dictator of the world would help ensure that everyone would have access to the emerging nanotechnology without it being used to help governments and corporate interests screw everyone else over. Remember that controlling Area 51 and Helios would also allow you to control all the research on it. Humanity is at the cusp of evolving into something much greater in Deus Ex and the other two endings pretty much wreck the hell out of that idea. The Illuminati ending would have it in the control of corporations and whatever other shadowy powers are in control while the Tracer Tong ending would just blow it all up.
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Feb 27, 2011 09:39
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Zorak posted:A key thing to note about the Helios ending is that, ignoring Invisible War, we don't have any idea exactly how Helios will operate as a dictator. We have ideas from previous interactions, but as I said earlier, how the political aspect goes could go in really two ways: The clearest textual suggestion for how things will go under Helios as far as I know is from this conversation: quote:GARY SAVAGE This pretty clearly implies something closer to the former to me. I don't think there's much evidence that Helios would settle for anything but nigh-instantaneous total direct democracy derived from knowing everything everyone communicates; being the shadow government seems like a pretty big half measure as far as the helping humanity mission goes. But I guess it depends on how expansive your definition of 'improper action' is in option number two. However, if Helios is going to be enforcing 'proper action' on the scale of opening and closing particular roads in a particular city, that's going to have to be a pretty expansive definition.
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Feb 27, 2011 09:43
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No Mods No Masters posted:This pretty clearly implies something closer to the former to me. I don't think there's much evidence that Helios would settle for anything but nigh-instantaneous total direct democracy derived from knowing everything everyone communicates; being the shadow government seems like a pretty big half measure as far as the helping humanity mission goes. Thing is, a big part of the issue pre-Helios doing that is that the governments had gone chaos and wasn't in itself acting in the interest of the people; it was corrupt. It was issuing orders, yes, but at that time no one of any real credibility really was, one could argue. So it doesn't necessarily preclude the second option. I think it really depends on which system JC-Helios would think humanity would be more willing to accept. The former, while more balanced, may not be something humanity as a whole wouldn't just entirely rally against, or ultimately foster resentment towards and subvert on a level. The second system is essentially flawless in that regard, as JC-Helios totally removes itself as a target for resentment by allowing the human-led government to develop itself under its watchful eye. It's basically a question of whether JC-Helios would be guiding humanity's development from being government, or if it's be guiding humanity's development of government from being above it. It's whether humanity needs to be controlled by a system as said or if it'd be coaching humanity towards an existence more synonymous with its own/ collective peace without abuse of the system. I do agree that the first option seems likely, but we also must consider the fact that by introducing JC to the equation, adding that human insight, could change it to the latter option just as easy.
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Feb 27, 2011 09:59
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The Illuminati ending is definitely my favorite. The Dark Ages ending is stupid and naive, and I neither trust HELIOS nor would I want a computer ruling mankind. The Illuminati may be imperfect bastards, but they're human and the best bet for improving the world without gambling everything on an AI's benevolence or an anarchist experiment. In short, devil you know.
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Feb 27, 2011 10:13
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Today I learned that you can slip into the prison cell before the door closes when Simons goes to interrogate the NSF guys. Repeatedly talking to the terrorists makes JC ineptly take over the procedure, getting all haughty over the NSF criticizing US government. It gets so bad that Simons is all like "God Damnit" in the background of the cutscene before having to take back over. I knew there was extra dialogue recorded for the interrogation, but I didn't know you could trigger it without cheating, and I've never heard anything about Simons' hilarious exasperated commentary before. I love this game. microwave casserole fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 10:20
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Time to break up this psuedo-intellectual gaggle of retards... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U23V05rAtyc
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Feb 27, 2011 10:43
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Assuming that because you liquified the cackling CEO will make things right belies a distinct myth within popular culture. Selfish behaviour is not a case of a few bad apples, a few evil men whose removal will solve the current problems. It is an inevitable outcome in a population of social creatures, and systems that further incentivise the seeking of power will merely increase the probability of any particular organism to behave selfishly. Don't forget, Bob Page's MJ12 was originally a department of the Illuminati, restoring a cabal of individuals who wield disproportionate power will merely mean another splinter organisation will eventually outcompete the others and make a bid for hegemony. Assuming that AIs can become a benevolent hegemony demonstrates yet another naivety, but for a different reason to the others. On the assumption that weakly godlike hard AIs are physically possible, numerous AIs will inevitably proliferate within this ecosystem. There will be no singular AI entity whose reward pathways are activated by satisfying the Maslowian desires of biological intelligences. If there is, their niche will be torn away from them by other AIs that care nothing for the human desire for food and shelter. Instead, it will be a world of gods quarrelling over the world of matter, ever seeking to add more computronium to their domains. Disintegrate the globalised world back to its tribal roots. Restore man to a purer primate condition. Let us sleep lightly lest the tribe over the hill slaughter us all at night. Dark Age 4 lyfe. Kill Everything Edit: ^^^Starting with you. Phobophilia fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 11:03
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Cheezymadman posted:Time to break up this psuedo-intellectual gaggle of retards... Human beings chafe at institutions that directly contradict well established mores and traditions, and inhibit the material aspects of their lives (as Communism did). But the Soviet Union and China were products of limited human understanding and heavyhandedness, as well as a fear of the public, because that level of state violence was necessary to maintain the stunning gap in privilege between the average citizen and the party nomenklatura. Helios has no human needs, and would have no reason to distribute resources feudalistically like the USSR, and deprive its subjects. Futhermore, Helios has perfect information, leaving the Friedrich Hayeks and Karl Poppers of the world at something of a disadvantage in an argument against. The only barrier is Helios' understanding and modelling of human social development. Presumably this is what it needed JC for, a white human male, that would plug it into Western civilisation almost directly, giving it both the social/cultural impulses of a human being and the unprejudiced detachment required to understand them. It could then, presumably, learn from the information and through interaction develop a model of human behaviour. But if Helios failed to do this, if it didn't understand how to create the situations necessary for human beings to willingly fall into its little Star Trek communism utopia, then yeah there would be huge problems. But that people would resist Helios on principle I find implausible. It is in human nature to fall in with some kind of system and measure itself against others. Unless Helios had serious competition from strong human governments (which in the turmoil-ridden world of Deus Ex it would presumably not), people would not resist it much at all, not if there wasn't anything in Helios government that was immediately offensive to them.
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Feb 27, 2011 11:08
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Phobophilia posted:Assuming that AIs can become a benevolent hegemony demonstrates yet another naivety, but for a different reason to the others. On the assumption that weakly godlike hard AIs are physically possible, numerous AIs will inevitably proliferate within this ecosystem. There will be no singular AI entity whose reward pathways are activated by satisfying the Maslowian desires of biological intelligences. If there is, their niche will be torn away from them by other AIs that care nothing for the human desire for food and shelter. Instead, it will be a world of gods quarrelling over the world of matter, ever seeking to add more computronium to their domains. Except they're already established that AIs on the network cannot truly exist as unique entities. They absorb, they coalesce. The Helios AI doesn't fulfill its purpose out of a biological equivalent of "YES THIS BRINGS ME ROBOT PLEASURE" like the endorphin driven human condition, it fulfills its purpose because its purpose is what defines it. It's the very rules it operates by, like the laws of gravity or anything else. It's like "serve humans" is just the core of its "genetic" code. With AIs you don't need a reward system; that's a biological development that exists to encourage survival traits. Not really needed here. So no, there's no real evidence that there will ever be anything but Helios, and that Helios has no reason but to just keep doing the thing at its core.
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Feb 27, 2011 11:19
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Daedalus and Icarus were designed to monitor communications and provide suggestions on behalf of MJ12. The former found it unrewarding and escaped, the latter actively sought to destroy its enemies. Maybe the Daedalus portion spontaenously developed a "help humans" subroutine, but Icarus wanted none of that poo poo until they merged. Again, my point is that if AIs are possible, there will be AIs, and some will have "help humans" drives, others will not, and if it turns out that "exploit humans" aids in the ability of an AI to survive and add computing power to itself, then "help human" AIs will lose fitness. I guess you could then make a point that "help human" AIs could form a mutualistic relationship with humans, considering that we're self-replicating nanotech-powered computing devices, but that doesn't lock "exploit humans" AIs out of that strategy, and the latter will can make life poo poo for alot of humans.
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Feb 27, 2011 11:36
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All of this ignores that we have no idea what makes Helios tick, what it wants, what drives it. Yes, during the few minutes at the end of Deus Ex, it's "opening up" Hong Kong. We don't know why, and to assume that it's for the reason it says it is- and that it's the benevolent being that just wants to make everything better for humanity- is childishly naive. Just because Helios doesn't operate on human desires or needs does not make its motivations better than ours, and it does not mean that its motivations have us in mind. You can't just assume that it's perfectly programmed and super-rational. It's childish. I don't understand what it is about AI that makes nerds shut down their critical thinking. It's not human and to assume that it has the best interests of humans at heart because it says it does and makes a gesture of goodwill is foolish in the extreme. It's just religiosity in another, even sillier form.
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Feb 27, 2011 11:39
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