|
Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Pretty sure you have to do that Monk quest without violence: you can’t attack or incapacitate anyone. Just sneak in, grab the guy, and sneak out. I totally punched every maelstrommer in the face, but I was very careful about not punching them once they started collapsing, or letting one of them accidentally shoot one of the others, and I was fine.
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2022 14:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 17:15 |
|
|
Just don't do the mission with a hammer expecting it to actually be nonlethal (despite what its description says) and you should be fine.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2022 14:47
|
|
|
I took out an enemy with the dildo on a small gig where I had to keep them alive and it killed them, so I ended up reloading and replaying it
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2022 15:35
|
|
|
Legendary short circuit killed a bunch of people by accident for me. It procs on hit, so if it knocks out an enemy while your next round is already heading their way they’re dead before they hit the ground.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2022 18:27
|
|
|
Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Pretty sure you have to do that Monk quest without violence: you can’t attack or incapacitate anyone. Just sneak in, grab the guy, and sneak out. You can't kill anyone that's the only requirement. If you have the non-lethal lenses, pop those in and and just knock everyone out. It can be a pain in the rear end because of the way the enemy health bar can slip from "Knocked out" to "Dead" with too much of an extra swing or trigger pull, but as long as you use non lethal takedowns or pop in the lenses and use a bat or very carefully pull the trigger you should be fine.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2022 19:32
|
|
|
if you have the magic contact lens on, and hit someone with legendary cyberpsychosis, they murder their friends and then suicide themselves with non-lethal damage, somehow
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2022 20:55
|
|
|
Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:if you have the magic contact lens on, and hit someone with legendary cyberpsychosis, they murder their friends and then suicide themselves with non-lethal damage, somehow It's ok, I can see their parachutes
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2022 21:08
|
|
|
Huh, if you snuck completely through Red Queens Race you can grab an Animal and interrogate them. Never knew that!
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 01:08
|
|
|
Robobot posted:Huh, if you snuck completely through Red Queens Race you can grab an Animal and interrogate them. Never knew that! Yeah I was slowly and methodically stead stealth clearing out all the wraiths in the riders on the storm mission yesterday and had the objective update when I overheard some of the goons talking about Saul being in the basement, that was new to me
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 01:20
|
|
|
Epic quickhacks vs. legendary - is crafting the only way to get them? I haven't had anything drop from access points despite having Datamine Virtuoso. I'm also seeing reports of a bug caused by starting a specific quest (The Gift) that causes them to never drop. I was going for a full on Netrunner build this time, hopefully it isn't screwed up (or can be fixed with a savegame editor). I'm seeing a lot of conflicting info on this for 1.5, currently level 11. Any ideas? Or are the Epic quickhacks good enough?
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 06:08
|
|
|
Shooting Blanks posted:Epic quickhacks vs. legendary - is crafting the only way to get them? I haven't had anything drop from access points despite having Datamine Virtuoso. I'm also seeing reports of a bug caused by starting a specific quest (The Gift) that causes them to never drop. I was going for a full on Netrunner build this time, hopefully it isn't screwed up (or can be fixed with a savegame editor). I'm seeing a lot of conflicting info on this for 1.5, currently level 11. Legendary quickhacks all come with a powerful active or passive effect that can be downright gamebreaking in the right hands. Unlocking a bonus daemon, hacking enemies through walls, lowering next quickhack cost. They are downright OP even in a skill tree that is already superpowered. IDK if virtuoso is bugged but it is random. Just unlock the legendary crafting perk in intelligence. It's just a single perk point and by far the easiest way to get legendary quickhacks.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 06:38
|
|
|
Tenkaris posted:Yeah I was slowly and methodically stead stealth clearing out all the wraiths in the riders on the storm mission yesterday and had the objective update when I overheard some of the goons talking about Saul being in the basement, that was new to me If you totally clear out everyone in the base before you rescue him he'll comment on that too. I'm also hearing a lot more side character chatter like you mentioned after the 1.5 update. It's nice. Really fills the world out a bit more I think. Plus, it's always fun to listen to a Valentino tell their friend on the phone that they're getting a bad feeling about tonight and then immediately stuffing their unconscious body into a dumpster.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 12:26
|
|
|
Finished the game yesterday, did most of the endings and watched the rest on Youtube. The game itself is a decent enough FPS sandbox, but I definitely like the game more for the story and the characters. Unasked for personal ranking of all the endings, because they've been sitting in my head all day and I need to get them out: 7. Suicide / 6. Devil (signed the contract) Signing the contract is more or less the same as committing suicide, just that you hide it behind a veneer of self-preservation. You sign away your rights, you're gonna be trapped in a box for who knows, not to mention the whole "engrams not having a soul" thing. Neither of these are meant to be satisfying in any way, which is just as well since they're there for contrast. 5: Temperance The game actually does a decent job at selling you on it and framing it as a sacrifice from V to Johnny, and it works pretty well assuming V managed to build up a relationship with Johnny. The playable epilogue ending with Johnny saying goodbye to V and starting a new life was quite poignant, and the rando driver kid surprisingly added a lot to the ending. Would probably feel a lot shittier if V is at odds with Johnny and Johnny instead robs V of their autonomy, though, and it was still lovely overall of Johnny to not tell any of V's old friends about what's up. Also, from V's perspective it's still largely suicide. 4. Sun (with Rogue) I like the Sun ending as its own self-contained thing. It wraps up Johnny and Rogue's storyline neatly, even if the heist itself was too short and a bit underwhelming for what's supposed to be like, the biggest heist on Arasaka. As an ending to V's story, though, after V spent the entire game up until that point fighting for their survival, it didn't feel right to surrender agency to someone else at the last moment. This feels like an ending that's there to tie up a sideplot that they wouldn't be able to tie up in main story otherwise. That said both versions of Sun and Temperance probably wrap up Johnny and V's relationship arc the best, (assuming they're on good terms) whether you sacrifice yourself as Johnny to let V have their last moments, or V sacrificing themselves so Johnny could have a new lease. 3. Star I get why this is a lot of people's favorite ending. It's the most "hopeful" ending because V's death doesn't feel as final here. At the same time, though, I also thought it's too much of a "Hollywood ending" in a game that hasn't been interested in telling that kind of story; based on what we've told V is most likely not gonna survive and the game buries that under the platitude of "well maybe Panam's contact can do something". Another issue is that I don't feel like the game made much of an effort to build a relationship between V and the Aldecaldos beyond Panam and maybe Mitch, so when Saul calls V part of the "Aldecaldos family" it felt a bit hollow. I like this ending a lot on paper, but I just wasn't feeling the connection basically. That said, this ending would probably work much better for a player who romanced Panam or Judy, since you get to drive into the sunset with your love interest, especially Panam. This route sure seems to be built around the assumption that you romanced Panam, too, especially with that intimate ending cutscene. Actually as I type this I realize that with V and Panam's romance at the center, this route is a lot like a blockbuster film plot - wronged mercenary with a terminal illness fights through hell with the help of a fiery love interest to save his life - and I can kinda see the appeal that way. 2. Devil (refused the contract) Yeah this ending is the worst outcome for the world, because V pretty much actively aided Arasaka in completing the SYS project. In terms of V's own story, though, I think it does a lot of things well. From the start V's arc has always been about survival, and they spent the whole game grasping at straws and becoming pawns in other people's plans because they had no choice; they will die otherwise. But in the end, even though V is thoroughly defeated in their original quest, and was used up by both Arasaka and Alt to further their own goals, at the final moment they get to finally make a decision on their life that's their own, and I think that's satisfying in its own way. The voicemails are particularly a great punctuation to this ending too; after all of the personal loss they've experienced, V is returning to people who care for them for the last months of their life, and many of those friends are people they came across due to their condition, too. It's a bitter ending to be sure, but I thought it was an excellent ending to a cyberpunk story - there's not much you can do about the big guys at the top chewing you and spitting you out, and the best you can do is take your small victories where you can along the way - but maybe that's enough. My main issue with this ending is just how it completely cuts your connection to Johnny, which is of course natural, but it makes the story kinda messy for a V that has built up a working relationship with Johnny until this point. 1. Sun (secret ending) To be clear I don't think this is an amazing ending or anything either, but I think it's the ending that best completes V an Johnny's stories, individually and together. Like it or not, Johnny is a big part of the story, and the story should still provide closure on that front. Devil completely severs any narrative arc with Johnny, Star kinda sidesteps it to tell its own story, and the original Sun takes over V's story at the last moment to tell Johnny's, which isn't ideal. Here V takes matters into their own hands together with Johnny. Could've used some more build up between the decision on the roof and arriving at Arasaka Tower's door, though. Dropping the player right into a firefight felt too unceremonious. It's definitely kind of a power fantasy ending, but this genre could use that type of story from time to time. I guess if I have to be honest I actually like the Devil ending more and I think it's more well-written, but this is the best victory V and Johnny could hope for, and so it's probably as satisfying as the story can get overall. (barring probably a Star ending where you romanced Panam or Judy specifically) Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk. None of the endings actually totally sat right with me, to be honest, but that's probably by design. All in all I still enjoyed the game a lot, and I'm pretty sure I'll be replaying it again sometime in the future.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 13:16
|
|
|
blizzardvizard posted:Finished the game yesterday, did most of the endings and watched the rest on Youtube. The game itself is a decent enough FPS sandbox, but I definitely like the game more for the story and the characters. Just to clarify something, none of the endings save the suicide one and maybe walking away from signing a contract with Arasaka involves you keeping your soul. The technique Alt uses to separate you and Johnny involves turning you into an engram with the option of putting you back into you body. At that point your soul is gone already.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 14:37
|
|
|
Slashrat posted:Just to clarify something, none of the endings save the suicide one and maybe walking away from signing a contract with Arasaka involves you keeping your soul. The technique Alt uses to separate you and Johnny involves turning you into an engram with the option of putting you back into you body. At that point your soul is gone already. That's true. I guess it "felt" different because V only exists as an engram for a short while when Alt did it instead of being kept on shelf for a long time, so in my head I just registered it like putting a severed finger in ice or something. But in this case it doesn't really make a difference how long the engram exists out of a body.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:01
|
|
|
Wtf is a soul supposed to be here
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:02
|
|
|
More Mikoshi ending stuff: I honestly feel like more than V's "soul" is on the line here. Alt says she can read Johnny's engram code, and that's clearly overwriting V's consciousness over the course of the game. I feel like removing Johnny's "code" from your engram would remove parts of V that he's overwritten, with no original V "code" remaining to fill that gap. The only ending I feel like really illustrates this consequence to a degree is the Devil ending when you're being tested post-op. At first you have zero chance of solving the puzzle cube because your perception of color is hosed up. You feel empty and wrong, and they eventually conclude that the procedure was a failure and you still will die if you try and stay in your body. So clearly what engram they can get has massive problems, it couldn't even assimilate V's body anymore, how are they hoping to find a better candidate host than that? If anything they would have to fill in your empty engram lines which again, only takes you further away from being V anymore. Game is bleak but 
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:03
|
|
|
aphid_licker posted:Wtf is a soul supposed to be here If the criteria involved is what I think it is, V "lost" their soul well before the events of the climax.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:08
|
|
|
A soul is the friends we made along the way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:08
|
|
|
Tenkaris posted:More Mikoshi ending stuff: I honestly feel like more than V's "soul" is on the line here. Alt says she can read Johnny's engram code, and that's clearly overwriting V's consciousness over the course of the game. I feel like removing Johnny's "code" from your engram would remove parts of V that he's overwritten, with no original V "code" remaining to fill that gap. An engram is a totally new being created in a dead person's likeness. Whatever soul V has went wherever souls go after V is killed by Alt. The Devil is the only ending where V is still alive. In all of the other endings something else is living in V's skin. Which is way creepier and way more messed up than anything that happens in The Devil imo.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:37
|
|
|
aphid_licker posted:Wtf is a soul supposed to be here I suppose that’s the question
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:44
|
|
|
Funky See Funky Do posted:An engram is a totally new being created in a dead person's likeness. Whatever soul V has went wherever souls go after V is killed by Alt. The Devil is the only ending where V is still alive. In all of the other endings something else is living in V's skin. Which is way creepier and way more messed up than anything that happens in The Devil imo. earlier than Alt. after Dex puts one in V's head, i reckon
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:49
|
|
|
V died after the Heist, and the chip rebuilt the brain so it could be taken over by Johnny, so the resurrected V was never entirely V. I don't know what this would mean spiritually
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:50
|
|
|
Funky See Funky Do posted:An engram is a totally new being created in a dead person's likeness. Whatever soul V has went wherever souls go after V is killed by Alt. The Devil is the only ending where V is still alive. In all of the other endings something else is living in V's skin. Which is way creepier and way more messed up than anything that happens in The Devil imo. And that likeness has already been partially over-written by the time they take that image. No matter what, a significant portion of V is lost before you reach that point. Also in my opinion V's soul is likely still lost when they enter Mikoshi through Arasaka-sanctioned access. Some people think a V engram is made when Dex domes them. I don't think so personally but have no idea. They only show engrams being made via Soulkiller but they clearly have a way to take engram images without killing the subject e.g. Saburo and Lizzie Tenkaris fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Aug 20, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 15:53
|
|
|
personally I'm of the mind that there really isn't a "soul" being lost if you engram yourself. v's problem was twofold: Johnny's engram was overwriting her brain so their personalities were mixing, and for magic science reasons it was also literally changing her dna to become more like Johnny's. as far as i can recall i didn't run across anything that said if you were to just use your engram on your own, or a cloned, body that there would be any trouble. soulkiller is a dramatic name because arasaka *can* engram you and then not put you back leaving a braindead husk, but the consciousness who makes that person a person is still alive
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 16:14
|
|
|
continuity creates the illusion of a persistent consciousness equivalent with identity imo. I don't think CP2077 necessarily disagrees w me.
Gambit from the X-Men fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Aug 20, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 16:27
|
|
|
DropTheAnvil posted:Gamedec has a great start, completely flubs it and goes into predicable, tropey territory. I just rolled credits on Gamedec, and I think it was a pretty good ride all the way through. The gimmick is that in the cyberpunk dystopia, people spend entire days jacked into VR and you're a private detective who solves cases that intersect with VR worlds. And the detective stuff is pretty good! Lots of fairly three-dimensional characters, lots of clues to find, lots of stuff that you'll read and it ticks over in your head and you're like "ohhh poo poo", a deduction mechanic where you have to commit to your theory of what happened or whodunnit. As far as the narrative, I don't think it "flubs it" at all -- some of the twists were a little predictable but in a well-foreshadowed, purposeful sort of way, y'know? You don't say "how predictable" when someone gets shot with the gun that's been on the mantle the whole time. And it still shocked me quite a few times, too! I think the only real complaint I had was the very final moments, which are super brief and kinda arbitrarily railroad you into a choice based on your actions (except that doesn't sting as much as it would because there's literally nothing after you click the final button other than a rundown of your choices throughout the game, so I'm just pretending I got one of the other options anyway.) Took me 13.4 hours according to Steam, and that's including a bit of reloading to see how other choices pan out, so it's a fun little game to knock out in a lazy weekend or so. Definitely worth looking at if you're at all interested in Cyberpunk or Disco Elysium style games. Phenotype fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Aug 20, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 17:08
|
|
|
Slashrat posted:Just to clarify something, none of the endings save the suicide one and maybe walking away from signing a contract with Arasaka involves you keeping your soul. The technique Alt uses to separate you and Johnny involves turning you into an engram with the option of putting you back into you body. At that point your soul is gone already. The game is not interested in the Teleporter Problem because it's presenting a world where cogito ergo sum is no longer true. I think this is why it's not directly addressed like it is in games like Soma. There is nothing supernatural in Cyberpunk, or if there is, it is no more present than in the real world. There's no god, no magic, no ghosts. Technology has begun to be able to create approximations of these things, but there is no special supernatural quality of your personality that exists beyond what the game interchangeably calls an engram or a soul, and the fact that a "soul" can be ripped from a brain and saved to a chip really makes it seem like capitalism has finally defeated the concept of individuality or the hope for anything better. The game seems to imply that the process of creating an engram is a cut and paste, not a copy paste, but it's likely that the distinction is unimportant to the narrative. Your consciousness is a bunch of chemicals and electricity in your brain which are in a constant process of being depleted and replaced. We have not yet discovered whether there's any biological mechanism that ensures that any kind of continuity of consciousness actually exists. You're already a ship of Theseus only identifiable to yourself and others through the magic of memory, and that's just data stored in some cells, most of which do not have the same lifespan as the human body. Personality is neurological structure and hormones, memory isn't "you" any more than your arms or legs are, and in Cyberpunk, where these things are constantly being replaced or altered by technology, the self is a weaker concept than ever. Look at the Peralezes, for instance. Their memories and behavior are being changed against their will, and that's been going on for God knows how long. Are they themselves? If not, when did they cease to be? Who are they now? If so, how is someone who has been completely changed by external forces still the same, and how is that fundamentally different from real-life processes like drugs, aging, or injury? How could anyone possibly answer that question? That's part of why the writing focuses so hard on reputation and legacy. Jackie lives in suicidal pursuit of infamy, Joshua (Sinnerman) wants to use his death to bring people back to religion, Saburo rules from beyond the grave, Johnny, Alt, and Adam throw huge shadows over the story (especially for anyone familiar with the tabletop) even though they've all completely lost themselves. There is no private individual self for even the most powerful of these people because the ability to have such a thing is gone. The most extreme example of this is the Dolls, but the theme gets repeated all over the place, and the people who struggle against it (Misty, the monks, to some extent the nomads, Johnny if you give him your body) are largely outcasts. It feeds into Takemura's bushido, where he turns resigning yourself to subjugation and dissolution into a virtue, which his VA and the writing do a great job of making sound a lot nicer than the tragic poo poo sandwich it is. It's also probably where a lot of the callous disregard for human life by absolutely everybody is coming from. I don't get to matter, why should you? I really love the writing in this game. It's such a shame what happened to it. worm girl fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Aug 20, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 17:10
|
|
|
worm girl posted:The game seems to imply that the process of creating an engram is a cut and paste, not a copy paste, but it's likely that the distinction is unimportant to the narrative. Great post but I do wonder about this bit, mostly because Saburo has an engram stored from before his death and the implications of the quest with Lizzie, but in Lizzie's case she's almost to Smasher territory on body modding so who knows. Either way they seem to imply they have an engram of her. I think the whole secure your soul advertising would be a little weird if you had to forfeit your life to make a backup, so I think they MUST have copy paste capability by 2077.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 18:28
|
|
|
Tenkaris posted:Great post but I do wonder about this bit, mostly because Saburo has an engram stored from before his death and the implications of the quest with Lizzie, but in Lizzie's case she's almost to Smasher territory on body modding so who knows. Either way they seem to imply they have an engram of her. Good points. That makes the loss of identity even greater then. You don't just get digitized, your entire personality becomes a reproducible object. It's not Soulkiller because it kills your soul, it's Soulkiller because it kills the concept of a soul.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 18:52
|
|
|
Takemura's a reasonable character but it always irks me that the primary reaction from players is the reductive, superficial "hurr, gently caress off, fash" assessment. Like uh, there's more to him than that - his story is how one winds up that way and how any system and code of honor can be corrupted and subverted to serve the system of hypercapitalist neofeudalism with privatized tyranny precisely the same way that Christianity's corrupted to serve the overarching system (although neither social commentary is terribly obvious it's a large undercurrent of the horrors of the world and Night City as the symbolic antagonist rather than specifically a culture, religion, or even people). I want to also reiterate that Soulkiller exists in the same world alongside brain dances - both capture different aspects of the human experience and the whole story is about how the system of Night City is diametrically opposed to the human condition. We are more than the sum of our objective experiences (brain dances) or our internalized state machine (engrams), but in a world searching for meaning and purpose we lose sight that a large part of what makes us human is our attachments to the world and its inhabitants - this is something that I think was missing in the conversations with the monks in that Buddhism is formed around the central truth that attachments and suffering are linked and intrinsic to life. This is exactly what the Pope has failed to fully comprehend by calling Buddhism a "negative" religion - attachments are also what give people purpose and joy and give people meaning in their lives. Johnny's story is what happens when we abandon people for ideology as an attachment, Saburo's story is incredibly evil given Japanese and East Asian culture of familial heritage and such by holding oneself above the family, etc. Even for the dang cop that's going crazy his attachments are what gave him more purpose and meaning.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 19:42
|
|
|
necrobobsledder posted:Takemura's a reasonable character but it always irks me that the primary reaction from players is the reductive, superficial "hurr, gently caress off, fash" assessment. Like uh, there's more to him than that - his story is how one winds up that way and how any system and code of honor can be corrupted and subverted to serve the system of hypercapitalist neofeudalism with privatized tyranny 
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 19:53
|
|
|
Robobot posted:Huh, if you snuck completely through Red Queens Race you can grab an Animal and interrogate them. Never knew that! Huh. I punched out all the Animals, and I still got to grab one and interrogate them. Maybe it's just 'don't kill them'?
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 20:23
|
|
|
I was always skeptical of the fidelity of engrams in Cyberpunk. Like yeah Johnny sounds like Johnny and to my own flawed human brain he comes off as fully human, but so what? An AI that passes the Turing test is not "alive," it's just passing the Turing test. What I'm especially skeptical of is the "spark of creativity," of thinking of brand new ideas. One could argue that even among humans such things don't truly exist, as everything ever thought of is just riffing on some previous idea, at least partially. But still, creating fully formed (and detailed) ideas is still something I find uniquely human and particularly difficult to code. Think of all creative decisions that come into writing a play, for example - How particular it is to it's setting, and all the human nuances of that setting, and telling a new story that re-contextualizes it's characters over a 3-act structure. A play that you'd want to release to real humans and be reviewed as a fresh take by humans, not plagiarized or coming off as randomized, but rather implying a deep enough understanding of human nature in order to both entertain and educate. It's hard to even visualize what that looks like in code form. Maybe engrams in Cyberpunk get close. Maybe they get close enough to not matter. The tech is so new, though, and it's internals such a closely guarded corporate secret that we're never really told for sure exactly how good an engram really is. Good enough for the rich, sure, but mortality makes anyone desperate and their leaping onto the tech doesn't reinforce to me that engrams are a perfect simulacrum. I had always thought that AI being able learn and create on our level, but through calculation speeds of their level, is essentially the singularity. So is that what's going on with Alt? If so, she seems to be taking her time. If not, then she must still be missing something... Basically my take is that engrams are still lacking. World class chatbots, but still chatbots. A world of just engrams would be incapable of making better engrams. Or of writing a play of new ideas that spark creativity in other engrams to make their own plays, and grow as a culture of engrams. I never saw that, so I remain doubtful it's possible. But who knows? This is fun stuff to think about. I finished this game about 4 days after it came out and haven't launched it since... and yet I still think about it and read the thread. Neat!
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 20:54
|
|
|
I definitely think if it hasn't happened yet, Alt assimilating Mikoshi's digital prison of captured netrunners into her would be a strong potential catalyst for the strongest AI yet. And now I'm thinking about Delamain too 
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 21:15
|
|
|
The only proof we have that anyone is alive is their ability to tell us so and provoke a sense of empathy. Either the engrams of Cyberpunk are alive, or nothing is. And, existentially, those two things are not inherently mutually-exclusive. The essentialism of being able to/capable of taking other actions to define "alive" is also dangerous, because those are the kinds of things which usually can't be applied universally to every human being either. Cyberpunk, as a narrative, does not seem to believe in the religious idea of the soul, a wispy thing that either grants awareness or is awareness. It uses soul more in relation to senses of identity; V doesn't get die from being soulkilled in the baddest ending, they still get their voicemails, but they still sold off part of themself--in a sense, all of themself--to Arasaka, forever. V doesn't even question the existential dilemma that is their present existence, or the further existential dilemma which is Alt's solution to their problem. It's unsettling, but V shrugs it off that they'd be the same identity with the same sense of continuity in the same body. These are all things for the player to consider, the ultimate commodification of our illusions of the sacrosanct and how far we'd go to live as ourselves, and what we define as living. A version of Soulkiller is being used as the basis of the Secure Your Soul program.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 21:17
|
|
|
sure okay posted:I was always skeptical of the fidelity of engrams in Cyberpunk. Like yeah Johnny sounds like Johnny and to my own flawed human brain he comes off as fully human, but so what? An AI that passes the Turing test is not "alive," it's just passing the Turing test. What I'm especially skeptical of is the "spark of creativity," of thinking of brand new ideas. One could argue that even among humans such things don't truly exist, as everything ever thought of is just riffing on some previous idea, at least partially. There's actually a radio news alert that talks about an AI author winning their 80th Pulitzer Prize or something in game.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 21:27
|
|
|
sure okay posted:What I'm especially skeptical of is the "spark of creativity," of thinking of brand new ideas. This is the kind of belief many characters in the story have, but the narrative pretty strongly suggests that AIs have already far surpassed humanity, and there's nothing particularly special about us. Just look what they did to the Peralezes. There's a reason the Voodoo Boys are prostrating themselves to them like a Cthulhu cult. They're hoping they can make themselves useful enough to survive the coming apocalypse. So it's possible the Johnny engram is missing something that the real Johnny had, even he says he's not the real deal a couple times, but we're never shown any evidence that he's less than human, and Alt is clearly much much more.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 22:58
|
|
|
So engrams, AI, and personhood. Everybody here can agree that the AI they meet are alive and people, even if an alien sort of person. What makes a person? Consciousness, in the sense of reacting to new experiences and adopting new behaviors on a thinking level rather than pure reaction*, coupled with [insert arbitrary level here of] intelligence which can broadly be called the quickness of learning and broadness of application if nothing else. In a practical sense, the ability to communicate both of those things. So - is an engram a person? I'd say it depends. In Mikoshi, most of the engrams are not people. You can see that with Hanako basically puppeting Jackie for V. Jackie's engram had no consciousness or intelligence. Saburo did, or at least Hanako delegated the puppeteering of that projection. I suspect he was running on a different mainframe or with different privileges. This is to be expected. If the point is storing something there's no need to be using it, particularly if you intend to take it out of storage and into meatspace again as a form of running backup. Alt was put through Soulkiller and forcibly uploaded though! We know a person can come out of that because we meet them. Running in the 'Net, despite the gameplay projection, is noted as extremely different by Alt. Alt kept the appearance and some levels of the human, but openly admitted to be largely something different if nothing else than as an environmental adaptation. This makes sense - a hundred kilograms of carbon and meat is a lot different underlying substrate than the same in steel and silicon and Alt's the result of a pretty darwinian process in the wild network. Fifty years of accelerated evolution of thinking makes as much sense as anything else even. Can a stored engram become a person? The evolution of Johnny Silverhand's character says yes, provided that they're running and gaining new data and such. It may take some time to make them a person. The first real meeting Silverhand has with V it doesn't seem like he can learn anything at all and is largely running through the actions/reactions/memories of his last moments alive. On the other hand this might be fight/flight and accumulated trauma rearing its head. I don't think so, though. This changes as the story progresses - less of the unyielding Silverhand, more of Johnny the gently caress up rockerboy. Johnny is also running on more and more hardware as it were, as V is slowly overwritten. When they got sucked through Soulkiller again by Alt, they're again on a machine. They could be put into a hard drive and read like a book. So could Alt, if she was captured. However. Even in that state both V and Johnny are conscious, thinking beings learning things and making decisions based on them. Because they make one. After listening to Alt. This argument does say that the same set of data both can and can not be a person based on the circumstances around it. Arguments in much the same vein are made about abortion. Personally, I side with choice in that argument. I'm not sure where I stand on the treatment of engrams, though, aside from that if they start running they'd best be treated like people. *if you think this argument means I think animals are conscious: yes Complications fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Aug 20, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 23:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 17:15 |
|
|
Tenkaris posted:I definitely think if it hasn't happened yet, Alt assimilating Mikoshi's digital prison of captured netrunners into her would be a strong potential catalyst for the strongest AI yet. Delemain is the opposite though - He's a boring regular AI that barely responds at a level above a chat bot but breaks up into component AIs capable of feeling emotions, albeit childish ones. It suggests the sentience isn't just a matter of better programming - it's an accident.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2022 23:20
|
|
