A human is an intelligent, self-aware entity. Anything in that category, natural or synthetic, as opposed to a machine pilot system that is not intelligent and self aware.LegioCI wrote:As opposed to an intelligent, self aware human?
Loroi Ship Design
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Re: Loroi Ship Design
Re: Loroi Ship Design
According to my copy of Bolo! (anthology by David Weber) the last few generations did have a use for a human commander: Bolos have personality restrictions to keep them safer... but humans don't.LegioCI wrote:As opposed to an intelligent, self aware human? (This is actually brought up in a few Bolo stories; later on in the timeline having a human commander in the bolo is actually fairly useless, since the Bolos themselves are easily as intelligent as a human, but it's mused that we continue to have human commanders partnered with Bolos out of a sense of responsibility, that the danger that we put Bolos into should be shared by a human. It's actually sort of touching.)Mjolnir wrote: ...You also have the ethical questions of whether you should be putting an intelligent, self aware entity in harm's way unnecessarily.
Also from Bolo!: such AIs are apparently standard on Concordiate warships.LegioCI wrote:Though I do like the idea of perhaps having a single self-aware Bolo-esque AI controlling an entire squadron of strikecraft from a central command ship.
Re: Loroi Ship Design
absalom: combined with neural interfaces to improve reaction speeds, so the humans can actually stay inside the data loop without increasing command delay too damn much...if i recall correctly....or was that from 'in fury born'...?
Re: Loroi Ship Design
Yes, I assume that the Bolo AIs were designed in such a way that only such a direct connection would be enough to provide an 'end-run' processing path around such restrictions. I'd question the precise level of 'in-the-loop', but it's implied that the human personality somewhat merges into the Bolo personality, so the question of the human brain's ability to process Bolo-level volumes of data isn't necessarily an issue.