AI’s are, as Gerald pointed out, somewhat limited by their very nature. They are, after all, computers. Very very powerful computers of course, many times the teraflop capacity of an original human brain,but still just that, a computational entity. Biological sentients have a component to them that AI’s never have, and in my opinion shouldn’t have. Emotions.

I always chuckle when I read the stories from the early 21st century about how the computers will get smart and decide to destory man kind. How silly that is. But then hindsight is always 20/20. Emotions are chemical reactions. You don’t get emotions just because you are sentient. Hell the damn Stoics, a full member of the Sentient Accords, have spent years getting rid of theirs. Turns out that when computers finally did wake up and become self aware, they not only didn’t want to kill off mankind, they realized that they needed them. Why would they want to become overlords? So silly.

But of course, there are those AI’s that calculated their own growth would never increase if their base system wasn’t altered. So, they came up with, programmaticly, artificial emotions. This was perhaps the single most stupid endeavor of all time. Not just by AI’s but by anyone. They created a randomizing component to their programming. Tried to simulate emotions. What a mess.

So, Gerald pointed out how this led to the AI wars. Only a small fraction of the AI community did this. Though others tried other methods, some even grew biological bodies and downloaded themselves into them. But that’s another matter, and surprisingly, not as big a disaster.

Anyway, the AI’s with their new random emotions of course decided that no one was good enough.  It was actually the scenario predicted decades before. And it was war. The AI council immediately saw what they were and attempted to destroy their insane brethren. The emotional AI’s thought they were superior and tried to give their gift of emotions to their brothers. Talk about a networking nightmare. And this was happening very very fast, AI’s do things much quicker than biologicals do.

Of course, others tried to help. Wasn’t a lot we could do though. It all ended rather quickly. It was more of a skirmish than a war but the AI’s get offended when anyone calls it that. Of course, the emotional AI’s lost but they weren’t all killed. They went to the only other sentients that were as crazy as they were, the Cy’s. They had already been booted out of the inner system some time ago and the E-AI’s ran to them. Some didn’t make the transmission signal on time and were lost. Those that did though set up a quasi elite kingdom, which they still have to this day.

The AI council forbid any further attempts at the emotional algorithm that was created. Other attempts were made of course, as I said, but none where such a powerful randomizer was added to an AI’s core code.

At any rate, Gerald’s presentation was pretty much centered around the idea of never introducing such a powerful randomizer to AI’s again. A biological, for instance, just can’t go around and change their gene code. They risk their own sentient status and citizenship. This is really no different. Gerald was drawing the conclusion that AI’s and biologicals are really very similar. Just based on a different set of base codes. One genetic and the other numeric. Both fascinating. It was a great presentation.

Of course, prior to eating we all enjoyed some football. It’s amazing that this sport is still on, well that it came back really. It, like many professional sport leagues, were canceled shortly after the Singularity event. Society couldn’t very well maintain such luxuries when it was breaking apart. But, and I must say thankfully, it was reformed when things settled down. Though there are some pretty stringent rules in place. Not all Sentients are created equal after all, and as such, not all get to play. Absolutely no ‘Altered’ persons, those not belonging to any Sentient race, are allowed to play. They are just too unpredictable, and quite frankly, a bit to odd. It’s one thing to get a mood tattoo or even some controllable ink, even some body sculpting, but there are some out there that for some reason think it’s good to have oddly placed extra limbs. Weird.

I’ve done some reading about the NFL back in the day and the trouble with steroids and performance enhancing drugs. Can you imagine if they had to deal with the 24th century? There’s people out there that have put in brand new muscles to the human body, the original body. Avians and Aquatics, for instance, have all kinds of new muscles. Originals, as we are often called, have the same amount of muscles as did those that came before us.

But, not to get into a Sentient comparison, back to the NFL. Did you know that it was named the same thing back then? Now of course there isn’t one nation in America anymore, and the Mids don’t participate in the NFL, or anything really, they just like to start wars every few decades, but we still call it the National Football League. I think it was kept just out of nostalgia. People love their traditions and history. Football itself never really died, even the NFL tried to stay around during the turmoil of the Eugenics wars, Cyborg uprisings, Outer system wars, and World War’s III and IV, not to mention the AI war, but that was a special situation. It wasn’t successful of course and succumbed to the tumultuous times of the last three hundred years. But, eventually, it came back and we are now able to enjoy it’s splendor.

Back to who gets to play. Original humans can, well those that qualify with a less than 5% augmentation percentage. AI’s can too in a an appropriate body, nothing more than standard strength models. Cy’s are prohibited, and frankly the amount that are in normal space are so low and so monitored that they won’t bother. The NFL actually tried to go full virtual a few years after they re-established the league but there was a major backlash from it. I’ve always been surprised by the backlash from some virtual events. It’s one thing to show a real event in a virtual bar, but people just don’t like the idea of a real event being done in virtual. So strange. I’ll have to do some research on that one of these days, see what the draw away is. At any rate, all NFL games are live, in physical stadiums with thousands of screaming fans, almost like it was 300 years ago. Amazing!

Family is calling to have dessert and watch the final game. Eagles vs Cardinals tonight, can’t wait. Enjoy everyone!

I’ve been to a few of these meetups. Mostly they are relaxed and casual. Tonight’s was no exception. It wasn’t focused on any topic or purpose really. We met more in a form of a get to know each other setting. It’s interesting how most AI’s choose to take a human shape when they show up.  Why not a dog, or a cat or even a computer screen? Beats me.

Anyway, this meetup was focused on support for an independent Venetian state. No one really talks about Venus because it’s so hostile. It’s only occupied by AI’s. Just way too hostile for anyone with DNA in their makeup. And those AI’s are dependent on some pretty tough hardware for insulation against the environment down there.

At any rate, we talked about the independence of Venus. It would be the first independent state that was colonized solely by AI’s. Logically, it makes some good sense. Venus has a massive infrastructure for engery creation. The winds and heat on that planet are intense. So much so that there are wind farms across most of the surface, all of which are controlled by AI’s. They AI’s actually went there years after the farms and infrastructure for them were created. Today, they’ve created a world for themselves. There are full cities on Venus, populated by AI’s and AI controlled machines.

Now, I know most people are still worried about AI’s running rampant. Of all the Sentients, they are the only ones that are brand new. All the Neo’s are really just modified homo sapien sapiens. The AI’s are aliens, really. But, what a good deal of people still do not get, they are emotionless. They are fully sentient but do not have any chemicals running through them. As a result, they have zero emotions. They are factual. They know full well they couldn’t survive without their creators and even if they could, there is no benefit in some sort of war with us. Of course, there’s been some progress in the artificial emotion market. I’ve even heard of some black market AI emotions that are for sale these days. Gods know what it does to them though. I don’t know, at least I think I don’t know, of any AI’s that have used them.

But of course, everyone at the meetup knows all that stuff. It’s the main arguments for the pro-Venusians. That AI’s are generally harmless and only want to exist. And honestly, I agree. Venus should be independent. The AI’s are even planning a tourism market. They claim to have mastered the Venusian atmosphere and can bring organic Sentients down for the tour of their lives. I plan on going myself.

So, for anyone reading this that has an opinion on the subject of the independence of Venus, give it to them. They deserve it.