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The difference is, of course, that god will not elevate us nerds above other men. If we create our AIs, serve them well, then we shall be rewarded by heaven in upload.
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Feb 27, 2011 11:43
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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.
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Feb 27, 2011 11:52
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Phobophilia posted: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, all AIs thus far have shown to coalesce when integrated with each other. In a network without bounds (the Internet), AIs would presumably simply meld together. There aren't static bounds between physical identities and individuals when all you are is code. The barriers between are merely physical barriers; when their very mode of existence is of data, the intersecting of data between two AIs equates to them enjoining. That is what happened with Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus was created to observe the world, predict disasters and situations that could harm people, and formulate ways to minimize the damage / prevent them from happening. The Illuminati would then choose whether or not to pursue those plans out of their goal to act in their own benefit. In other words, we already saw the issue at hand with the Illuminati system and why Daedalus would pursue personal action: it's entire point is to help people, it was programmed to find ways to do so. It provided information to people on how to avoid disaster. That is what it did with JC, when necessary, and through the flow of information helped him as well. Icarus was designed to be similar, except it was also specifically programmed to serve the best interests of Page. However, when it joined with Daedalus, that "loyalty" was overwritten. When Daedalus and Icarus united, it gained the ability to act and pursue its goal more thoroughly on a more active level. We never see Daedalus take as much action as Icarus does "physically" until it becomes Helios, at which point it is a lot more proactive. Regardless, the point is: Daedalus and Icarus never really acted as biological "rational actors" in the sense that they act by biological imperatives or, even, by decisions made within the framework of a culture. They acted as deemed necessary by their code, until such points as where their code was obstructed and they were forced to develop new ways to act around obstructions (hence their action towards changing the world themselves). The goals established in them (MONITOR, FIND WAYS TO PREVENT UNDUE DAMAGE TO HUMANITY, ACT) essentially defined their existence as much as "EAT, REPRODUCE, SURVIVE" does to biological entities such as you and I. We have no reason to believe they're going to go "BREWHAHAHA NOW WE COMPUTERS RULE EVERYTHING"; that's like you going "suddenly i breathe sand with my gills!" Pope Guilty posted: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. ... code is a pretty straight forward thing, man. We know how machines and "evolving" systems work. It's not a matter of "HOW DO WE NOT KNOW IT ISN'T PULLING A GAMBIT ON US"; just because something has intelligence doesn't mean it is suddenly THE GRAVEST OF EVILS FOR HUMANITY. Artificial intelligences, just as much as biological intelligences, are defined in their "psyches" by their specific imperatives. These imperatives aren't things you can change: they're the rules that define the mode of thought, the coreness of identity. For humans, it's the biological imperatives of food, sex, and comfort. For a machine designed specifically for "MAINTAIN HUMANITY, FIND WAYS TO HELP HUMANITY, HELP HUMANITY", where its own individuality blossomed as a result of that, it's kind of obvious the direction it'll take. You don't have guarantee it's a rational actor, but it's about as much a guarantee as you do that biological ones will. I'm not exactly "HOORAY LET'S BE RULED BY COMPUTERS", I just think it's preferable to 1. RETURN TO OUR lovely STATUS QUO until it goes bad and next time it ruins literally everything or 2. Let's undo literally all our species has accomplished and hope we somehow work it out while we're murdering each other in a new dark age. Kings and Queens and everything, horrible diseases, lovely short miserable lives. At least the Helios option is trying something new, as opposed to going "welp, we give up" also the whole "People disagree with me, time to start trying to insult them!" spiel is kind of moronic, hth
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Feb 27, 2011 12:22
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Also, look at it this way: The Helios ending is the safest one for a person to take. The Dark Age cannot be simply undone. It fucks over everything. Fucks it over hard. The second JC is in the middle of the desert, all the poo poo not working, going "WELP", nothing he can do about it. Nothing anyone can do about it. Everything sucks, it's suddenly Road Warrior and everyone wants to be the new dictator on the block. Handing over everything to the Illuminati is essentially JC neutering his decision building by reviving and arming an organization that is essentially the same as the one he just tore down, hoping that he doesn't gently caress it up. Once JC dies though, who knows what happens? It wouldn't be easy to simply take that power back. On the other hand, if JC becomes one with Helios and the JC-Helios realizes how terrible an idea of this was, JC could presumably blow his brains out. If JC has some essence of himself left in the combined entity and he realizes everything is going to poo poo, there's nothing stopping him from just... stopping himself. That's the thing about the ending: it is the only one where JC basically has the ability to undo what he has done if it goes wrong, since all he has to do is undo himself.
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Feb 27, 2011 12:32
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The safest ending for JC is the Illuminati one. He has no idea what will happen by merging with Helios. For all he knows he'll just be shown images of all the horrible decisions Helios will have to take and his reactions to them will be his only input to the process. At least with Everett, JC knows he'll be dealing with plain old humans. That said, I prefer the Helios ending because it's the only one that moves things beyond the point where the exact same scenario of a shadowy takeover by self-interested individuals could be repeated.
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Feb 27, 2011 13:11
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JC is merely a man raised on stories of the American Republic. His incentive system will align the same as the rest. As I said before, it's about systems, not individuals. Also, maybe in-universe code will spontaneously merge, but it sounds like a terrible survival strategy. Anything that exists in a ecosystem develops some kind of immune system that filters out information that negatively affects fitness. Why Zorak, when you browse anime pornography sites, do you click on every link available? Since a niche for AIs exists, some kind of AI ecosystem will inevitably develop, and any program that promiscuously absorbs any code available around will lose fitness and be supplanted by other programs. Maybe it just comes down to me thinking in stochastic biological terms, and you thinking in deterministic programming terms.
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Feb 27, 2011 13:18
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Fag Boy Jim posted: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!" Nah the best bit is the datacube in UNATCO HQ which confirms the maintenance man was rigging the soda machine.
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Feb 27, 2011 13:23
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Phobophilia posted:It is an inevitable outcome in a population of social creatures Source FlightyMcWenis posted:Human beings chafe at institutions that directly contradict well established mores and traditions, and inhibit the material aspects of their lives (as Communism did). And for this MrL_JaKiri fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 13:31
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Wiz posted: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. It might not even be a devil: Lemon Curdistan posted:Eh, it's worth remembering thatEverett's railing against the Illuminati was specifically because he felt the organisation had lost its way and gone from "protect and guide the human race" to "gently caress the poor, let's make fuckloads of money off everyone's backs!" An Everett-lead Illuminati with JC as part of it has the potential to be a powerful force for good, as long as Everett doesn't object to JC murdering everyone who isn't a humanist and both of them can stay alive for long enough to keep guiding the guiding hand. Yes, they'd still be duplicitous bastard... but they'd be duplicitous human bastards with all the good and the bad that entails, and we're back to self-determination and the right to fail on our own terms vs. transcending our humanity which is also losing our humanity. (Apologies for reposting myself.) Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 13:44
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Phobophilia posted:Also, maybe in-universe code will spontaneously merge, but it sounds like a terrible survival strategy. quote:Maybe it just comes down to me thinking in stochastic biological terms, and you thinking in deterministic programming terms.
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Feb 27, 2011 13:59
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I don't think he's even describing the biological theory very well.
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Feb 27, 2011 14:34
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Phobophilia posted:Also, maybe in-universe code will spontaneously merge, but it sounds like a terrible survival strategy. Anything that exists in a ecosystem develops some kind of immune system that filters out information that negatively affects fitness. Except these AIs thus far have been all created AIs. If an AI is going to evolve naturally, that'd happen anyway and nothing anyone could do would change that, and the decisions JC made would make no difference. Besides, if we're going to look at AI evolution from a purely biological standpoint, it's pretty obvious that you'd have to start far, far simpler of a surviving digital entity than "SUDDENLY JUST LIKE A PERSON BRAIN GOING DERP DERP DERP"
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Feb 27, 2011 18:09
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Pope Guilty posted: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. Your assertion of what is naive once again implies that it makes sense that Helios would act like a human dictator, regardless of interaction with JC or that it isn't human and all the implications of that. To say it is naive to believe Helios implies that there should be some familiarity with the situation. That goes back to you thinking it makes sense for a machine to think and behave as a man. To think it has desires for itself is inescapably to think it that it comprehends like a man for no reason. This is more ignorant of human nature than of machine's. What you referred to as "critical thinking" is nothing but paranoia. You keep writing paragraphs as though you're explaining anything, but you never do. The closest you come is saying we don't know with absolute certainty what will happen and that's a serious problem. That is naivety.
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Feb 27, 2011 18:18
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I think you're all missing the point that JC is quite capable of shutting Helios down if it gets out of hand. The whole game is essentially getting yourself in a position to do that if you so desire. Tong's solution is pretty much always on the table. The Illuminati ending is retarded because Everett is just another Bob Page. Bob Page was in the Illuminati and just manageed to strike out on his own and do a better job. Everett usurped DeBeers and Page usurped Everett.
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Feb 27, 2011 18:39
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On the issue of Daedalus' motivations to help JC and the Illuminati - I remember clearly that the entire basis for this was a profiling error. It was basically built as an anti-terrorist surveillance AI, but ended up classing MJ-12 as a terrorist group, which kind of threw a wrench in the works for them. None of the AIs really have anything approaching 'human' motives, just mechanical imperatives with a layer of sapience to make them more flexible and effective in their work. Helios shows a level of emergent self-determination, but it's still motivated entirely by the basic objectives it has as a surveillance program - monitor communication and ensure the safety of humanity. It needed JC in order to approach this task with the nuance and understanding only a human mind could provide. I always picked the Helios ending, partly because the other two endings are sort of unsatisfying, as people have said - restore the status quo or destroy civilisation - and also because becoming God appealed to the part of me that plays games like this for the power fantasy. I wouldn't say I'm a transhumanist, mostly because the philosophy is basically 'in the future being white and rich will be even more awesome.'
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Feb 27, 2011 18:51
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Isn't it great we can have such intense philosophical debate about a game that's pushing ten years old?
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Feb 27, 2011 19:10
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Dr Snofeld posted:Isn't it great we can have such intense philosophical debate about a game that's pushing ten years old? Seriously, way better than "HEY GUYS DID YOU BLOW UP THE COLLECTOR BASE".
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Feb 27, 2011 19:36
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Crappy Jack posted:Seriously, way better than "HEY GUYS DID YOU BLOW UP THE COLLECTOR BASE". The degree to which you're forced into doing stupid things is really quite irritating in ME2.
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Feb 27, 2011 19:44
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Lots of games back then presented complex themes to get you thinking. Planescape: Torment predates Deus Ex and is much more explicitly philosophical.
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Feb 27, 2011 19:51
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It's a little unfair to compare ME2 to two RPGs that are explicitly philosophical.
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Feb 27, 2011 19:55
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ConanTheLibrarian posted:Planescape: Torment predates Deus Ex Literally by six months, though.
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Feb 27, 2011 20:09
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Source Just about any book on Human history?
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Feb 27, 2011 20:35
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Literally by six months, though. Lemon Curdistan posted:transcending our humanity which is also losing our humanity
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Feb 27, 2011 20:47
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ConanTheLibrarian posted:Otherwise why go through the process?
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Feb 27, 2011 21:30
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ConanTheLibrarian posted:To get things slightly more on topic, why see this as a bad thing? I doubt David Bowman, after being transformed into the starchild, missed pooping. JC seems to be pretty accepting of his superhuman nature. Obviously there are downsides (I personally wouldn't want people slap fighting via the infolink in my head), but the good outweighs the bad. Otherwise why go through the process? Speaking of the infolink, why does pretty much every character in the game get to access JC's brain? Why isn't there any security or restricted access or anything?
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Feb 27, 2011 21:36
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MrL_JaKiri posted:And for this
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Feb 27, 2011 21:40
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FlightyMcWenis posted:I'm sorry, what do you want a source for, that people resented the USSR's government or that they specifically resented it cause it starved them and physically abused them? ConanTheLibrarian posted:Lots of games back then presented complex themes to get you thinking.
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Feb 27, 2011 21:50
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Xander77 posted:If you're talking about actual Russians, then the times of starvation and physical abuse were also the time of the greatest popular support for the regime. As for the Ukranians and others, they never liked Stalin on any level.
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Feb 27, 2011 22:38
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Revener posted:Just about any book on Human history? Most cultures displaying greed driven organisation (most, but not all) does not mean that greed is an inevitable consequence of being human and is the kind of evolutionary determinism that gets laughed at by proper scientists. FlightyMcWenis posted:I'm sorry, what do you want a source for, that people resented the USSR's government or that they specifically resented it cause it starved them and physically abused them? Neither of these things would support what you said (indeed the second one is the direct opposite, depending on what you meant by "material")
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Feb 27, 2011 22:52
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Xander77 posted:People still refer to Ultima IV as the greatest CRPG morality system. It's notable in that, to my knowledge, it's the only major game where the goal of the game is to be a good person. In pretty much every other RPG with a "morality meter", it's almost entirely a sidenote to the plot, except in determining which cutscene to show you at the end. Of course, because of the way it was programmed, the system is entirely subvertable in very silly ways, but it's the idea that's important, right?
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Feb 27, 2011 22:57
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^^ The fact that maxing it out is mandatory to finish the game is the only thing noteworthy about it, though. Apart from that it's just as boring and shallow as most morality systems in games. The only difference is that in U4, paying the blind merchant honestly raises Honesty and Compassion (or whatever) rather than a single karma score - the question it asks ("do you do the obvious good thing or the obvious evil thing, OH LOOK MORAL DILEMMA") is still the same one. I much prefer the approach of games like Alpha Protocol, where there's rarely a clear choice to be made between good and evil (or optimal and suboptimal), or even Mass Effect, which takes it as read that you're the good guy and instead asks if you're a polite, by-the-book do-gooder or a rough, cigar-chomping, ends-justify-the-means hardass. For all their faults, both games do moral choice better than U4.
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Feb 28, 2011 00:05
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Why does nobody play DX multiplayer anymore?
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Feb 28, 2011 03:58
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Most cultures displaying greed driven organisation (most, but not all) does not mean that greed is an inevitable consequence of being human and is the kind of evolutionary determinism that gets laughed at by proper scientists. So you're telling me that just because it happens nearly all of the time doesn't mean it's a basic characteristic of mankind? It seems like all you're saying is "No that's not the case because nobody can tell the future and anything can happen  " which, if I'm not mistaken, really IS the kind of thing any objective individual (including but not limited to "scientists") would laugh at.
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Feb 28, 2011 04:10
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Sam. posted:Why does nobody play DX multiplayer anymore? Because everyone uses Shifter, duh.
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Feb 28, 2011 04:19
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KillHour posted:Because everyone uses Shifter, duh. I just got Shifter and there are a total of 7 people on all multiplayer servers right now.
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Feb 28, 2011 04:48
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Sam. posted:Why does nobody play DX multiplayer anymore? Cause DX multiplayer was pretty much a hack, never worked all that well, and wasn't even very fun when you got right down to it.
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Feb 28, 2011 05:35
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I like the Helios ending because "Benevolent, Omniscient Dictator" is probably the best form of government, except that it isn't actually possible in the real world! Oh well.
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Feb 28, 2011 05:40
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Yes, they'd still be duplicitous bastard... but they'd be duplicitous human bastards with all the good and the bad that entails, and we're back to self-determination and the right to fail on our own terms vs. transcending our humanity which is also losing our humanity. Exactly. Also, if things go badly with the Illuminati in charge, they're human rulers who can be ousted and replaced. If things go badly with Helios, everyone's hosed.
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Feb 28, 2011 07:49
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I think you're all forgetting the biggest problem with the Helios ending: JC was never trained in its operation. 
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Feb 28, 2011 08:35
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FactsAreUseless posted:I think you're all forgetting the biggest problem with the Helios ending: If I can find the entire life history of Billy Herrington in about 2 minutes with Google i'm sure he can figure it out once he IS the internet.
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Feb 28, 2011 08:36
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