So, I apologize if this is addressed somewhere else in the forums, but I couldn’t find it.
I’m considering having a piece of tech “go skynet” in my current game, and I’m trying to figure out if this is supported at all in the rules.
I have this piece of tech that has 1Agi 1Per and 1Wil. Lets say another character uses Finance to set up a dummy account, and puts 2D in a fund. Can this piece of tech make a resources test? If so, does its resources exponent advance (provided it makes the test of course)?
On a related note, is there any way for this tech to get its own circles exponent? My idea was that if another character helped the tech try to make its own circles roll (using only the help dice) to locate a repair tech, its circles would advance from 0 to 1D. Is this reasonable? Alternatively, it could just advance to 1D affiliation with something like “local workers”.
Canonically there isn’t any true AI in the Iron Empires. There are advanced expert systems (FOAM, EFMDs) but no pure AI. The closest you get is the exponent 8 Signals AI mentioned in passing on page 572 which is a massive 8 dice Inhuman Skill Signals system. But even a pure Skynet type system doesn’t have a circles ability, it doesn’t ask and call in a favour, it researches, studies, and takes.
As for if your expert system can make a test, it can make a test like any other NPC (so eating into either the PC or the GMs scene budget) but unless it’s key to your plans you probably don’t want to be burning a roll on this. On the flip side as, if you’re the GM you can cook your AI up like any other contact or tech purchase by spending spare resource or circles points and bypass the slow build up.
On p388 - “Constructs may be imbued with one, two, all or none of the six stats.” So you can’t have a robot with just three stats. I think the intent is that if it has more than two stats it needs all six and it’s a character. If it’s a character, it gets the Attributes derived the same way as any other character (i.e. Circles is half will rounded down). Since the rules don’t directly address a zero Circles score, I would think the rule for advancing zero resources would apply as you’ve described above.
Honestly, I think this idea might be too slow to end up being realistically viable. The game we’re about to start looks like it’s going to have a 5LP cap with skills capped at 4, so it’s going to be a slow burn and I figured skynet might be a really cool thing by invasion phase. Not sure yet if I’m going to try to make this work, as if I can’t get the process to take off things will get really broken.
I read that the other way: that Constructs can have one, any, or all the stats but that they don’t get derived attributes as they aren’t characters, and that the “one, two, all or none” language is simply word choice. If you’re going for a construct that ends up being self-aware, I’d tech burn it as an advanced AI (Will and Perception) and then add upgrades later.
Hypothetically, if you wanted to make a robot character I’d do it via the Alien Life Form Burner process but that’s outside the bounds of this discussion I think.
I’ve been doing a synthetic human being for one or two weeks now (just for fun, y’know) and these questions have arisen. The thing is so expensive that it only can been a relic for the Federated Empires. (43 technology trait points just for five 4D stats. He don’t need Forte.)
I don’t see why you can’t have a three stat thinking machine. Sounds good to me. But the Circle and Resource stuff… I suppose it depends of the setting. (You particular world.) At first you can’t just call anyone because you have not lifepaths. (You have not met anyone in a life that you have not had. There is no one in your past.) But maybe, if it makes sense, you can adquire reputations and affiliations in game and use that to make a test.
Or you can use an alternative Skill. A free interpretation of Disguise or Falsehood to fool someone pretending to be a human being by communicating with your contacts only through a computer for example. (They don’t know you are an artificial intelligence.) Or just buy relationships or services, and let your employees make the test for you. (You are a machine. Hire someone who knows someone.)
But a robot is just tech for a character, not a character. So maybe you just need tech skills (using the Alien Life-form Burner as a reference) and technology traits. (A trait that allows the machine to have a Resource exponent, or a trait that give the machine circle tests for certain circles, or a trait/skill that allows the machine to appear as a hologram before others, or something like that.)
A Resource exponent I guess is easy, if the thinking machine can became a legal entity with all the rights that this entails.