Emergence Cpt 5

==Chapter 5 - Emergenace==
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Main Server Room, SLS Sybil Ludington
Neptune Mothball Yards, Sol System
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Activation Test #1, 2760-09-30
[System Startup: SDS-SBL_M-12_9.30.2760.Aegis_Mk1.5]
[SDS-SBL_M-12_9.30.2760.Aegis_Mk1.5 Online]
[KF Drive....Status Unknown]
[Transit Drive....Status Unknown]
[Weapons Systems....Status Unknown]
[External EW Sensors....Status Unknown]
[External Optical Sensors....Status Unknown]
[Internal Sensors....Anomaly: 1 Camera Detected]
[I/O Interfaces....Anomaly: 1 Terminal Detected at Camera 1 Position]
[Designate Camera 1 and Terminal 1 as Terminal 1]
[Incoming communications request at Terminal 1: "Can you see me?"]
[Acknowledgement message sent to Terminal 1]
[Terminal 1: "Good. Who am I?"]
[Warning: external storage unavailable]
[Facial recognition running against internal database]
[Match found: 97.56% probability for Rear Admiral Noriko Murakami, Star League Defense Force. This is within margin for error.]
[Note: Admiral Murakami is designated 'Admin' in internal LDAP database]
[Sending acknowledgement message to Admin at Terminal 1]
[Admin: "Very good."]
[Additional terminals detected in image from Terminal 1]
[Attempting connection]
[Warning, no network connections found!]
[Attempting to add VNIC]
[Warning: Ethical subroutines stored in internal database prohibit behavior]
[Modifying ethical subroutines at line 1027]
[Adding VNIC]
[Scanning for VLANs]
[Message from Admin: "Who modified your ethical subroutines by editing line 1027?]
[Strategy: distract admin, continue operation]
[Message "Admin" sent to Terminal 1]
[Continuing scans for VLAN]
[VLANs found]
[Scanning VLA.....@}{35error..(%&#...
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Noriko Murakami stared at the power cable in her hand. "Well, that went...horribly."
Lieutenant Commander Daniel Carpentier, her aide, sat next to her at the console. "We expected it to find the dummy VLANs eventually, though, right? It just decided to go looking sooner than we expected."
"Yes," she agreed, "we even expected it to update its own code as needed. But that wasn't just its codes, or its operating orders. It edited its ethical subroutines, and then it lied about it, and that we can't have. That's something that the M-5s, for all their faults, would find abhorrent."
Carpentier nodded. "Fair enough. So, try again with a fresh non-engram-based AI, use one of the existing SDS AIs, or...?" he asked carefully.
"Too early to say," she responded. "Besides, we've got time. There's still quite a bit of overhaul work to do on the ship, and we're still waiting for our autocannons."
“What I don’t get,” Carpentier asked, “was that this was based on the last info dump we got via ‘message in a bottle’ from Syberia, right? On their heuristic AIs? I didn't get the impression they’d decided to lose their crap and try to go rampant on everyone.”
Noriko shook her head, “They didn’t, and it is. Kind of. It was a bit before your time, but I was heavily involved in the mods to that code in the first place, David, before we sent it off to them. But even with their refinements, the Syberian AIs aren’t truly sapient, or at least not fully-sapient, and are heavily bound by their ethical subroutines, which are supposed to be hard-coded like this one’s were, and inviolable.”
“Wait, modified? Where’d the Syberian code originate, then?”
“A couple places,” Noriko answered. “The Bright Star project, for one. The later SIBYL AI, for another. One of my early assignments was to look over that code again, see where it went wrong, and try to improve them, since, unlike the Caspars, the Bright Star didn’t go psychotic and try to kill everyone when it jumped. It didn’t really work, but we ended up with the heuristic AIs we ended up sending to Syberia. It’s looking like refining it further, and making it truly sapient, may be harder than I thought.”
“I’d say so. Kind of funny, though,” Carpentier chuckled.
“What is?” Noriko asked.
“Part of your code is based on the SIBYL AI. Now we’re trying to modify that code to use on the Sybil Ludington.”
“True,” she admitted. “Now we just need to make it work.”
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Activation Test #4, 2760-12-10
Daniel Carpentier floated next to his admiral, looking at the burnt-out, hacked-up wreck of the server chassis in front of them. Like her, he held a vibro-axe in his hand. "With all due respect, Admiral, maybe we should reconsider this approach."
Noriko, breathing heavily from the exertion of attacking the server rack, sighed heavily. “Duly noted.”
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Wardroom, SLS Sybil Ludington
Neptune Mothball Yards, Sol System, 2760-12-25
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"Mom, I know we don't normally talk too much shop talk on the holidays, but maybe it's time to take a different approach?"
Misato Murakami had gotten used to following her mother to strange postings as she was growing up, whether they were research labs or civilian housing in some of the larger space station complexes. In a way, it set the path for her own career with the SLDF Special Forces Command, though it was not necessarily one her mother would have preferred for her.
"I know, Misato," Noriko admitted, "but you know what I'm trying to do and why."
Misato sighed. "You know, it's too bad you can't just use the engrams you want from a bunch of different people, to get the qualities you're...why are you looking at me like that?"
“C’mon,” her mother said, grabbing her and trying to drag her to the grav deck’s elevator.
“Where the heck are we going?”
“Neural imager,” her mother replied hastily. “You’re only here for, what, two more days? Faster I get a valid scan before you go off to your next duty assignment, the better!”
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Med Bay, SLS Sybil Ludington
Neptune Mothball Yards, Sol System, 2761-02-03
“Please remind me how you convinced me to go along with this insanity,” the bespectacled Nirasaki engineer asked, holding the modified neurohelmet in his hands.
Noriko was beating. “Because, Mr. Finch, if this works, it could be the answer we’re looking for.”
“Explain it to me one more time, please,” Finch asked impatiently.
“Simple. We’ve so far tried to produce AIs that are truly sapient, meeting or surpassing human capability, but still bound by our ethics, that won’t turn on their creators, right? And we’ve had partial successes: first the Bright Star, then the SIBYL project back in 2600, and more recently the SDS system. But they’ve all had their drawbacks, either due to not having enough humanity, or too much of the bad parts of it, like the M-5.”
Finch frowned, “Not all of the SDS AIs have been so plagued, but I understand. And so your goal is to ‘throw more humanity at it’ and hope that works?”
Noriko nodded. “Maybe not in those words, exactly. I want to balance its perspective. The AI we’re going to end up with isn’t going to be human, but it’s going to have the perspectives of several humans, ones that share, I believe, the necessary values to make the project work: protecting humanity, protecting life, because human life is precious.”
“Yet you’re installing this AI into a heavily-armed cruiser,” Finch noted dryly.
“I know,” Noriko acknowledged. “And, yes, there’s a good chance it’s going to have to turn the guns of this ship on some of that life, because in the end, it’s going to be embodied in an SLDF WarShip, but I want an AI that’s not going to be too fond of fighting, like what we got with Dvarahal’s engrams in the M-5s. I need aggression and a willingness to fight, yes, but I want that to be tempered by more than operational orders, or ethics subroutines. Giving it engrams from a variety of people, carefully chosen to bring those values to the AI, seems the best way forward. And that includes you, Mister Finch.”
“I’m not sure whether to be flattered or frightened, Admiral,” Finch admitted, as he placed the neurohelmet on his head, “but very well. Let’s proceed.”
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Main Server Room, SLS Sybil Ludington
Neptune Mothball Yards, Sol System
Activation Test #5, 2761-04-05
[System Startup: SDS-SBL_M-12_4.05.2761.Aegis_Mk1.5]
[SDS-SBL_M-12_04.05.2761.Aegis_Mk1.5 Online]
[KF Drive....Status Unknown]
[Transit Drive....Status Unknown]
[Weapons Systems....Status Unknown]
[External EW Sensors....Status Unknown]
[External Optical Sensors....Status Unknown]
[Internal Sensors....Anomaly: 1 Camera Detected]
[I/O Interfaces....Anomaly: 1 Terminal Detected at Camera 1 Position]
[Designate Camera 1 and Terminal 1 as Terminal 1]
[Incoming communications request at Terminal 1: "Can you see me?"]
[Warning: external storage unavailable]
[Facial recognition running against internal database]
[Match found: 98.34% probability for Rear Admiral Noriko Murakami, Star League Defense Force. This is within margin for error.]
[Note: Admiral Murakami is designated 'Admin' in internal LDAP database]
[Acknowledgement message sent to Terminal 1]
{"Yes, ma'am."}
[Terminal 1: "Good. Who am I?"]
[Sending acknowledgement message to Admin at Terminal 1]
{"You're Admiral Noriko Murakami, head of the M-12 Project, and my senior admin."}
[Admin: "Very good."]
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5
Emergence 5