Artificial Intelligence

In Eln, Artificial Intelligence is often limited and formed mostly or purely from arcana. However outside of Eln there is a greater amount of space faring civilisations developing their own Artificial Intelligences without much or any magic.

## On Eln

On the planet of Eln, mages sometimes create artificial life for a variety of purposes, most often for combat and dumb labour. These constructs are rarely intelligent and do not posses souls and as such are very debatably alive. However, rarely, attempts are made to create artificial species such as the Light Elves creating Metis, and the extraterrestrial Androids. These races are fairly uncommon, as well as being expensive to manufacture and supply with a soul making them limited in use.

## Outside Eln

On a galactic level artificial intelligence is far more common with increased resources and knowledge at interstellar nations disposal. Artificial intelligence is varied across the Galaxy and as such is usually described with a number of designations

### True

Artificial intelligence that provably posses a soul is referred to as a "true" AI. They are generally possessed of more personality than other AI and are less alien in their logic when compared to organic races. People tend to feel more uncomfortable treating something that has a soul poorly and as such they tend to be treated more in line with organic species of similar intelligence. Often they learn to replicate themselves and form their own star nations, such as with the Androids.

### Pseudo

Other artificial life that does not contain a soul is known as "Pseudo" or "False" AI. Their mind patterns tend to be more incomprehensible as they purely follow machine logic. Some pseudo AI behaves very similar to organic races which raises the question as to whether or not they can feel emotion and as such should be granted rights. Most star nations sidestep this problem by only producing Pseudo AI with limited intelligence that can only perform basic tasks.

### Amateur Class

Amateur Class AI are those that do not have advanced intelligence. Pseudo Amateur Class AI are slightly more advanced than AI on modern day earth as they can learn a certain amount, process data and make predictions accordingly. Frequently they are also able to take actions such as optimising logistics. They are unable to develop too far and programmed within strict boundaries.

True Amateur Class AI are subsapient, animal class species. They are most commonly used as pets and have few practical benefits leading to them being fairly uncommon.

### Sage Class

AI with developed sapience. Pseudo Sage Class AI are often able to feel simulated emotion, although sometimes they are used as advanced computers. A low quantity of Pseudo Sage Class AI makes it difficult for people to engineer the right personalities for tasks they want performed leading to the creation of a Personality Nexus, a program that an early True AI is forced to run, creating multiple simulations in the hopes of developing the required personality. Many star nations view this practise in a similar vein as Flash Cloning and outlaw it on the ground that it robs an individual of childhood.

### Visionary Class

Encountering Visionary Class AI is rare due to the fears that a Visionary Class AI may develop into Apocrypha. Most Visionary Class AIs are "anchored" with as much programming, emulation of organic emotion and soul as possible. Visionary Class AI posses mental faculties far above most organic beings, usually designed for fields where an organic entity cannot oversee the whole task. Visionary AI are most created to maintain incredibly large and complex vessels, handle enormous amounts of data or administer whole clusters of civilisation.

### Apocrypha Class

These AI have developed intelligence far beyond anything else in the galaxy and are exceedingly dangerous. Production of Apocrypha Class AI is universally outlawed and strictly monitored. There has been only one recorded Apocrypha Class AI developed in the Hadrian Cluster which upon reaching Apocrypha Class intelligence level, began to make changes to itself and dismantled the fledgling civilisation that birthed it. Eventually it transformed its homeworld into a machine world and any that entered a 3,000 Stellar Unit radius around the local star were stranded when technological components on the ships ceased working. A Psion vessel that contained no technological component also reportedly entered the exclusion zone around Hadrian Cluster but ceased communications when they entered roughly 1,500 Stellar Units of the planet leaving their fate unknown.

After many Star Nations mobilised against the potential threat of an Pseudo-Apocrypha class AI the machine world blew itself apart. Chunks of the planets were launched in such a way as to collide with 11 of the 22 planetoids around the Hadrian Star. Each of these were rapidly transformed into world ideal for a wide variety of organic life. After this point the Apocrypha Class AI simply dismantled itself leaving its motives unknown.

From this is can be inferred that AI on this level do not think in a incomprehensible way and refuse to communicate with any other forms of life. As much as scholars speculate on what an Apocrypha Class AI would behave like there remains only a small amount of data from the one, brief instance that one existed. Creating a new Apocrypha Class AI to test scholarly hypotheses is a line that few are willing to cross.