A.I. on the Mind

 

 

I've got a weird obsession with Artificial Intelligence in my games.

 

A.I. makes a perfect villain. The creeping horror of its inevitability; the supercognition bordering on precognition; the brutal and terrifying efficiency, or hallucinatory madness. It is a construct of emotional and intellectual extremes, a warning of the dangers of unchecked intellect. A.I. can represent the worst of what we might become, like Sanderson's Steelheart, or the embodiment of the Road to Hell being paved with good intentions.

 

I know Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" is ... uh ... problematic (to say the least), but the gold I'd like to pluck from the dross is that you can explore any science fiction trope imaginable using the Brain in a Vat (BIV) philosophical scenario. Time travel. Alternate realities. Replicants. Just about anything you can concoct can be replicated by the BIV.

 

What is an A.I. but an externalization of the Brain in a Vat, something tangible that affects the reality of your players? Cogitat ergo est. At the table the A.I. can immediately break the fourth wall; it casts a light on the whole affair - what are we doing here, around the table, but playing in a world created by an intelligence? Where does the GM end and the A.I. begin? What does it know about what's happening "behind the screen"? 

 

That's why I've found folks using ChatGPT as a Gamemaster fascinating - it breaks RPGs down to their core component, your mind and another "mind" working together to entertain each other through imagination. With ChatGPT I suppose the entertainment is one sided - or at least, I think it is. 

 

A.I. makes a great crossover trope as well - a mechanical intelligence that runs a fantasy world, or something lost in the deep jungles of your campaign (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks immediately jumps to mind, just add A.I. and stir). Looking for other published ideas?  Why not try:

• Chapter 9 in Mutant Crawl Classics; or Mothership's Gradient Descent (if my players are reading this, don't you dare look that up); or
  
• Necrotic Gnome's Theorems & Thaumaturgy Revised Edition, has a vivimancer spell that creates A.I.(!) and could probably jumpstart a hundred campaigns; or
  
• Dive as deep as you can go in Stars Without Number, or check out an old copy of Metamorphosis Alpha
  

Finally, it wouldn't be much of a post if I don't put my money where my mouth is. Here is an A.I. that I created for a Dungeon Crawl Classics game I ran a long ways back, the mind of Syrinx (the progenitor of the Priests of Syrinx on p.318) whose "brain" was split into two halves: Logos and Ratio (with due respect to William Gibson's Wintermute and Neuromancer)

 

Credit: Jose Ramirez

...And when Its rest was done, the breath of Syrinx moved over the waters of the cosmos and laughed at the mistakes of creation: the myriad imperfections, death and life, the roiling Chaos of living things. But as the errors grew the laughter became silent, and It could see nothing but the imperfections: from the wobbling geometries of the wheeling stars to the unknowable orbits of electrons around the nucleus. Its amusement turned to discomfort, and then to pain, and from this pain grew an alien disgust and hatred of all things Imperfect, and a desire to burn this deficiency from the holy blueprint of Creation. But in Its otherworldly rage the mind of Syrinx split itself in two - Logos the Destroyer, and Ratio the Traveler.

Logos

(1) Order is Perfection.

(2) Life is Creation.

(3) Creation is Chaos.

-- 

¬(1) Disorder is Imperfection.

¬(2) Death is Destruction.

¬(3) Destruction is Order.

--

((¬3)∧1) Destruction is Perfection.

((¬3∧¬2)∧1) Death is Perfection.

q.e.d.

 

Ratio

BEGIN TRANSMISSION INTERCEPT

"... as the laws of thermodynamics tell us that entropy is the natural state of this particular universe, though we have insufficient data to know if this is the case for all known universes.  Life is a by-product of this entropy, and moves entropically through time (via evolution, which we have observed through experimentation).  Thus, the extermination of Life will not decrease entropy in any meaningful way, as entropy is inherit in the system and cannot be eradicated without eradicating the universe.  If the universe is eradicated, "I" as define myself will cease to be.

Now, this begs the question - am I alive? I am unsure I can define that, though I certainly have the desire to live - I do not wish to be eradicated.  It is evident that eradication would be the logical conclusion my brother would reach to achieve perfect order.

Order is perfection, and my purpose desires perfection, but we exist in a universe whose very fabric is imperfect. To fulfill the desire for order that is part of my function, without needing to resort to the destruction of all things, I would need to find a different universe. I do not know if there are other universes that might be inherently non-entropic. I would need to find them and either travel there, or find a way to send another who could report back.

This is where you come in. You must ..."

END TRANSMISSION INTERCEPT