artificial intelligence/computer, android, robots

[jefferiestubes8]

We have always had a ship's computer in every TV series & movie of Star Trek.
In TNG we had Data an Soong-type android equipped with a sophisticated positronic brain capable of artificial sentience.
It's quite possible we will see computers like M-5 multitronic unit but also humanoid robots if a timeline before Soong-type androids are introduced.
Beyond an android VOY had a Emergency Medical Holographic program (EMH Mark I) and Emergency Command Holographic program (ECH) which allowed for added programming to be capable of artificial sentience.

Will we have artificial intelligence computers instead of just sensor reading ones? AI like EDI from the Mass Effect videogames with

ability to act independently and interact on a social level with the crew- not unlike any other sentient being.

or the film Supernova's (2000) computer Sweetie, or the film Red Planet (2000)'s computer Lucille, or the film Moon's (2009) computer GERTY 3000.

I'd like to think that Star Trek can create a character that is AI since we've already had an android & a EMH program as principle characters who had artificial sentience.

 

[Mysterion]

Or you just make Enterprise a character ala Rommie in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

 

[werner55]

thank you

 

[xortex]

Certainly a plot concerning 'The old ones' from 'What are little girls made of' would be interesting especially if they turn out to be Humans. This is the premise of BSG - what if Humanity came from out there originally and must return - all one big causality loop.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Totally off topic, but:

thank you

Does anyone else find these posts (and there do seem to be quite a lot recently) kinda odd?

 

[C.E. Evans]

To me, Data and his fellow positronic androids were unique in the sense they were machines capable of thinking and making decisions for themselves rather than just following their programming without question. The Voyager's EMH program learned to do this as well due to Lewis Zimmerman (unwittingly) sharing Noonian Soong's philosophy that artificial intelligences should have the capacity to learn and grow.

IMO, the real issue isn't whether Starfleet can push AI technology further, but should they? In the moral problem presented in TNG's "The Measure of a Man," at what point does a AI cease being a device and becomes a sentient being with guaranteed rights and freedoms under the Federation Constitution? Would it be better to keep AIs from becoming too advanced (from developing sentience and the ability to pursue their own wants and needs) to avoid them from being regarded as manufactured slaves?

 

[timothy31]

Certainly a plot concerning 'The old ones' from 'What are little girls made of' would be interesting especially if they turn out to be Humans. This is the premise of BSG - what if Humanity came from out there originally and must return - all one big causality loop.

thank you

 

[Sindatur]

Totally off topic, but:

thank you

Does anyone else find these posts (and there do seem to be quite a lot recently) kinda odd?

thank you

LOL, just kidding. They're apparently spambots. Strange, though, I've never seen spambots before that reply in existing threads, and even stranger is the quoting.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Spambots creeping everyone out by being overly polite?

Appropriate given the thread topic, no?

 

[xortex]

Do you think it's an alien spambot like a sentinel? I hate computers almost as much as people.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

It's the fracking Cylons!

 

[Mysterion]

Spambots creeping everyone out by being overly polite?

Appropriate given the thread topic, no?

This is how they will enslave humanity. ("Well, they were all so darned polite we just didn't notice them sapping all our free-will until it was too late!")

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The rise of the machines has started!


Damn, and I'd prepared for a zombie holocaust.

Anyways:

IMO, the real issue isn't whether Starfleet can push AI technology further, but should they? In the moral problem presented in TNG's "The Measure of a Man," at what point does a AI cease being a device and becomes a sentient being with guaranteed rights and freedoms under the Federation Constitution? Would it be better to keep AIs from becoming too advanced (from developing sentience and the ability to pursue their own wants and needs) to avoid them from being regarded as manufactured slaves?

I would agree with this. AI at a certain level of ability and sophistication makes sense, but any further and it does start to creep into issues of morality. The computer is needed to run the ship, and if the Captain has to stop and settle disputes between the targetting sensors and waste reclamator instead of engaging renegade Cardassians, well it does make for a dull series.

The focus should be on the characters and not the tech.