Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "_____"

[Guy Gardener]

What if that phrase was first misused by someone else about someone else? or if Geordie had asked someone else to be his Holmes? What sort of "baddie" would the Enterprises mainframe figure out to solve such a dilemma as "Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating Pulaski." Or "Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating Guinin." Or even "Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating Mister Mott the Barber."

What would these villains be like?

 

[Green Shirt]

I don't know what the villians would be like, but they could be played by Dennis Weaver, Billy Crystal and Telly Savalas.

 

[Kegek]

I think the computer judges its response based on the IQ and whatever other psych evaluation tests are available to it, and then creates an intelligence slightly more intelligent.

What bothers me, though, is that it's able to do that. You can create a complicated and sentient being just by asking the insentinent computer on your starship or in your local Ferengi bar? Disquieting....

 

[DostoyevskyClone]

Yeah, that is a little messed up actually.

"Computer - create an adversary capable of defeating all documented sentient lifeforms in the universe."

I can just see the poor bastard who uttered those words, right after said adversary walks off the Holodeck:

"Oops..."

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Hmm? Computer create a passionate lover capable of overstimulating "_____".

Remember the Daleks vs the Movelians?

I think it's interesting that the computer created some one who although capable of defeating data, had no interesting in defeating Data, because by definition the bar is being set low on purpose.

 

[D Man]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Why didn't they just ask the computer how to defeat the Borg?

 

[The Old Mixer]

For me, the mindblowing question in "Elementary, Dear Data" was whether the computer had actually created a sentient being; or was it just a very good simulation of one? (Bascially, the computer allows the character to "know" that it's a hologram, and react accordingly.) I'd like to think that just wording a command wrong wouldn't allow the computer to magically create life; but this may have been a lingering after-effect of the tampering of the Bynars and/or the malfunction in "The Big Goodbye"; and the Enterprise computer did wind up spawning a new life form later in the series, so Moriarty may have been an early manifestation of that phenomenon.

 

[Timo]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Why should we assume the computer to be nonsentient?

We're strangely hung up on the concept that "sentience" is the exact same as "humanlike sentience". It seems to be related somehow to the idea that the "logic" that our philosophers have come up with is somehow universal, rather than just a subjective thought pattern indigenous to our type of biological life.

But "humanlikeness" could easily be a triviality, a narrow subset of the sort of more generic sentience that automatically emerges from being smart. And the computer is smart, there's no denying that. It apparently just doesn't have an urge to manifest its smarts in imitations of human sentience.

I have little doubt that the computers of the Federation could devise a hundred and one ways to defeat the Borg. But most of the cures would be worse than the disease, exactly because those smart computers are inhuman by design and definition. There could and should be safeguards between the computers and the human society, erected either by the designers or then by the computer sentiences themselves, to prevent the computers from (deliberately or accidentally or then out of sheer boredom) doing what such computers always do. That is, subjugate all humanity.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Borg Queen]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

The Old Mixer said:
For me, the mindblowing question in "Elementary, Dear Data" was whether the computer had actually created a sentient being; or was it just a very good simulation of one? (Bascially, the computer allows the character to "know" that it's a hologram, and react accordingly.)

How do you know if you're truly sentient yourself, or if your brain is just creating a very good simulation of sentience which has fooled you? You know you're alive, and you react accordingly...

 

[Computer]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Well if I were Computer which, as a matter of fact I am I would access all available information on said opponent (such as Starfleet service records) apply pattern recognition to the information found, cross linking it with a scenario probablility program, create counter points to the afore mentioned system and presto!

So if my opponent was Mott the Barber I would create a bald adversary.

 

[Kegek]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Timo said:
Why should we assume the computer to be nonsentient?

We're strangely hung up on the concept that "sentience" is the exact same as "humanlike sentience".

It has artificial intelligence, but this is merely a more sophiscated form of the intelligence my computer has - it responds to inputs and commands. It doesn't - it can't - make decisions on its own, just its instructed and programmed responses. Therefore, it is insentient. We know the computer has the ability to achieve sentience, even if only for a brief period, as the TNG one did so to give birth to a lifeform. So it can achieve sentience (in order to create another sentient lifeform), and it can also create a sentient hologram if requested. This is a curious position.

As for the idea addressed of simulated sentience... well, that's what Data is himself. To borrow a phrase from PKD, it may be that both Data and the hologram are 'metaphorically alive', but they behave with sentience so for all intents and purposes I'd say they are.

 

[Timo]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

It doesn't - it can't - make decisions on its own, just its instructed and programmed responses.

What do you base this on?

There is no inherent reason to think the decisionmaking process of an advanced computer would be any different from that of a human being. It doesn't seem plausible that a complex computer wouldn't be capable of writing its own programming eventually. And the starship computer as seen in Trek doesn't seem incapable of making decisions - at most it seems subservient and passive in a manner befitting any military personnel.

We know the computer has the ability to achieve sentience, even if only for a brief period, as the TNG one did so to give birth to a lifeform.

Or then the computer has the ability to stoop down to our limited level of sentience whenever it so wishes, to produce offspring suitably low in sentience for us to recognize it as sentient.

So it can achieve sentience (in order to create another sentient lifeform)

I don't see why sentience would be necessary for creating sentience. A dumb robot could theoretically build a living person out of basic chemicals, given a couple of more years of development in nanotechnology. Today already, a braindead mother and father could have a kid who grows up to claim the Nobel Price in physics or literature.

As for the idea addressed of simulated sentience... well, that's what Data is himself.

Or you, or me. We're provided with the machinery necessary for thinking, and the inputs. We process, and we output. And sometimes we call it sentience.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kegek]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Timo said:
What do you base this on?

Star Trek: The Next Generation. The computer responds to voice commands as a modern computer would respond to physical commands, only with notably more sophistication. And, in particular, that the computer is considered of lower intelligence than Data (and the distinctly unhuman exocomps) with the exception of one time when it acquired sentience.

There is no inherent reason to think the decisionmaking process of an advanced computer would be any different from that of a human being.

No reason to consider it impossible, no, and certainly not in a sci-fi environment. Just not this specific computer.

It doesn't seem plausible that a complex computer wouldn't be capable of writing its own programming eventually. And the starship computer as seen in Trek doesn't seem incapable of making decisions - at most it seems subservient and passive in a manner befitting any military personnel.

But, unlike the other personnel of the Enterprise, it never offers its own opinions and analysis. At the most, it is used as a logical databank into which a series of inputs are produced and it deduces a result. Its intelligence on this level doesn't appear to go beyond that.

Or then the computer has the ability to stoop down to our limited level of sentience whenever it so wishes, to produce offspring suitably low in sentience for us to recognize it as sentient.

A unique interpretation. However, I think that the one presented by the TNG crew is somewhat more plausible. I think it does acknowledge that the computer can outgrow its original state, as I've attempted to analyse a bit above. It's also important that they are surprsied that it does so, and further important to note the sentience was strictly temporary. This is the sole existing example of the computer outgrowing its insentient AI, unless one sees this in 'Elementary, My Dear Data' in its ability to give birth to sentient AI.

I don't see why sentience would be necessary for creating sentience.

True, but that's not what I said. I simply said that's what it did in the episode in question. Indeed, in the case of Moriarty it creates sentience without achieving sentience. Clearly, the specific kind of life wanted in the latter case required a degree of sentience in the computer for it to be constructed. I consider this disqueting, not impossible - this is ST, after all.

Or you, or me. We're provided with the machinery necessary for thinking, and the inputs. We process, and we output. And sometimes we call it sentience.

Well, basically either we're sentient and AI is simulated sentience, or we're both sentient. We can't both be simulated sentience because then we'd be simulating something that doesn't exist and has no real meaning.

 

[Timo]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

All points taken. It's just my personal interpretation that when the computer is provided with everything we have in the way of mental faculties, only in greater abundance, it's bound to have inherent sentience of some sort. And if it does, it is also unlikely to share it with other, possibly vastly inferior types of being.

Perhaps the crew truly does not know what their fellow if inorganic crew member is capable of? There are many misconceptions about Data around as well, or at least many interpretations as to how much personality he might possess. Despite being bold explorers, our military heroes might be inflexible in accepting types of thinking different from their own.

As for the computer not volunteering information, in many episodes it does answer questions not asked, or gives relevant datapoints instead of the originally requested irrelevant ones, often to the great furtherment of the plot. It seems as if it is listening in on everything that happens and jumping to conclusions of its own. (Also, it's pretty good at dramatically editing all visual records...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kegek]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Timo said:
Perhaps the crew truly does not know what their fellow if inorganic crew member is capable of? There are many misconceptions about Data around as well, or at least many interpretations as to how much personality he might possess. Despite being bold explorers, our military heroes might be inflexible in accepting types of thinking different from their own.

Well, they're certainly very receptive the moment they recieve some positive evidence, having dealt with an alien transformed into a space station, non-corporeal life, nanites, the exocomps, and of course the computer itself. They're smart and they pick up on this kind of thing, if the computer is sentient it's doing a very good job hiding.

As for the computer not volunteering information, in many episodes it does answer questions not asked, or gives relevant datapoints instead of the originally requested irrelevant ones, often to the great furtherment of the plot. It seems as if it is listening in on everything that happens and jumping to conclusions of its own. (Also, it's pretty good at dramatically editing all visual records...)

All true, but I'd see those as artifical intelligence, one considerably more fine-tuned than our PCs in responding to our queries and needs, but not yet quite sentience.

A litmus test dwelt on for the exocomps, also an apparent tool that outgrew their programming, was their attempt to save themselves rather than complete repairs, demonstrating self-awareness. It's interesting that the Enterprise-D was never called on to commit self-destruct like Kirk's Enterprise was, because if it refused that'd be a definite sign of sentience.

As it is, I think we've got a highly sophisticated AI whose progamming can evolve into sentience, however temporarily, but there is no absolute evidence that it isn't, say, a largely dormant sentience.

 

[Timo]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Well, the E-D was called to self-destruct as a form of blackmail in "11001001" and "Where Silence Has Lease", much like Kirk threatened to blow up his ship in TOS.

Interestingly, Kirk never actually thought of following through with his threats: he readily engaged in this sort of blackmail where he could halt the countdown at the last second, but when the future of the entire galaxy was at stake in "By Any Other Name", he flatly refused to blow up the ship. The E-D computer might have gone along with the self-destruct threats for similar reasons. Whether it would have agreed to flip the final digit on the countdown or not remains unknown...

The E-D did fly into mortal danger many times during her career, though, never once complaining. OTOH, a starship computer could be essentially immortal, living a networked existence untied to the physical mainframe that performs the raw calculations. Or it could live out so many lifetimes (and simulate so many deaths) in a matter of seconds that the concept of actual death would hold little relevance.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kegek]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

What I mean is it never blew up. The fine line between danger of death and certain death is a gaping chasm, it seperates the footsoldier from the suicide bomber. If the ship was sentient as you say, it could be bluffing its way to the countdown and only abort in the final seconds that never came.

And even a being which can simulate death would be unwise to underestimate the real thing.

 

[WalkinMan]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

I think it helped that Data's specs were available to the computer, making it more easy to tailor-make an enemy; for a human the enemy would have been more emotional and off a template, not self-aware, and less accurate but still capable of defeating but only in the holodeck sense (no outside-the-box stuff like figuring out the Enterprise).

 

[The Borg Queen]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

Would the computer be able to create an adversary capable of defeating the computer itself?

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Re: Computer, create an adversary capable of defeating "____

That's what Kirk would tell it to do...