Dr Soong's broken heart

[Nebusj]

So, do you suppose Dr Soong felt like a dope spending his whole life working on positronic android research only to see holodeck-created intelligences come up and, really, wipe the floor with androids in terms of ease of creation and flexibility of use and ability to repair and all that?

 

[desfem79]

Not really. If anything programming a hologram like the EMH is easier. All the EMH is is a program projected via holoemitters. Data, Lore, B-4 have actual hardware in which the connections act like a brain. So these connections form similar to how a human brain would.

The EMH i'd imagine has his sapience in a computer program code, so all it needs is a master programmer/software engineer to program his AI/sapience, as well as the hardware to store it and scalability to add more data (if the EMH learns a new opera, he needs to remember so there has to be some storage space somewhere).

Another thing is that Data and Lore functionally were human. They could move, talk, walk, even have sex. so the mechanical aspects to achieve that are more than writing programming code.

 

[Lance]

In reality, EMH's and the like are probably limited. No, not limited, that's not necessarily the word... simplistic? They're computer programs designed (and defined) for a purpose. Ol' baldy on Voyager is a Doctor. That's what he does. He was never intended to be 'on' for as long as he is, and he develops a greater personality as a result of that... but in theory, if something happened to his program and his memory engrams were corrupted with no back-up available, he'd be right back to "Please State The Nature Of The Medical Emergency".

Dr Soong's work was about creating a brain. It was more than just artifical intelligence that can be written into a computer algorythm (as I assume the EMH to be). It was an attempt to actually create a positronic brain and duplicate the exact way that a human brain functions. And then to put it into a synthetic life-form construct, allowing practical demonstration of the brain controlling the body.

I agree that when faced with one proposition or another, an EMH would probably be a more cost-effective solution to achieve broadly the same thing: at ground level, both are 'an artifical life'. But it wouldn't be quite the same definition of 'artifical life', would it?

 

[Pavonis]

So, do you suppose Dr Soong felt like a dope spending his whole life working on positronic android research only to see holodeck-created intelligences come up and, really, wipe the floor with androids in terms of ease of creation and flexibility of use and ability to repair and all that?

Not at all. I assume Soong's goal was to do exactly what he did and for his own satisfaction. That holographic AIs existed later doesn't diminish his own accomplishments at all.

 

[Count]

According to Datalore, Soong's dream was to realize Assimov's positronic brain, nothing more. So he achieved his dream, holograms, isomorphic projections particle synthesis... none of them are positronic, or brainish, so they don't apply to him.

It's a common misconception (especially fuelled by Arik Soong's statements in Enterprise) that Noonian's dream was artificial life forms, when it really wasn't.

 

[od0_ital]

Considerin' that Soong died years before the use of Zimmerman's medical holograms started, its doubtful that Soong even knew what Zimmerman was cookin' up at Jupiter Station.

 

[Lance]

So, do you suppose Dr Soong felt like a dope spending his whole life working on positronic android research only to see holodeck-created intelligences come up and, really, wipe the floor with androids in terms of ease of creation and flexibility of use and ability to repair and all that?

Not at all. I assume Soong's goal was to do exactly what he did and for his own satisfaction. That holographic AIs existed later doesn't diminish his own accomplishments at all.

According to Datalore, Soong's dream was to realize Assimov's positronic brain, nothing more. So he achieved his dream, holograms, isomorphic projections particle synthesis... none of them are positronic, or brainish, so they don't apply to him.

It's a common misconception (especially fuelled by Arik Soong's statements in Enterprise) that Noonian's dream was artificial life forms, when it really wasn't.

Both very true.

Realistically, Data and the holograms aren't even in the same ball-park as each other, so it's pretty useless to compare them really.

The Soong androids were all sophisticated replications of human synapses and higher automative functions that were created using real parts, built with the intention that their 'brains' were capable of adaptation beyond their original "factory setting".

Holographic AI, on the other hand, is just a computer program with a lot of algorithms to cover different types of behaviour, wrapped up in whatever mystical technology gives us the holodeck, but also (in theory) with only very specific goals in mind and no real "life" outside those predetermined parameters (ie, being an emergency Doctor). The few sentient holograms that we do meet -- Minuet, Moriarty, and ultimately the EMH -- can largely be seen as either flukes or accidents. None of them were ever intended to be life-forms, and in comparison to the likes of Data or Lore, they probably aren't life-forms per se.

 

[USS Triumphant]

The assumption here is that these technologies are competitive rather than complementary. This assumption is wrong, and I'll leave it at that lest I *completely* give away a fanfic idea I've had in my head for over a decade and may still get around to putting to keyboard.

 

[Keith1701]

That was sad for sure.

 

[Darkwing]

Considerin' that Soong died years before the use of Zimmerman's medical holograms started, its doubtful that Soong even knew what Zimmerman was cookin' up at Jupiter Station.

Did he really, though? How do we know he hadn't already copied himself into an android body *just before* meeting Data and Lore with the emotion chip? Not saying he did, just saying there's room for it to have happened.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Does anyone but Dr. Soong make androids in the whole of known existance? How the hell was this absurd happenstance even arrived at? A living Hologram, I don't even want to get started on, it's just too magical for me to wrap my mind around: Only one part of the ship's computer would be sentient - capsulized in a single hologram character? I just don't get it, but I do like The Doctor on Voyager, very much. What I don't like is Dr. Soong's corner on the android market. It's annoying ...

 

[F. King Daniel]

I always wondered why nobody told Soong or Data about Mudd's planet from TOS, or the one with the machine to effortlessly make android duplicates. Or showed him the unfinished android bodies that were built on the old Enterprise. (episode names are totally eluding me this morning)

Ditto Odo in early DS9 whining about there being "no other shapeshifters" when the galaxy was spammed with them.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Does anyone but Dr. Soong make androids in the whole of known existance? How the hell was this absurd happenstance even arrived at? A living Hologram, I don't even want to get started on, it's just too magical for me to wrap my mind around: Only one part of the ship's computer would be sentient - capsulized in a single hologram character? I just don't get it, but I do like The Doctor on Voyager, very much. What I don't like is Dr. Soong's corner on the android market. It's annoying ...

No, Soong was not the only one who could build androids. Dr. Korby in the TOS episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" built 1. Ruk, a more primitive android that looked a lot like Lurch from the Addams Family 2. Andrea, an attractive human female android almost indistinguishable from the real thing. 3. Dr. Brown, an android assistant to himself who may or may not have been built to replace a real person. 4. a fairly convincing replacement android for Kirk that he sends to try to take over the Enterprise. 5. And it is ultimately revealed, an android body that he copied himself into before his organic body died.

The fact that they NEVER followed up on any sort of connection between Data and Korby's androids, even if just a mention in passing from Data one of those times he was researching himself and what it means to be human, has always seemed like one of the biggest continuity HOLES in Star Trek to me.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I always wondered why nobody told Soong or Data about Mudd's planet from TOS, or the one with the machine to effortlessly make android duplicates. Or showed him the unfinished android bodies that were built on the old Enterprise. (episode names are totally eluding me this morning)

I'm sure all of those would have been classified by Starfleet or the Federation, so none of them would have been common knowledge. (And Mudd's Planet would have been quarantined, too.)

 

[Maurice]

Does anyone but Dr. Soong make androids in the whole of known existance? How the hell was this absurd happenstance even arrived at? A living Hologram, I don't even want to get started on, it's just too magical for me to wrap my mind around: Only one part of the ship's computer would be sentient - capsulized in a single hologram character? I just don't get it, but I do like The Doctor on Voyager, very much. What I don't like is Dr. Soong's corner on the android market. It's annoying ...

No, Soong was not the only one who could build androids. Dr. Korby in the TOS episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" built 1. Ruk, a more primitive android that looked a lot like Lurch from the Addams Family 2. Andrea, an attractive human female android almost indistinguishable from the real thing. 3. Dr. Brown, an android assistant to himself who may or may not have been built to replace a real person. 4. a fairly convincing replacement android for Kirk that he sends to try to take over the Enterprise. 5. And it is ultimately revealed, an android body that he copied himself into before his organic body died.

The fact that they NEVER followed up on any sort of connection between Data and Korby's androids, even if just a mention in passing from Data one of those times he was researching himself and what it means to be human, has always seemed like one of the biggest continuity HOLES in Star Trek to me.

Korby didn't build Ruk. Ruk was built by The Old Ones. Arguably, Korby learned how to use the technology they left behind.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I always wondered why nobody told Soong or Data about Mudd's planet from TOS, or the one with the machine to effortlessly make android duplicates. Or showed him the unfinished android bodies that were built on the old Enterprise. (episode names are totally eluding me this morning)

Ditto Odo in early DS9 whining about there being "no other shapeshifters" when the galaxy was spammed with them.

Those android episodes are respectively "I, Mudd", "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", and "Return To Tomorrow".

Besides those, there's also Flint's Rayna android series from "Requiem for Methuselah". I find it implausible that Kirk didn't report the Flint incident to Starfleet, but it wouldn't be implausible for Starfleet to classify it. Plus, there's the "Shore Leave" planet, with its constructs. I can't think of any other TOS android episodes, besides these five.

These and the other aspects of TOS continuity forgotten in TNG (or not plausibly recognized; e.g., silicon-based lifeforms) are some of the reasons why I sometimes think it's simpler to consider TNG to be a TOS reboot (than whatever it really is).

In fairness, though, perhaps Soong was aware of all of these cases. Perhaps Rayna was ultimately as much a failure as Lal, and perhaps the intelligences in the other cases either fell short of sentience or were unsalvageable. Ruk, after all, was disintegrated. Maybe Soong adapted the Exo III equipment to make the Tainer android....

 

[Darkwing]

Read Immortal Coil; it addresses all that.

 

[2takesfrakes]

No, Soong was not the only one who could build androids ...

The fact that they NEVER followed up on any sort of connection between Data and Korby's androids ...
has always seemed like one of the biggest continuity HOLES in Star Trek to me.

As I understand it - of course, I was not there and can only go by what I read, see and hear - Gene Roddenberry didn't want TNG and TOS relating in any way. He was coersed into doing so with things like Worf and NAKED NOW, but I suspect that this business with Dr. Soong's android monopoly is a reflection of his "no TOS connection" mindset, philosophy and attitude.

 

[desfem79]

well all science builds on prior knowledge/conclusions, right? Life is cause and effect after all.

But then I'd still affirm that a Data/Lore is a better invention than an EMH, even though both are sapient AIs. Soong essentially wanted to mechanically and psychologically mimic a human. Even today, we don't have a machine that can even move as a human does, let alone think, speak or reason like us. The computer science, mechanics, programming, etc. needed for that is immense. This also includes "being skilled in multiple techniques" lol..