The distinction between computers, machines, synths, holograms and sentient A.I.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Why would those means, like cybernetic/bionic implants be ok?

Since Khan and his ilk were genetically engineered, the risk is just too great that anyone else who undergoes a similar process will turn out like them. The Federation can't afford to take that chance.

Sure, Julian Bashir turned out okay, but he was lucky.

 

[Arpy]

Maybe someone ask Chabon (in a non-combative way, if you actually want an answer) in his next, and maybe last, Instagram Q&A after the premier of the season finale. It’s kind of unprecedented to have direct access to TPTB this way, and he actually answers a lot of legitimate questions that aren’t rude or leading in any way. It might be an opportunity to have the writers explore some of our questions here more explicitly next season.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Khan.

Khan Not

 

[Lt.Smokey]

We are at a point of Trek being so out of step with the real world tech that we might be sitting watching Trek episodes 30 yrs from now with a Data level android sitting there watching with us. It is the opposite with Warp Speed. That seems like an innovation that will occur way past 2063 (if ever) whereas Data (C3PO, Hal 9000) level AI might well be before 2063. Certainly long, long before the 24th Century.

The easiest Retcon is to say that all augmentations of human capacity, and AIs and robots with enhanced abilities, were banned at the same time genetic augmentation was. I dont see how else you get there with what we are seeing today. The research is stopped cold. Airiam and Geordi, you can rationalize as being for medical reasons. Whereas elective cybernetic enhancements are not allowed.

If you ask for your healthy, functional arms to be cut off so they can give you bionic ones with enhanced capability, that request would be denied. Of course, with 3D printing, you could repair without enhancement. Geordi could have organic eyes that are only as good as normal healthy human eyes. But lets give them that one. It would also help explain the black market in Borg implants. The Feds ban elective cybernetic enhancements, but you can find them illicitly on the black market, the same way Mr and Mrs Bashir did with genetic enhancements for Jr.

Great point about the Tech. I mean, we watch 90's Trek and they are doing their reports and logs on ipads.

 

[Tarek71]

Great point about the Tech. I mean, we watch 90's Trek and they are doing their reports and logs on ipads.

I seem to remember someone involved in Voyager commenting on how dated the over sized lap tops seem. We of course know that there is no way we are getting the 23rd/24th centuries right. I am sure we are getting it wrong. The margin of error undoubtedly gets bigger the farther we project into the future. Ive looked at works 100 -150 years ago imagining our era. Fascinating to see how they thought we'd be living.

But all you can do is the best you can do. And for science fiction, even of the softer kinds, staying up on the frontiers of science and thinking forward about what might be possible is what we are limited to. But we should do that. We should stay up with it. Hard for me to square the advances in neural interface, human machine interface generally, bionics, cybernetics, robotics, AI, nanotechnology, 3D printing, bio-printing, etc and what we are seeing with Trek. There is a significant and growing disconnect.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

We are at a point of Trek being so out of step with the real world tech that we might be sitting watching Trek episodes 30 yrs from now with a Data level android sitting there watching with us. It is the opposite with Warp Speed. That seems like an innovation that will occur way past 2063 (if ever) whereas Data (C3PO, Hal 9000) level AI might well be before 2063. Certainly long, long before the 24th Century.

While I agree that it will almost certainly prove much easier to create AI that can pass the Turing test than it will to build FTL spacecraft, and while I also agree that the goal of developing intelligent AI could well be accomplished in this century, the outlook for warp drive isn't quite as bleak as being "the opposite" of achievable.

In the case of FTL, there is a potentially hard barrier, in that it is either physically impossible or it isn't, and if it is physically impossible then nothing would be able to change that. On the other hand, no corresponding potential barrier is known to exist in the case of intelligent behavior. Nevertheless, there was a surprising theoretical breakthrough that occurred late last century by Alcubierre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive. Although sometimes it is the other way around, theoretical breakthroughs are often necessary for technological breakthroughs. This theoretical breakthrough gives us a road to follow, at least for now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

 

[Tarek71]

I meant that more as saying: 1 of these will happen in the 2060s and the other will happen in the 24th century. Data level AI and Warp Speed. If you knew that, which would you guess for each? Where things stand now, Id say Data in 2060s, warp 2300s. By opposite, I mean the dates for the two. Switch them around. That that is alot more likely than the reverse, which is what is shown in trek.

When some kind of FTL might really be invented? I would say some time between mid 21 st Century and never. We'll see.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

No one knows when anything will be invented, until it is. Rock solid proofs of impossibility are few and far between.

 

[Tarek71]

I was saying that IF one invention was this century and IF another invention was in the 24th century, and the two inventions in question were high AI and Warp, the reverse of what Trek has established would be alot more likely. I am making no predictions about 24th century inventions, let alone FTL propulsion which may or may not ever be possible. Just a comment about trek tech as established.

 

[Rahul]

Like I said, pretty nutty. Giant Android TuIips? Whoa. I want to have been in the writers room when that idea was spit-balled. I assumed bio-ships like 8472 had.

They pull them down to the surface. Not with tractor beams, but using the petals to take a bite and then drag them. Hmmmm. Doing the same to both ships. Maybe in the case of the Cube, it was meant as an attack. IDK. In the process they have now lost all of the Giant Tulips that did the pulling.

I normally prefer writers swing for the fences and try something new. Just go for it. Though sometimes when you swing big, you miss big. Warp 10 Salamanders for instance. This is not on that level of nutty, but it was a pretty bonkers idea.

To be honest - I absolutely love the producers just going nuts once in a while!

A character having multiple hologram copies of himself running around, each with a different accent? Okay. A Vulcan Admiral in present-day sunglasses? Why not. Everybody playing dandy dress-up at Freecloud? Sure. A space robot hippie colony with orchid-weapons? Go for it!

Honestly - that's much more refreshing than always playing it safe. Yes, sometimes it doesn't work - I absolutely hate how far they went with the eye-gouging gore that one time for example. But overall, I would put that willingness to go with down as a massive positive for this series.

 

[Tarek71]

Well, that's why I say I generally like when writers swing for the fences. Sometimes you miss big, but I dont mind that as much as falling short for a lack of imagination or of trying. Writing is hard. I made sure that my one interaction with Braga was to say that no one bats a thousand. He had mentioned the Salamanders. He went for something big and different, and it just didnt work out the way he wanted. Let's cut slack. You try it. It's hard.

Giant Android Orchids. Well...they went for it. I think it didnt work, but again. I would rather they fail swinging big.

 

[SolarisOne]

Giant Android Orchids. Well...they went for it. I think it didnt work, but again. I would rather they fail swinging big.

This is one of those personal taste things, I guess, 'cause that was one of my favorite parts of the episode.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Okay. A Vulcan Admiral in present-day sunglasses? Why not

Let's presume that her 1/2 Vulcan | 1/2 Romulan ancestral background is true. She might've been born with a genetic defect where she didn't have inner eyelids and this was a rare defect that can be easily solved with Sunglasses.

Most people wouldn't bat an eye and tell her to wear Sunglasses like the humans.

We have people here on Earth that are born without certain organs or other body parts.

I had a childhood friend who was born without his right toe nail. It was just skin where the toe nail should've been.

 

[Lt.Smokey]

I seem to remember someone involved in Voyager commenting on how dated the over sized lap tops seem. We of course know that there is no way we are getting the 23rd/24th centuries right. I am sure we are getting it wrong. The margin of error undoubtedly gets bigger the farther we project into the future. Ive looked at works 100 -150 years ago imagining our era. Fascinating to see how they thought we'd be living.

But all you can do is the best you can do. And for science fiction, even of the softer kinds, staying up on the frontiers of science and thinking forward about what might be possible is what we are limited to. But we should do that. We should stay up with it. Hard for me to square the advances in neural interface, human machine interface generally, bionics, cybernetics, robotics, AI, nanotechnology, 3D printing, bio-printing, etc and what we are seeing with Trek. There is a significant and growing disconnect.

It is all a function of Trek being conceived during the space race. No one knew we would reach the moon and then be content to orbit for 40 years while the tech investments went elsewhere. I like the imagined future better.

 

[Tarek71]

It is all a function of Trek being conceived during the space race. No one knew we would reach the moon and then be content to orbit for 40 years while the tech investments went elsewhere. I like the imagined future better.

Yes. That is where the opposite is true vs AI/Robots. We are progressing far more slowly than in the Trek timeline. The Charybdis is supposed to launch in 17 years on an interstellar mission. We prob wont have even a crewed mission to Mars by then. No DY's, no Jupiter and Saturn missions with nuclear powered interplanetary ships. From the 50's to as late as the 80s there was amazing optimism about our space programs. I remember being that optimistic in the 70's and early 80s. 2020? We will be walking on the moons of Saturn! Nope.

 

[Ronald Held]

The rate of spaceflight progress extrapolated from the 1960's was not maintained. Might have had lunar and Martian bases, but Monday series.

 

[SolarisOne]

We prob wont have even a crewed mission to Mars by then.

If I were you, I would not place a bet based on that hypothesis. Since governments don't seem to be interested in doing it, private industry has stepped up.

 

[Tarek71]

If I were you, I would not place a bet based on that hypothesis. Since governments don't seem to be interested in doing it, private industry has stepped up.

I am not placing any bets either way. We'll see what happens.