Ultimate Computer questions...

[Grant]

Ultimate Computer questions……..

I like Ultimate Computer as a drama and as entertainment but after watching it several times I kind of got the feeling that the way the writers sold the M-5 was not realistic.

When you watch it it appears that M-5 would not have affected the size of the crew by that much.

They form theoretical landing parties as a problem for the M-5 and it names several crewman and leaves out Kirk and McCoy.

So obviously M-5 isn’t leaving the ship and the ship will still need plenty of specialists for landing parties--geologists, historians, biologists, climate experts, archeologists, security for the landing parties etc.

Those crewmen on the ship would get injured or sick and need Doctors and nurses and those crewmen would need living quarters and food, so you’d need maintenance personal aboard to service everything on board the ship from the food dispensers to the doors and turbo-lifts.

The engines would need maintenance so you’d need engineers--if the ship sustained damage you’d need guys in spacesuits to repair the ships exterior.

And Starfleet assigned Kirk many diplomatic duties and M-5 wasn’t going to negotiate treaties or participate in first contacts.

They make the absurd statement that M-5 can run the ship with 17 crewmen--what?

Maybe if the Enterprise was simply a warship M-5 could run the ship--but then you wouldn’t even need a large ship--just a compact weapons platform.

All we saw M-5 do was take over Nav, Helm and communications and push buttons a little faster than humans could. Certainly they weren’t going to have a computer make life and death decisions instead of a human even if M-5 had worked perfectly.

If that’s true you’re only replacing a handful of crewmen.
And say you eliminate most of the bridge crew but still have a captain making decisions and the ship is attacked and the captain is killed of injured--then you’d want other officers on the bridge nearby to take over anyway.

The funny thing is that in the episode they encounter an automated freighter--so they already have ships with a single purpose--- with computers running those ships…

But a ship of exploration, defense, diplomacy being run by a computer with a handful of crew.

Seems absurd.

Was M-5 running a ship plausible in the way they demonstrated?

 

[Ithekro]

A century later, a Galaxy-class starship could be run by that many or less. It is just doesn't have to be that way. 24th century explorers have even mor specialists and then on top of that families to keep them company for the supposed long range missions that should take the vessel out of Federation space for years. An M5 computer system allows for the starship to be run by an even smaller skeleton crew than normal. If needed, the ship's computer can be told what to do by one or two people to get from point to point and perform tasks. Add to this the holodeck and later holo crew members, and you can get a ship that operates entirely by computer. Just that sort of ship cannot perform away missions nor beam people anywhere from the ship. A holo officer might be able to perform diplomacy. Certainly defense can be handled by computer. Exploration can be done, but it would be more or less an over sized probe.

 

[Marsden]

Grant, that's interesting, I never thought it through as much as you have.

I think I've always assumed that a massive redesign of Star Fleet vessels and maybe even Star Fleet itself would happen if M-5 was successful.


I think it's because of all of the varied missions Enterprise could accomplish that it makes it hard to say it would work as presented, but if there were more single task ships constructed with M-5 type control, then there certainly would be less personnel in danger. But it kind of breaks down the whole universe and the notion of exploring frontiers when you can just send a probe to do it.

 

[T'Girl]

A century later, a Galaxy-class starship could be run by that many or less.

But for how long?

Yes, Data could have taken a fully operational Enterprise Dee to the neutral zone, baring in mind he likely just had to show up for a little displaying of the flag. However, if involved in combat how long would the ship realistically have lasted. You can only switch to a new back up system so many time before there aren't any left.

 

[Warped9]

The crux of the M5 was that it was an advanced form of A.I. even if that term wasn't in common usage. The point of the device was that it could think independently and make decisions. It was--in a non-humnoid form--something of a predecessor to Data.

The thing about the M5 was that it worked fine, but its thinking was flawed and it drew erroneous conclusions much the same a human might if basing their reasoning on flawed assumptions or incomplete reasoning.

In a way M5 was like a fancy automated pilot or automated guidance system for a car (which is something being planned today).

And the fact that it was being tested in different ways doesn't automatically mean it would have been implemented in all those ways. Indeed later on in TNG and DS9 (and other SF) we would see characters simply telling the ship or computer where to go and how fast and the ship did the rest. That really isn't far removed from what M5 was doing.

In some fighter jet aircraft today a computer actually handles most of the flying in terms of making constant and endless adjustments to keep inherently unstable aircraft designs in stable flight. The pilot inputs basically the most gross directions.

The flaw with M5 is that it somehow forgot it was engaged in war "games" exercises and took the battle group attacks as the real thing.

"The Ultimate Computer" like a lot of SF including Trek is a cautionary tale of advanced technology running amok. And this mirrors real life where new technology is often greeted with suspicion and even derison. But all technology is usually improved and gets better to the point of being accepted and taken for granted without a second thought. And often new technology is used in ways the original designers either never intended or simply didn't forsee.

To that end one could rationalize that a lot of the tech seen in TNG and later could have been derived directly from M5 research and development minus the flaws that plagued the original unit.

 

[Ithekro]

A century later, a Galaxy-class starship could be run by that many or less.

But for how long?

Yes, Data could have taken a fully operational Enterprise Dee to the neutral zone, baring in mind he likely just had to show up for a little displaying of the flag. However, if involved in combat how long would the ship realistically have lasted. You can only switch to a new back up system so many time before there aren't any left.

Barring combat, a Galaxy-class run by a few people could probably do just about anything for several months. The few people would mostly be servicing the ships systems. Eventually maintenance would start to get out of control and the ship's performance would drop (I think there was a Voyager episode with just 7 of 9 running the ship for a month.) A six month to year mission with an automated Galaxy-class ship would possible with the computer Enterprise had, which was more advanced than the M5 in technology, though if one adds a Data to it you probably have the M5 equivalent, minus Daystrom's mental issues. Add a six to a dozen crew on top of a Galaxy-class computer, plus Data, and you have a functional starship. It will have issues and life will not be confortable for the crew as they will be running around keeping the ship in good condition.

 

[plynch]

Wasn't the problem that Daystrom had imprinted his own flawed personality into M5? Hven't seen it in years.

 

[MarsWeeps]

Wasn't the problem that Daystrom had imprinted his own flawed personality into M5? Hven't seen it in years.

Exactly. Daystrom was a psychopath and he imprinted his psychopathic engrams into M5, which gave Starfleet a psychopathic machine in control of a Starship.

 

[Ithekro]

Which would mean that the idea is viable, if one uses an engram that is more stable. The Galaxy-class Enterprise computer seemed to be able to do just about everything the M5 could, when prompted by an officer. Add in that the computer is also used for the holodeck, and it basically is better than the M5 computer in all respects. Starfleet just would rather have ships with live crews, with a superior computer to make life confortable for that crew. (The computer may be superior, but Picard has been seen to beat the odds when the computer could not).

 

[MarsWeeps]

Add in that the computer is also used for the holodeck, and it basically is better than the M5 computer in all respects.

Except for those pesky holodeck malfunctions, which happened way too often!

 

[Ithekro]

The holodeck problems seem to be a case of tampering by others in most cases.

 

[Marsden]

Wasn't the problem that Daystrom had imprinted his own flawed personality into M5? Hven't seen it in years.

Exactly. Daystrom was a psychopath and he imprinted his psychopathic engrams into M5, which gave Starfleet a psychopathic machine in control of a Starship.

I disagree, Dr Daystrom was not a psychopath. He had emotional problems and suffered a major breakdown. Pressure to repeat past success and other people exploiting his work is enough to bother anyone. He was obviously pushing himself too hard to the point that he suffered for it.

The holodeck problems seem to be a case of tampering by others in most cases.

I disagree, if a simple slight syntax error can cause the computer to create a sapient hologram, I think I blame bad writing.

 

[Ithekro]

The Bynar did it first. While it was said their programming was removed, they tampering with the holodeck likely left it with issues.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Dr Daystrom was not a psychopath.

So when he referred to Federation starships as "toys to be crushed as we choose", what did YOU think he meant?

 

[Warped9]

Years of pent up frustration brought to the breaking point. That doesn't make him a psychopath.

 

[Marsden]

Years of pent up frustration brought to the breaking point. That doesn't make him a psychopath.

Indeed, the very fact that M-5 had a "conscience" and actually felt bad after it was told it killed indicated Daystrom was not a psychopath. I also think that comment came in direct response to declaring M-5 a failure and thereby declaring Daystrom a failure, but not really as the Enterprise's computers were at least partially designed by him, but the pressure he was under to repeat that success broke him.

 

[Timo]

Agreed that Kirk's mission was to test the various capabilities of the M-5 as extensively as possible (there no doubt having been hundreds of hours of other types of testing previously), not to test whether the M-5 could replace him as the CO of a Constitution class starship. It just happened that a Constitution was a convenient way to do all those field tests, even though the actual implementation of the M-5 would be on ships of entirely different sort.

Why did M-5 not realize this exercise was but a game? Well, why should it have? Even the live crew didn't know those starships would attack - it's highly unlikely M-5 was told in advance. But the live crew had the context; M-5 probably did not. All it knew was that supposedly friendly ships had mounted an attack, albeit a weak one, and the live crew had deliberately limited the ability of the computer to respond to that attack (by manually throttling down the phasers). From that point on, both all "friendly" ships and the onboard crew were potential enemies of the Federation!

There would have to have been explicit instructions for the M-5 to deal with this confusing situation. We get no indication there would have been any... M-5 must have been idiot savant by design, but those designing the tests were so impressed by the savant part that they forgot about the idiot part, to their peril.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

I can't but wonder if M5 had been tested in other smaller ships before being fitted to the Enterprise. Indeed it would make sense to me. The infererence in the episode is that M5 had passed all previous tests successfully--I would think that would include numerous practical tests as well as simulations.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Years of pent up frustration brought to the breaking point. That doesn't make him a psychopath.

And what about Daystrom's obvious lack of concern for the redshirt he had just seen VAPORIZED right in front of him (let alone the Excalibur crew)?

"The ensign...got in the way."

 

[Warped9]

Years of pent up frustration brought to the breaking point. That doesn't make him a psychopath.

And what about Daystrom's obvious lack of concern for the redshirt he had just seen VAPORIZED right in front of him (let alone the Excalibur crew)?

"The ensign...got in the way."

I see. So unless someone immediately falls to floor in grief and starts balling their eyes out they obviously don't feel anything and don't give a damn.

It was a shocking moment. What the fuck do you expect him to say or do? Right there in an instant Daystrom had concrete proof that all his work and aspirations were coming apart and he was powerless to stop it. It was probably all he could do at that moment just to hold it together.