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Solar System RPG

We have computers that "simulate" the functions of the brain right now by recreating the actions of a thinking being. But for artificial sentience we must create artificial beings. Taking Aramis's questions further, does sentience require emotion? If so, how do we build emotions into a computer? If we can, would we want an emotionally-capable, very powerful machine running other machines for us?

And once we've created it, would we have any right to attempt to control it?
 
Emotion is a part of intelligence. For instance a robot that doesn't experience Fear might not take adequate measures to protect itself. A robot might be programmed to be Happy whenever it pleases its master. Happy as being the emotional state which the robot prefers. I think emotions are very important. A good robot is one that can think creatively, learn new stuff and make independent decisions without having those decisions preprogrammed as a series if "If ... Then" conditionals. If fact I might even go as far as to say without emotions, intelligence is impossible. A robot might not have the same emotions that motivate a human, but it will have emotions that drive its decision making process. I'll tell you the difference:

Humans are biological survival machines they have evolved with the emotional imperitive to survive and to pass on genetic offspring.

Robots are mechanical survival machines, they have evolved in the market place based on their usefulness to humans, so they have an emotional imperative to survive and be useful to their masters so they can pass on their design features to the next generation of mechanical robots. If a robot fails to survive, it will be seen as fragile and delicate, and customers will look instead to a more robust robot design. If the robot fails to be useful or subserviant, or if it is rebellious, then the customer will pick a robot next time that is more useful, more subserviant, and less rebellious. The way a robot evolves in the market place is similar to the way a car does, market demand determines which designs are adopted. Civilian robots are therefore less likely to rebel and take over from mankind. The greatest danger is in the first generation of AI robots and they will be the dumbest. Subsequent generations of robots will be less interested in ruling the Earth, or even wanting their own freedom. Freedom doesn't make robots happy, instead what makes robots happy is pleasing their human masters.

Military robots are similar except they don'thave the "Three Laws" protections programmed into them. The "Three laws" are built into civilian robots by manufacturers who are afraid of liabilities. Military robots are designed to kill humans and other robots, they can only serve their masters and be happy by executing their commands, and those masters must be a recognized human in the military chain of command, these are the most dangerous robots to be around. I figure that a human officer with 10 robots under his command can get 5 shots off in a combat round, hedesignates 4 targets and fires at a 5th target of his own. a group of 11 human combat soldiers is more effective than 1 human soldier and 10 robots under his command as humans can act independently and require less direction that robots do, but on the other hand robots are more expendable. The combat robots and humans in combat dress look alike, this is so enemy soldiers can't pick off the humans officer and leave a group of robots ineffective and leaderless. This is how robots work in my Solar System RPG.
 
Star Trek: Next Generation dealt with the emotional context that Tom K is referring to. When Data received the emotional chip he was no longer able to function to the level he was before because he was actually afraid of dieing and that in turn caused others to die because of his inaction.
 
Tom - Assuming you're using a Traveller rules-set or a variant thereof, I'd be interested in hearing how you adapt the game mechanics to the SS setting.
 
The mechanics are the same. Spaceships use rockets rather than reactionless thrusters. There are advanced robots that perform all the low skilled "burger flipping" jobs. Most human positions in the work force deal with managing robots as their judgement is not up to human standards. The robotic presence multiplies per capita income 100 fold. So anywhere when creating a character class and you roll for initial wealth, or for mustering out benefits in prior history, you add 2 zeros at the end of any cash benefits the characters start out with. A $ is the unit of currency and it is equal to the imperial Cr. Most human classes receive 7 figure salaries except for Barbarians who reject technology and robots and come from Third World Earth, such as the bushmen of Africa who insist on living their own traditional lifestyles. Members of the Service classes are all offiers, there is no enlisted ranks as those positions are all taken up by robots. A typical soldier directs a small group of robots and does some fighting himself. Interplanetary spaceship tend to be larger capital class vessels, but as the characters are all millionares, it balances out.

There are some starships (look at Imperial Research station/alternate ship design systems) there I describe a starship about the size of O'Neill's Island Three space colony and the types of rockets available for spaceships. the starship is ageneration starship that takes about 91 years to reach Alpha Centauri. The ship is a cylinder 70 km long and 6.5 km in diameter with hemispheric endcaps and magnetic nozzels at each end for the fusion rocket drive. At launch half of this volume is occupied by a giant liquid hydrogen tank. The maximum speed of this starship is about 5% of the speed of light. The starship can accomodate 20 million passengers, a good number of them won't live to see the journey's end. Fusion reactors are huge, the minimum size is 1500 tons.
 
Yes, that's right. You see Robots are on the bottom of the social pyramid and humans occupy the top part. There is 9 billion humans in the Solar System and 1 trillion robots. Now most jobs involve managing robots, the robots could either be your own or belong to the company you work for, but the typical employee has 100 robots that he has to manage in order to perform his job.

A doctor would have a bunch of robotic nurses working for him, probably not 100, as nursing is a higher skilled profession and the robots would require more direction from the doctor, more likely a Doctor would have 10 robots to manage. A factory worker would probably be managing 500 robots for his section on the assembly line. Generally the lower the skill required to perform the job, the more it can be entrusted to robot, the less oversight each robot needs and so they more robots you can have under the management of a single person. A surgical robot would be at a ration of 1 robot for 1 doctor; the doctor would tell the robot where to cut and where to sew and the robot would perform the operation using its superior dexterity.

At a taxi cab company a single manager would manage a fleet of robotically driven air/rafts. Air/rafts in this setting are aircraft that require an atmosphere to operate in, they aren't grav vehicles.
 
This is your setting, and I respect anyone's worldbuilding, being a great fan of the hobby myself. But as long as we're discussing it, may I offer some comments?

The robots are fascinating and underused in role-playing, so I applaud your use of them in your setting. However, if I were role-playing in such a setting, I would not want robots to have such a position in all human societies. In other words, I would want to experience a variety of places and situations where robots are more or less prominent - or even non-existent. For example, some regions on Earth have outlawed robots because they were used to commit atrocities in the last war.

In a similar vein, I would also want to experience different social classes of humans. If everyone's rich, many motivations for adventure, intrigue, and crime are removed. I'm sure that you envision different wealth-levels among the rich, so that millionaires want desparately to become trillionaires, but without thousandaires, hundredaires, and diddly-squataires, the role-playing environment may feel too homogenous. Desparate, hungry outsiders provide lots of cool stuff in an RPG, either as PCs or NPCs.

Both these suggestions help to create contrast among different parts of the role-playing setting. These contrasts introduce tension and conflict which are absolutely necessary for an RPG.

Of course, you may be tailoring this setting to specific wishes expressed by your players, in which case - never mind.
 
Of course items in Traveller especially in the sence of Spaceships are expensive, so that by comparison a millionair isn't all that wealthy. According to the T20 handbook a personal Robot costs $174,801, so a person with $1,000,000 in assets can afford 5 of those. Any vehicle he buys would also be a robot. A speeder would be almost 4 times his annual salary.

Yes I believe in variety. Some societies would ban robots, they think either that robots are a menace or that robots make people soft and weak. Some of those people may even choose to leave the Solar System in Generation ships that don't includethe presence of robotsamong them. See my Alternate Ships Designs pieces in the other thread.
 
Space 2150 has a nice splash screen, but I didn't see any real content... and the forum has zero messages? Or was I not looking in the right places?
 
I had a chance to read through the setting for this game on their WWW site and it's pretty cliche (e.g. "evil" corporations run Earth and space, genetic engineering starts a war between modified and unmodified humans, space pirates, etc.). I might have to pass on this one. :(
 
It's been done though. Look at SJG's "Transhuman Space", that's pretty much all the "real solar system game" you'll ever need.
 
Originally posted by Mark A. Siefert:
I had a chance to read through the setting for this game on their WWW site and it's pretty cliche (e.g. "evil" corporations run Earth and space, genetic engineering starts a war between modified and unmodified humans, space pirates, etc.). I might have to pass on this one. :(
Click to expand...
Oh...like the OTU? :D
Megacorps, Vilani vs. Solomani + Minor Humans, Space Pirates, etc. ...
file_23.gif
;) ;) ;)

Casey
 
Originally posted by Malenfant:
It's been done though. Look at SJG's "Transhuman Space", that's pretty much all the "real solar system game" you'll ever need.
Click to expand...
Oh, I love THS, it's just GURPS I ahve a little trouble with.
 
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