My random thoughts

Anything that doesn't quite fit in elsewhere...
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by funkervogt »

One thing that makes no sense in sci-fi TV shows is when they stumble across long-lost spaceships that they can't identify right away. I recently re-watched an episode of Babylon 5 where this happened, and the ship was a cryogenic sleeper ship that disappeared into space 100 years earlier. In reality, Babylon 5's external cameras and other sensors would have scanned the incoming ship and cross-referenced it with photos of every known space ship and found the match in a microsecond.
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Re: My random thoughts

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funkervogt wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 7:32 pm In the posthuman era, will toxic materials like asbestos and lead paint become widespread again, since posthumans and robots won't be hurt by them?
Nanotechnology will make these substances obsolete.
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Re: My random thoughts

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funkervogt wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 3:29 pm One thing that makes no sense in sci-fi TV shows is when they stumble across long-lost spaceships that they can't identify right away.
Only that ?? ))
Babilon5 is a good series. But it's surprising to me that most people still believe that a person can make subspace travel...
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

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Sci fi idea: A member of a royal dynasty that perpetuates itself through cloning finds that he has a psychic connection to a mysterious, nonhuman intelligent entity that can talk to him in his head and take over the bodies of people around him. Over many lifetimes, each clone becomes aware of the entity in some different way, tries to pass word of it to his next clone to warn them (a clone can only be made after its predecessor dies).

Will there ever be a clone who unravels the mystery before his own death?
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ººº
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Re: My random thoughts

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I came up with one recently: Musk with his own/bought search engine, video platform and email service against Google.
Vakanai
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Re: My random thoughts

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funkervogt wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 3:29 pm One thing that makes no sense in sci-fi TV shows is when they stumble across long-lost spaceships that they can't identify right away. I recently re-watched an episode of Babylon 5 where this happened, and the ship was a cryogenic sleeper ship that disappeared into space 100 years earlier. In reality, Babylon 5's external cameras and other sensors would have scanned the incoming ship and cross-referenced it with photos of every known space ship and found the match in a microsecond.
I wouldn't say that it makes no sense, I can actually see a few reasons why that specific part of those sci-fi plots are one of the things that do make some sense.

First, you're assuming that all AI in all ships will have access to an archive of all ships ever made in the setting. But I don't think that is very likely. Kind of like how law enforcement now can track any license plate in the country, but most citizens outside of law enforcement can not. It's a question of access. We like to envision these future AIs as basically omniscient, with access to all human knowledge to date and then all knowledge they figure out for themselves on top of that. And some will. But there's no reason to give a cargo ship's AI the sum total of all knowledge, it's a waste of energy and resources. Some AI will be made, while far superior to us, far lesser than other AI. It's just more efficient to build some AI with just the knowledge needed for the job. And any AI aboard a ship in deep space is going to be pretty hard limited to the information it was given before departure - there's not going to be an internet stretching across the universe, certainly not one with communication that can break lightspeed.

Another point of access - not only will some AI, even when AI is making AI, be made with a smaller knowledge base than others for efficiency's sake, but much like with humans, not all AI will have the right to all information. AI will be organized just like we are - some AI will be in charge of more confidential information than others. Much like how I can't track your license plate but a cop with a warrant could or whatever. An archive of all ships' IDs may be similar. AI keeping information from other AI based on clearance levels is highly probable to be a thing.

And that's also assuming that such an archive exists. I can think of several reasons why it might not. Privacy concerns, hacked systems erasing years of data, governments withholding information - because even in the far flung future I'm doubtful personally of the prospect of a United Earth Government or interplanetary government. An American cop can track the license plate of an American vehicle, but probably not one in Russia or China. I imagine in a future there'll be separate AI led governments, again AI keeping secrets from AI.

Just because AI will be more than advanced enough to hold and peruse such an archive like is suggested, doesn't mean that it will have access to one, that there won't be holes in that archive, or that a complete archive will exist. AI is going to be incredibly smart, but there's no reason to believe that all AI will be unified or made or treated the same. Some AI is going to have to be the janitor, and if you were a supervisor AI would you give all janitorial AIs all possible knowledge that AI civilization has gleaned? Every cargo ship, every mining drone, every distant outpost?
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

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First, you're assuming that all AI in all ships will have access to an archive of all ships ever made in the setting. But I don't think that is very likely.
Babylon 5 was the most important and advanced station built by the humans, so it would have it.

Also, hard disks are so cheap that you could probably fit files of 3D models of every spaceship and satellite humans have launched into space into an external HD. In the future, Moore's Law means it will be get even cheaper.

Sorry, but I don't see how, given the tech trends, automated sensor recognition of other spaceships doesn't become a standard spaceship feature, like headlights on cars today.
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Re: My random thoughts

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funkervogt wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 10:22 pm
First, you're assuming that all AI in all ships will have access to an archive of all ships ever made in the setting. But I don't think that is very likely.
Babylon 5 was the most important and advanced station built by the humans, so it would have it.

Also, hard disks are so cheap that you could probably fit files of 3D models of every spaceship and satellite humans have launched into space into an external HD. In the future, Moore's Law means it will be get even cheaper.

Sorry, but I don't see how, given the tech trends, automated sensor recognition of other spaceships doesn't become a standard spaceship feature, like headlights on cars today.
1. I was discussing the premise of that plot tool across all science fiction and the potential future itself, not specifically in Babylon Five (never watched the show outside maybe two or three partial episodes).

2a. Sure they're cheap - but in the future when we have mining and manufacturing colonies converting entire asteroid belts into fleets of ships over centuries, we're talking about potentially hundreds of millions if not billions of ships. No matter how cheap hard drives are, that's eventually valuable virtual space better used on star charts, ship logs, and so on. Plus Moore's Law won't hold forever.

2b. Never mind those hundreds of millions or more ships are being manufactured in solar systems many light years apart - and again light speed is a hard barrier. Those archives will be woefully out of date, unable to account for ships made in the centuries it took for the information from one facility in one system to be beamed to another.

Sorry, but the tech trends are only one part of the story, and a part we can already interpret in different ways even now. Countries are becoming more secretive, governments more divisive, companies more IP focused, and humans more privacy minded. This will likely be translated in our AI as well. An archive might not exist, might not be complete if it does exist, might be coded, might not be included in the ship's archive just because there's no way it could be up to date with all ships if we're creating them across multiple star systems in mass numbers over decades or centuries (again, light speed is a limit here, the AI just can't know about ships created in another solar system a century ago, the information wouldn't have arrived before it left).

It's not out of the realm of feasibility. Even a recognition feature would rely on the derelict ship either still being working in some order, or have some visible marker like a QR code that's survived who knows what for who knows how long.

Edit: Sorry if it seems like I'm coming across as argumentative, I'm actually just very interested and am enjoying just imagining different scenarios. Sometimes it's fun to treat discussions like puzzles, and if someone says it can't be done the natural urge is to just tinker with the possibilities and see if you can crack the challenge.
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

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Imagine all the inconsistencies and continuity errors super-observant AIs will discover in our movies and TV shows.

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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

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It would be interesting if humans could tell time by sensing the decay rate of smelly objects and residues, as dogs can. A gross application of this might involve a human spitting on the ground or something, or ejecting some kind of secretion, and then using their sense of smell to monitor changes in the substance's odor. Think of it as a biological chronometer.


Posthumans and machines capable of internally synthesizing biomolecules could also do this.
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