{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1276",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1276,
    "subject": "\"strong AI\" in the Whorl",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-03-20T16:35:42+00:00",
    "last": "2001-03-20T16:35:42+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0467@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Parmenter",
        "address": "dan at lec.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-03-20T16:35:42+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) \"strong AI\" in the Whorl",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>\nMaytera Rose was very old and sick and was only kept alive by means\nof the many prosthetic parts that had been surgically implanted in\nher body. When even these prostheses could no longer keep Rose\nalive, Maytera Marble claimed some of them as spare parts.  In\nWolfe's universe, robot and human parts are pretty much\ninterchangeable. That robot parts could be used as prosthetic parts\nfor humans and vice-versa is less silly than the idea that a robot\n(Jonas, in TNotNS) could be repaired with human flesh, but it still\nputs something of a strain on the reader's credulity (mine, at\nleast)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Not mine.  The notion that \"robotics\" and \"prosthetics\" are convergent\ntechnologies seems thoroughly acceptable to me.  Wolfe describes chem\nanatomy in nearly human terms several times.  It actually dovetails\nrather nicely with the fact that in Wolfe's Whorl we have both \"AI\"\n(chems) and \"scanned consciousness.\"  But I think that Wolfe the\nengineer couldn't resist the idea that perhaps even with these\ndifferent \"implementations\" of consciousness there could be a common\ninterface.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the aspects of\nMaytera Rose's personality that are now present in Maytera Marble are\nAI simulations of Rose's thoughts.  Among Rose's prosthetic parts were\nthe mechanisms of speech (sorry, no citation).  If the original Rose\ncould not speak, then there must have been some method by which her\nthoughts were transmitted to her artificial speaking apparatus.  It's\nnot much of a leap from that to imagining an internal optimization\nwhereby certain oft-used words, phrases, possibly even ideas could be\n\"cached\" within the speaking mechanism (or its software), e.g. her\n\"devastating sniff.\".  \n\nThe machine translation system I work on has a primitive mechanism\nwhereby if a user favors a particular translation of a word or phrase\nthis phrase is \"learned\" by giving it a small probability boost.  This\n\"learning data\" can be saved externally so that when a user upgrades,\nthe same learning data can be used.  So when Rose died and Marble took\nher parts, the vocal apparatus no doubt included 10-20 years of saved\ndata regarding how Rose spoke (and gestured, and thought perhaps).\nPresumably Marble could have asked that the Rose consisousness be\nexpunged, but why bother recallibrating equipment that's already\nworking just fine?  \"Strong\" AI seems to be a recurring feature of the\nLupiniverse.  But surely there's more to consciousness than a bunch of\nstatistical data on how often an individual used particular words or\nexpressed particular thoughts?  Or perhaps not.  Remember, in UotNS we\nhear of locks on doors old enough that their personalities have\nstarted to diverge.  Rose (through Marble) expresses her doubts about\nwhether chems have consciousness (wonderful irony) and Mint expresses\ndoubts to Remora (at the begining of EXODUS) about whether Taluses\nhave souls.  Silk of course never seems to doubt \"robot consciousness\"\nfor a moment and continues to feel guilt about having killed a Talus.\n\nMantis has speculated that perhaps Pike and Rose were Black Mechanics\nwho experimented on their robot maid.  I rather like this idea, though\nI'm not sure how much textual support there is for it.\n\nShellac\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}