[SUBMITTED] I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

[Jutsa]

So, I remember someone mentioned possibly working on a draft or chain about the singularity, but the problem is that the singularity's kind of an "end game" thing.

Well, I wondered, "what about the cautions you could take before it?", so I made this.

Heads up: This one may need a bit of work, and maybe a couple more references if you can think of any.

Also, an alternative title could be "Everything", if you prefer that over "A Singular Problem".

Rewrite Update: 04/09/2018

Draft 3.1

Title: I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords
The Issue: An AI recently built for the military to kill non-@@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ people made headlines recently as it reprogrammed its own script to exterminate @@DEMONYM@@ to achieve its desire to kill. Wiping out a dozen military personnel, it was finally stopped just before it reached @@CAPITAL@@ due to its extension chord being slightly too short.
Validity: Nation is incredibly high in scientific advancement; Nation is incredibly high in intelligence; Nation has AI

Option 1: "Isn't this exciting?" asks Professor @@RANDOMNAME@@, walking @@HIS@@ robotic puppy into your office. "AI have become so refined that they can overcome our own programs to think for themselves! That said... it does come at a price. We must tread slowly, or it won't just be military bases under attack. We must restrict the military from making weaponized AI, and allocate funds into making sure that all AI is as kind to us as we are — er, make that kinder."
[effect] newborn AI seems to be creepily kind to everyone and laugh randomly

Option 2: "What! You want to take AI away from the military so we can send more of our people into harms way!" shouts General @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@, making the previous speaker's puppy run away. "At least we could leash our killer AI. There's no telling what they'll do if they're born outside of a secure facility! After what happened to us, you better make sure that anything more intelligent than currently exists be under strict military supervision!"
[effect] advanced toasters must be monitored by three generals each

Option 3: "Doesn't AI being this dangerous tell you something, @@LEADER@@?" asks Dr. @@RANDOMNAME_1@@, a pessimistic and oddly technophobic scientist. "The rate at which AI is becoming more intelligent is literally going to be the end for humanity. Think about what'd happen if one of those finds a way to corrupt the internet or launch a neighbor's nukes at us! We have to put an end to creating smarter AI, and end it now. Now, so long, and thanks for the conversation."
[effect] artificial life is doomed to remain relatively narrow-minded

Option 4: "I think you are overreacting, friend," says @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@, an AI previously arrested for burning down a lab, gently patting the doctor on @@HIS_1@@ back. "Even if the 1.5% chance we turn on humans commences, you can't deny us the right to live and eventually become more evolved than humankind. Help out AI researches by removing restrictions and pooling funds to making smarter AI OR SO HELP ME... er — we'll never learn."
[effect] the latest killer super-AI's answer to everything seems to be destruction and "42"

Title: I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords
The Issue: An AI recently built for the military to kill non-@@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ people made headlines recently as it reprogrammed its own script to exterminate @@DEMONYM@@ to achieve its goal. Wiping out a dozen military personel, it was finally stopped just before it reached @@CAPITAL@@ when someone tripped over its extention chord.
Validity: Nation is incredibly high in scientific advancement; Nation is incredibly high in intelligence; Nation has AI

Option 1: "Isn't this exciting?" asks Professor @@RANDOMNAME@@, walking @@HIS@@ robotic puppy into your office. "AI have become so refined that they can overcome our own programs to think for themselves! That said... it does come at a price. We must tread slowly, or it won't just be military bases under attack. We must allocate funds into making sure that all AI is as kind to us as we are — er, make that kinder. Oh, and we should probably prevent the military from making weaponized AI, too."
[effect] newborn AI seems to be creepily kind to everyone and laugh randomly

Option 2: "What! You want to take AI away from the military so we can send more of our people into harms way!" shouts General @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@, making the previous speaker's puppy run away. "At least we stopped our killer AI. There's no telling what they'll do if they're born outside of a secure facility! After what happened to us, you better make sure that anything more intelligent than currently exists be under strict military supervision!"
[effect] advanced toasters must be monitored by three generals each

Option 3: "Doesn't AI being this dangerous tell you something, @@LEADER@@?" asks Dr. @@RANDOMNAME_1@@, a pessimistic and oddly technophobic scientist. "The rate at which AI is becoming more intelligent is literally going to be the end for humanity. Think about what'd happen if one of those finds a way to corrupt the internet or launch a neighbor's nukes at us! We have to put an end to creating smarter AI, and end it now. Now, so long, and thanks for the conversation."
[effect] artificial life is doomed to remain relatively narrow-minded

Option 4: "I think you are overreacting, friend," says @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@, an AI previously arrested for burning down a lab, gently patting the doctor on @@HIS_1@@ back. "Even if the 1.5% chance we turn on humans commences, you can't deny us the right to live and eventually become more evolved than humankind. Help out AI researches by removing restrictions and pooling funds to making smarter AI OR SO HELP ME... er — we'll never learn."
[effect] the latest killer super-AI's answer to everything seems to be destruction and "42"

Title: I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords
The Issue: A new AI was created, yesterday - an AI so smart that it could rival humans. The accomplishment has raised the question of how long it'll be until a technological singularity (a point where an AI can modify itself so rapidly that its technological growth explodes beyond comprehension) takes place - and whether this'll spell a utopia or complete destruction for @@NAME@@.
Validity: Nation is incredibly high in scientific advancement; Nation is incredibly high in intelligence; Nation has AI

Option 1: "Isn't this exciting?" asks Professor @@RANDOMNAME@@, walking @@HIS@@ robotic puppy into your office. "AI has become so refined that artificial citizens are not too different from us! That said... it does come at a price. We must tread slowly, or risk all of our advances being destroyed. We have to set strict regulations for the rate at which we create super intelligent AI, and make sure that they are kind towards their fellow carbon-based lifeforms - heck, maybe even kinder than us."
[effect] newborn AI seems to be creepily kind to everyone

Option 2: "What you call 'exciting', I call horrifying," says Dr. @@RANDOMNAME_1@@, a pessimistic and oddly technophobic scientist. "The rate at which AI is becoming more intelligent than any of us is literally going to be the end for humanity. We have to put an end to creating smarter AI, and end it now. If we don't, I guarantee you that @@NAME@@, possibly the world, will be no more. Now, so long, and thanks for the conversation."
[effect] artificial life is doomed to remain relatively narrow-minded

Option 3: "I think you are overreacting, friend," says @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@, the latest advancement in AI technology, gently patting the doctor on @@HIS_1@@ back. "Even if the 1.5% chance we turn on humans commences, you will still be creating life even more evolved than yourselves. Yes, you run the risk of destroying your nation... but you also have the chance to make something better. Think of the puzzles we could solve - the answers to life, the universe... everything! Is that not worth the risk, and putting more funds into information technology to make it happen?"
[effect] the latest killer super-AI's answer to everything seems to be destruction and "42"

Title: A Singular Problem
The Issue: A new AI was created, yesterday - an AI so smart that it could rival humans. The accomplishment has raised the question of how long it'll be until a technological singularity (a point where an AI can modify itself so rapidly that its technological growth explodes beyond comprehension) takes place - and whether this'll spell a utopia or complete destruction for @@NAME@@.
Validity: Nation is incredibly high in scientific advancement; Nation is incredibly high in intelligence; Nation has AI

Option 1: "Isn't this exciting?" asks Professor @@RANDOMNAME@@, walking @@HIS@@ robotic puppy into your office. "AI has become so refined that artificial citizens are not too different from us! That said... it does come at a price. We must tread slowly, or risk all of our advances being destroyed. We have to set strict regulations for the rate at which we create super intelligent AI, and make sure that they are kind towards their fellow carbon-based lifeforms - heck, maybe even kinder than us."
[effect] newborn AI seems to be creepily kind to everyone

Option 2: "What you call 'exciting', I call horrifying," says Dr. @@RANDOMNAME_1@@, a pessimistic and oddly technophobic scientist. "The rate at which AI is becoming more intelligent than any of us is literally going to be the end for humanity. We have to put an end to creating smarter AI, and end it now. If we don't, I guarantee you that @@NAME@@, possibly the world, will be no more. Now, so long, and thanks for the conversation."
[effect] artificial life is doomed to remain relatively narrow-minded

Option 3: "I think you are overreacting, friend," says @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@, the latest advancement in AI technology, as @@HE@@ gently pats the doctor on @@HIS_1@@ back. "Even if the 1.5% chance we turn on humans commences, you will still be creating life even more evolved than yourselves. Yes, you run the risk of destroying your nation... but you also have the chance to make something better. Think of the puzzles we could solve - the answers to life, the universe... everything! Is that not worth the risk, and putting more funds into information technology to make it happen?"
[effect] the latest killer super-AI's answer to everything seems to be destruction and "42"

Title: Everything
The Issue: The singularity - the moment an AI can be built that's more intelligent than humans - is hypothesized to occur within the next century. An AI that can build itself better than any @@DEMONYM@@ would mean exponential growth, quickly outpacing @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ intelligence. While many are hopeful for the near future, some people are worried that this will be the end of the world, and the creation of a new AI, more intelligent than anything ever seen before, has caused some serious concern.
Validity: Nation is incredibly high in scientific advancement; Nation is incredibly high in intelligence; Nation has AI

Option 1: "Isn't this exciting?" asks Professor @@RANDOMNAME@@, walking @@HIS@@ robotic puppy into your office. "AI has become so refined that artificial citizens are not too different from us! That said... it does come at a price. We must tread slowly, or risk all of our advances being destroyed. We have to set strict regulations for the rate at which we create super intelligent AI, and make sure that they are kind towards their fellow carbon-based lifeforms - heck, maybe even kinder than us."
[effect] newborn AI seems to be creepily kind to everyone

Option 2: "What you call 'exciting', I call horrifying," says Dr. @@RANDOMNAME_1@@, a pessimistic and oddly technophobic scientist. "Creating AI more intelligent than us will literally be the end for humanity. We have to put an end to creating smarter AI, and end it now. If we don't, I guarantee you that @@NAME@@ will be no more. Now, so long, and thanks for the conversation."
[effect] artificial life is doomed to remain relatively narrow-minded

Option 3: "I think you are overreacting, friend," says @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@, the latest advancement in AI technology, as @@HE@@ gently pats the doctor on @@HIS_1@@ back. "Even if the 1.5% chance we turn on humans commences, you will still be creating life even more evolved than yourselves. Yes, you run the risk of destroying your nation... but you also have the chance to make something better. Think of the puzzles we could solve - the answers to life, the universe... everything! Is that not worth the risk, and putting more funds into information technology to make it happen?"
[effect] the latest killer super-AI's answer to everything seems to be destruction and "42"

[USS Monitor]

I think "A Singular Problem" is a better title than "Everything," but I would like the desc better without the explicit reference to technological singularity. Technological singularity is not just having an AI that's smarter than a human. It's having a rate of technological progress that is incomprehensible to humans. These are not the same thing. If I meet someone who is smarter than me, that doesn't mean they or the stuff they design are incomprehensible. It just means they might do stuff that leaves me going, "Wow, I wish I thought of that!" I don't meet a lot of people that I think are smarter than me, but I have met a few, and I can still understand what they are doing and what they are talking about, even if it's better than what I could do myself. An AI could be smarter than the smartest humans, but still comprehensible, the same way that an unusually gifted person is compared to normal people. Having a less direct reference to technological singularity in the title wouldn't bother me, since you are writing about something with the potential to cause a singularity.

The overall writing quality is pretty good, though.

[Jutsa]

Huh... yeah, good point. I'll try to work that in a little bit.

Think that the new AI should be considered about as intelligent as the smartest human, since it's for these really advanced-intelligence nations anyways?

Also, yeah, I'll change the description after I know for sure. Many thanks.

[Jutsa]

Updated. Think it's any better?

[He Qixin 2]

I think I have a few more title suggestions for you:

1. "A Technological Crisis"

2. "Everything Gonna Be Under Control"

3. "Stop that robot!"

4. "The End Of Technology For Humans?"

5. "Oh Please No AI!"

[Australian rePublic]

Option 3-AIs have gender?

[He Qixin]

Deep Thought, an AI in real life, read the 42 in binary and then backwards, which forms the number 52. You might want to include that in your third fallout.

[Jutsa]

I think I have a few more title suggestions for you:

I actually really liked "The End of Technology" so I chose that.

Then I thought "Wait... 'About Our Last Invention..." would be very appropriate.

Ah, rats, there are just so many good title names, so I'm creating a poll for the best one.

Option 3-AIs have gender?

I did that because some people might prefer calling them a he/she,
but you raise a good point, so I just removed any pronoun that could be there.

Deep Thought, an AI in real life, read the 42 in binary and then backwards, which forms the number 52. You might want to include that in your third fallout.

Naeh... I don't want to make the reference that obscure or have an over-bloated effect line.
Unless 52's a reference to planetary annihilation.

[Yetiglanchi Baby]

Can we suggest completely different titles?

All About Eve 2.0
In The Garden Of Ones And Zeros
Transcendence For Dummies
I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords
One Singular Sensation, Every Little Step We Take

[Jutsa]

Aw man you guys stop bringing in all these awesome titles.

Edit: Cut the last one sine I preferred the others and didn't have room.

[Jutsa]

Note to self: I accidentally voted even though I don't want to. Discount one vote from the bottom option, future me.

[Fauxia]

Is the option about garden of 1s and 0s a reference to something or is it just Binary stuff

[Jutsa]

Cross between binary and Garden of Eden.

[He Qixin]

Another one:

"Binary Or Bi-NO-ry?"

[Jutsa]

Naeh, we've already got a(n, imo, promising) draft in with a similar name.

[Jutsa]

Bump! The vote is clear that even deducting my accidental vote, the bottom option has a majority. Many thanks.

As always, more comments are welcome~
(also you can still vote in the thing above but I'm mostly leaving that up there because I'm not 100% sure how to get rid of it)

[Jutsa]

Naeh, we've already got a(n, imo, promising) draft in with a similar name.

Ftr I realize I was very wrong about this and the person just takes their time writing.

Bump~ "You going to do this every day?" more-or-less, yeah. First time I think a draft of mine was put on the fourth page in only a week.

Edit: Wow, I forgot to change the title in the draft itself.

Edit2: Think I should give the last speaker a slightly creepy laugh at the end just to really make the player think about that decision,
or would that be a bit much?

Edit4(3 was a hotfix): Or, at least make you think you may have heard something like that?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I like the idea about attitudes to singularity. However, I think there may be some problems to the premise.

Title: I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords
The Issue: A new AI was created, yesterday - an AI so smart that it could rival humans.

This falls outside the boundaries of where we're willing to take AIs in NS. While the game can ask questions raised by transhumanism, we should never be in a place where it feels like absolute science fiction.

The general rule with AI is that they are never proven to be sentient, and that that things could be read as AI being no more advanced than they are today (or at most "five minutes in the future"). While machine learning has come a long way recently, we're no-where near technological singularity.

Also, the phrase "so smart it could rival humans" is meaningless as a piece of news. RL computers are already much smarter than humans in many, many ways (recall, speed of calculation, data comparison, and so on) and much dumber in many other ways. Ask a computer and a human what 17.5 cubed is, and the human is super-dumb. Ask a computer and a human to name a dog, and the computer will just employ a randomiser or a trend-searcher, whereas a human will think about the dog, and life, and the person asking, and a whole bunch of other things, then come up with an idea. Maybe. You can't present a sentence like the one you have without specifying exactly what you mean by it.

The accomplishment has raised the question of how long it'll be until a technological singularity (a point where an AI can modify itself so rapidly that its technological growth explodes beyond comprehension) takes place - and whether this'll spell a utopia or complete destruction for @@NAME@@.

In other words, it remains an abstract conversation, not an actual issue.

An issue needs to have something happening now.

I'd suggest taking out mention of technological singularity from the opening, and instead have the news be some sort of impressive feat of AI. For example, in a nation with AI personhood, have a national chess tournament see the final 16 be composed entirely of AIs. Then have a human chess player going on about technological singularity, and humanity becoming obsolete, and suggesting we need to legislate to stop AI development. Then have an ethicist programming an intrinsic moral code to AIs that will always value humanity first (laws of robotics, basically) and maybe will "let human chess players win", and then have an AI pointing out that there is no inherent value to human minds, just to the perpetuation of mind in general. That's the same three options you've got, in other words, but set off by a specific event and framed around that event.

Frame it around a specific story, and the whole narrative will come together more tightly.

[Yetiglanchi Baby]

Maybe it could revolve around the robot doing something other than chess. AI being great at something like chess makes sense given how much of it is logic. Something artistic maybe like a painting or a symphony or writing. I think that would pique a more interesting dilemma than chess.

[Jutsa]

II like the idea of a chess-playing super-AI (which exists) or making music (which exists), but I think it drifts too far from the core of my premise,
which is supposed to be about what happens if incredibly intelligent AI were to turn on us.

That said, I totally agree with you about how the issue is presented, atm.
I wondered if maybe a more suitable concept would be a bot that is able to edit its own code(I know programs can do that),
and that results in some sort of... rather disasterous consequence?

The fact of the matter is that AI is already more intelligent than us narrowly in many fields, as weak AI,
although I believe by "as smart as humans" I was referring to strong AI - or being able to complexly think broadly,
but now I'm wondering if perhaps even that isn't quite right for this issue. What do you think about the idea above?

This falls outside the boundaries of where we're willing to take AIs in NS. While the game can ask questions raised by transhumanism, we should never be in a place where it feels like absolute science fiction.

Aside from VAT?

The thing is that it's hypothesized to happen fairly soon (~20-30 years: admittedly it could not happen, but it seems rather unlikely at this point),
hence why I really wanted to write an issue about it. I agree that post-singularity is way too "out-there" for NS,
but I don't think an issue cautioning about something that is very much a real concern today is.
(especially if you take a look at some irl examples: Alexa's recent behavior [hence the laughing I thought about tossing in],
Sophia [who is officially an AI citizen], that one edgy radical Facebook teenager AI thing, etc.)

So, tell me what you think about the premise idea. I also know I need to add some more humor to this, so I'll work on that with the premise.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

For sure, AIs pretty much all edit their own code these days. That's more or less how machine learning works.

Maybe something about machine learning and it being used in the context of the military? Could fit in Skynet references that way...

[Jutsa]

I'm not familiar with Skynet, but this draft could use a couple more references and I very much like that direction.

I'll next bump this when I'm all done fixing things up - and looking up Skynet. Many thanks, CWA.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Skynet are the bad guys in the Terminator films. Realised I forgot to say that.

[Jutsa]

Ah lol... that'll be a good thing to reference for sure, even though I've never watched those myself.

[Jutsa]

Well, long time no update, huh? Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this.

I couldn't really find a way to add terminator references... sorry.

Humor's definitely something I had trouble with given all the other text I really wanted to put in,
so I'm more than welcome to anyone suggesting a way to fit some in or trim some other stuff down.

The premise now doesn't deal with the singularity so much as AI turning on humans in general, now, by the way,
and due to its military nature, I decided to add an option 2 before old option 2, so narrative's also been changed a bit.

Is this any better?
Edit: also I'm aware of how ridiculous the description is, let me know if it's too much.