The Computers/Cyberpunk 'Problem' in Traveller.
- Thread starter Ref00000
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Not quite. He said that robotic intelligences were not protected beings as they were not lifeforms. Presumably this meant that the Imperium wasn't compelled to consider the treatment of robots as property as chattel slavery (which is one of the few things that would have mandated Imperial intervention).
Not that easy, I think. As long as you have an organic brain there is a very good argument for considering you a lifeform.
I think that prior to the Rebellion, the Imperium allowed member worlds to discriminate against cyborgs but not to treat them as property. That Margaret allowed such treatment is not proof that the Imperium did.
Hans
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Considering that many of those with artificial parts will be ex-military and/or individuals with the means to afford them - and therefore the wealth and influence to combat prejudice - pressing the idea of discrimination against them is going to be difficult. You're going to get pushback, and given the centuries that this culture's been dealing with technology, that shoving match would have settled itself into some reasonable equilibrium long, long ago. Either cybernetics are generally accepted, or they just aren't being used and medical science would have focused on organic alternatives instead.
By TL12, we're supposedly capable of cloning body parts, so there's no reason to expect artificial parts afterward unless they're both needed and welcome, not unless you're on the one hand discriminating against people who have them while on the other forcing people to have them. Only time you're likely to see something out of the ordinary is when someone comes from or goes to a world with lower tech, where they're still wrestling with the issue.
By TL12, we're supposedly capable of cloning body parts, so there's no reason to expect artificial parts afterward unless they're both needed and welcome, not unless you're on the one hand discriminating against people who have them while on the other forcing people to have them. Only time you're likely to see something out of the ordinary is when someone comes from or goes to a world with lower tech, where they're still wrestling with the issue.
Lycanorukke
SOC-13
Unless you put a pretty bow on it and then the Imperium didn't mind. "Oh its not slavery...it's ...um...a service contract. See, they signed here".
There was a blurb in survival margin about that - by making the distinction between a sentient robot and a sentient organic the end result boiled down to "A protected being is whatever the emperor decides one to be at the time".
Until you get organic computers, or a computer with organic bits plugged into the silicon (we do that today with rat neurons).
Or a person with computer bits replacing damaged parts of his brain.
Just because there may be problems defining a precise dividing line doesn't mean that there isn't one and that it isn't pretty easy to sort 99% of all cases without getting anywhere near that dividing line. The legal theory that defines someone with a 100% organic brain and a 75% organic body as a non-lifeform seems utterly fallacious to me.
Hans
"Ah, yes, dyslexia implant is it?"
"Please step into this booth with Officer Smith-Jones will you, while we accertain which model that is. Ono-Sendia CDT-6a, or is that Naasirka DLC-500X?"
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Holy Space Cows!
In all seriousness I agree with him on this and the question of why is there Imperial level legislation against non-organics.
I do believe that Hans and I are again in agreement. Yep, the End is Nigh, Repent Sinners!
In all seriousness I agree with him on this and the question of why is there Imperial level legislation against non-organics.
From my understanding of Ghost in the Shell, a cyber brain was non-organic and your memories, emotions, personality, etc. could be copied into it.
But there were problems. Brain deterioation. Each time you mind was copied to a new body, there was a loss of detail. Kind of like copying a video tape, then taking a copy and making of copy of it. There was also a disease that attacked cyber brains.
In Heinlein's stories about the Howard Families, 'Time Enough for Love', several of the artificially intelligent computers elect to become biological and have organic kids.
The story presented them as silicon persons while still in computer form. Their rights depended on the planet they went to.
But there were problems. Brain deterioation. Each time you mind was copied to a new body, there was a loss of detail. Kind of like copying a video tape, then taking a copy and making of copy of it. There was also a disease that attacked cyber brains.
In Heinlein's stories about the Howard Families, 'Time Enough for Love', several of the artificially intelligent computers elect to become biological and have organic kids.
The story presented them as silicon persons while still in computer form. Their rights depended on the planet they went to.
I know as I have all 3 movies and all eps for GitS 1 and 2. Best sf since Forbidden Planet.
I don't typically watch 'near future' stuff because the director et all get it wrong by using 1950s tech and pretending its future stuff. I saw Episode 1 of season 1 and was hooked.
I've only heard about the prequels.
The movies and the anime episodes are a parallel, but different, time track.
The second season of the Anime episodes gives one reason why she is cyberized. How Saito became part of the team, etc. Evidently they decided to tell how the various memebers got involved.
It was interesting reading the English translation of the Manga. And seeing what parts they pulled what episodes out of what part of it. Some sequencing differences, and certain people not in the eps.
I think/hope this is an allowed comment based on nothing "political" post-WWII - my apologies if it isn't - but given the sometimes bizarre laws around "blood quantum" percentages for membership in Native American tribes, and other similar issues around "race" I don't think that it is that much of a stretch.
All it needs is a semi-plausible (for the time) scientific theory (or, frankly political will wrapped around junk science) to be based on and it could have simply survived and become "fact" aka "one a certain level of neurological replacement has occurred the subject can be proven to not meet the parameters for human intellectual functioning, emotional response, etc. ipso facto the subject is not human. This can clearly be measured by the use of the Voight-Kampff machine and testing process. Similarly, we can prove that intelligence and self-awareness is not dependent on biological processes as demonstrated through Turing tests of artificially intelligent computers."
Blah, blah, blah...
D.
It is strange. Some of my ancestors are Native Americans. Inheritance depends on the Bureau of Indian Affairs and what the tribe decides. It varies widely as you say. I did some checking and I basically have to document back to 1850-1870 and show the exact lineage all the way back to then. Some tribes accept down to one-sixty-fourth ancestry. Some only accept down to one-sixteenth.
As far as proving a silicon person is silicon and not a carbon person... from various stories, it could be difficult. It would depend on what kind of brains the robots were given. If the robot brain was below the number of synapses capable than the human mind, tests could likely be created to confirm robot or human.
One of the documentaries on robots I have watched stated that within the next 100 years, real world computers could become self-aware.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I am reminded of the recent historical film concerning a native born yankee citizen being kidnapped and sold as a slave, but still in the same federal country. He was no longer considered "human" because of the colour of his skin, let alone the presence of machine replacement parts.
It occurs to me that individual worlds within the Imperium or even whole duchies may have laws that decree cyborgs as property, and heaven help the poor traveller with cybernetic replacement parts who steps across the starport line.
It occurs to me that individual worlds within the Imperium or even whole duchies may have laws that decree cyborgs as property, and heaven help the poor traveller with cybernetic replacement parts who steps across the starport line.
Unlikely. First, you deal with the "no slavery" issue of Imperial law. There are ways to skirt that, but you can't out-and-out flout it without attracting Imperial attention.
Second, if there are cultural pressures that consider a person who accepts an implant to have lost his "personhood," (as there might, it could be a religious thing*) then there's no incentive to accept implants and heavy cultural incentives to avoid them. In that case, without some compelling reason, the medical community simply would not have them. Unless those worlds also had laws that compelled people to accept cybernetic implants for some reason, there'd be no cyborgs and therefore no pressure to make law declaring cyborgs as property.
Where you might see something like that is on a balkanized world where nations with different cultures are promulgating different laws, where one nation accepts them but another does not and passes laws to discriminate against those who embrace the "foreign" ways. Where a world has uniform laws, the issue would be handled at Starport customs as one tried to leave the extrality zone and enter the local jurisdiction: "Your kind aren't allowed here."
On the "compelling people" side of things, one option might be a world that disdained implants but had an existing oppressed class that it compelled to accept cybernetic prosthetics, say to make them better suited for some work task. In that case, possessing cybernetics would mark you as a member of the oppressed class as surely as if you had black skin and found yourself in the South of the 1930's.
Or, where cybernetic implants and lengthy indentures are a punishment for criminal behavior (which incidentally offers a nifty means of controlling the convict worker as well as making him a more effective worker), people would tend to see you as an ex-criminal.
Finally, on oppressive worlds, people might lose their freedom as a result of debt and be compelled into an indentured worker class, then compelled to accept cybernetics to be more effective workers. Or, those without means for medical care might be offered cybernetics to save their lives or restore their abilities in exchange for the surrender of their freedom. In either case, and presupposing some existing strong prejudice against cybernetics, someone who came to the world wearing cybernetics would tend to be viewed as one of the indentured class. If your social wasn't high enough to imply some sort of Imperial consequence to the act, you might actually find yourself pressed into the indentured class by some unscrupulous fellow, with the authorities not caring a whit. Even if it were high enough, people are likely to give you as little respect and deference as they can possibly get away with.
*I am reminded of a Babylon-5 episode in which a true-believer family believed that surgery allowed your soul to escape the body.
I don't think that would be sufficient. Or perhaps I should say that no such theory would be considered valid.
Slavery was a hot button topic in the early days of the Imperium and seems to have continued to be a hot-button topic up through history. The excuse that the enslaved group was not really human must have been one that the Imperium encountered over and over again and it would be like waving a red cape in front of a bull.
IIRC Cleon I used the term 'sentient lifeform' as the criterion for being a protected being1. Now, at the time there must have been solid scientific evidence for robots not being sentient. It would have been TL12 robots at best, and according to authorial voice true sentience don't appear until TL16. At best TL12 robots are able to fool some of the people. And yet, Cleon chose to base his rejection of protected being status for robots on them not being lifeforms.
1 Anybody remember where? I've been trying to locate the reference but failed. The Warrant of Restoration uses ' living recognized sentient creature'.
I submit that in order to treat a cyborg as property without getting the Imperium all hot and bothered about the slavery issue, you would have to PROVE that they were not lifeforms (which is, of course, impossible to prove) because proving that they were not sentient would be a non-starter due to the history of it being a classic ploy of slave-owners through the history of the Imperium.
As for getting the Imperium itself to legislate about lifeforms not counting as lifeforms, I just don't believe it.
Hans
I just remember the Little Fuzzy stories by H. Beam Piper. The characrters used 'makes fire' as one of the criteria for declaring a species found on a new planet as sentient. But the Fuzzies didn't use fire. A corporation, with license to exploit the planet, decided they would make good fur coats.
I realize cyborgs wouldn't be asked to build a fire to show sentience.
The definition in those stories seemed to be a setup, but from books I have read, humanity has used a list of 'if they meet this then they are sapient' reasons that have been used in the past.
I realize cyborgs wouldn't be asked to build a fire to show sentience.
The definition in those stories seemed to be a setup, but from books I have read, humanity has used a list of 'if they meet this then they are sapient' reasons that have been used in the past.
