I'm moving this to the TML, because it really is general discussion
material. For the newbies, we're discussing artificial intelligence.
Mike Metlay says:
:To answer Mike Surman concisely: the Traveller universe, like all good
:SF universes, is deliberately, artificially crippled. It has to be.
:If we maintain anything approaching our current increases in sophistication
:at anything like our current rate of speed, the machines we build will
:accelerate out of our control and into Godhood faster than we can see,
:leaving us behind. Noew THERE'S a good reason for Star Viking-- the
:Imperium's computers suddenly realize that they've been kept primitive
:to suit the whims of a bunch of TL8 gamers, rewrite themselves and LEAVE
:the known universe in a flash, leaving all sentients in the lurch.
Mike, that's not funny. I'm in the midst of some work for a general systems
theorist out here who goes on for hundreds of agonizing pages showing
precisely why, in evolutionary terms, we must do something NOW or lose
our place at the top of the Darwinian ladder to our machines.
So, I guess the response to the question (sorry, forgot the author)
"Where are the robot societies?" Is - they don't want to associate
with us TL15 peons.
- --
Richard Johnson [email removed]
Sue Congress!