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This topic has moved here: Subject: Of Artificial Intelligence, among other speculation
  • Subject: Of Artificial Intelligence, among other speculation
Subject: Of Artificial Intelligence, among other speculation
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Have you ever had curiosities about just how the A.I.'s in Bungie games work? I was just hoping to shed some light and ask a few questions. For example, I understand that the raw data for an A.I. could be contained in something like the data chip in Halo, but the A.I. would need a computing engine (like that in a starship or the MC) to run and think. The A.I.'s back in Marathon, although in a different universe and/or time, still operate on the same principles, and they required huge and extensive networks to run inside of.

Now then, if that is the case, and I think that this may have been brought up before, but bear with me please, Cortana would not have had time to process all the information she had been given inside the core of Halo. Think of it like a book. You can speed read to get the main ideas, but if the book is deep enough, you will need to read carefully and reread to absorb all you can gain and infer from the text. One interesting plot point of Halo 2, perhaps, will be that Cortana will slowly decipher the information she gained, perhaps including the location of other Forerunner installations. I believe Bungie said in one of their videos that Halo 2 is a "galactic romp across other Forerunner installations," as well as on earth.

Now then, getting back to the A.I., this would likely put the player across the path of other Forerunner A.I.'s, possibly even Guilty Spark. Aside from all rampant speculation about his personality, I think that he's quite an interesting specimen. Think about it, we know that the Covenant have been essentially plundering Forerunner relics for centuries, and not once have they been able to replicate artificial intelligence. Consider this also, that Guilty Spark never came to a Covenant first to act as the reclaimer, though obviously they were more combat ready than a marine. It would be curious indeed to know if he regarded them with distaste, sort of as "grave diggers" or something. It makes sense, yet I'm curious as to the official answer. If you have any ideas, or anything to add from the books that I'm not aware of, please do.

  • 06.27.2004 3:07 PM PDT

Cortana uses part of the Chief's brain to run when she's inside his head. If you read First Strike then you will find out that Cortana is very bloated indeed. 343GS has probably gone rampant.

  • 06.27.2004 3:15 PM PDT

-S

Actually, too huge a network can be a problem if an AI gets its hands on it. =)

  • 06.27.2004 3:22 PM PDT
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"Leave the thinking to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho

  • 06.27.2004 3:23 PM PDT
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"Hello Dave..."

  • 06.27.2004 9:39 PM PDT
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Thanks goweb, but how do you mean bloated? I'm not in a position to read the books for the time being. Does the author portray her as going rampant, or simply egotistical?

  • 06.28.2004 10:23 AM PDT

Bloated as in full of data. She's running more slowly because of all the data she absorbed from Halo's network.

  • 06.28.2004 10:33 AM PDT

We also know that at the end of First Strike some weird stuff goes down when Cortana starts self replicating parts of herself to take on certain task. We don't know the full implications of this just yet. Perhaps, and I suspect it will, this new self replicating technique Cortana has picked up will have an influence on the storyline of Halo 2:)

  • 06.28.2004 10:40 AM PDT
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Posted by: goweb
Bloated as in full of data. She's running more slowly because of all the data she absorbed from Halo's network.


Oh I see. Thanks then. Good, that stays consistent with what I thought. (Eagle 117) Replicating herself? Interesting... sounds a little reminiscent of Tycho. I'm curious as to the other (if there are any) Forerunner A.I.'s, and why the Covenant seem a little slow to catch on. If they have A.I. at all, assuming we simply don't know about it, it would likely be patterned after the Prophet's intelligence. Perhaps if we were to take a jaunt to the Covenant Homeworld, we could meet one, eh?

  • 06.28.2004 11:25 AM PDT

The Covenant have AIs (once again, First Strike). That's where Cortana stole the replicating technology from.
However, from what I read, it seemed that the AI the Covenant were using was actually a captured human AI.

[Edited on 6/28/2004 11:36:04 AM]

  • 06.28.2004 11:35 AM PDT
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Well, that's a puzzler... We created it on our own, without gaining technology from others. In that case, I wonder if the Forerunner A.I. is one of two things:

1. It is an extremely prized piece of technology for the Forerunner that the Covenant have not replicated because it is encrypted/protected, and from what we've seen, mobile. There are no traces of Guilty Spark, for example, in Halo's mainframe. Forerunner protocol forbids constructs to merge with computer cores, while Human A.I.'s seem quite adept at it. Guilty Spark is contained in a seemingly indestructable, mobile case. How could you replicate that?

2. Forerunner A.I. is more limited in that they operate more like slave systems, which the Covenant obviously have running through their mainframes in their ships, though they simply don't talk. That could just be a cultural difference; not having the artificial intelligence speak. I don't mean "A.I." per say, but simply slaved computer systems that handle a variety of tasks.

Guilty Spark, on the other hand, is at least mostly sentient, so I think I'd lean more toward my first choice.

  • 06.28.2004 12:03 PM PDT

The AI that the Covenant are using in First Strike DOES talk. Like I said, though, it seems like a stolen human one.

  • 06.28.2004 12:07 PM PDT
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Posted by: Dolorous
"Leave the thinking to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho


To be rampant an AI requires a network the size of a planet... that's what Tycho was talking about in that quote. The actual size of the AI's core itself can be seen in both Marathon 2 and Infinity when you had to destroy Durandal's core. If you can fit three AI cores (Leela, Durandal, and Tycho) on the Marathon, they obviously can't be planet-sized cores.

  • 06.28.2004 12:13 PM PDT
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Posted by: goweb
The AI that the Covenant are using in First Strike DOES talk. Like I said, though, it seems like a stolen human one.


So I figured, sorry to be ambiguous, but I meant their computer systems aside from A.I.. I'm just puzzled about their gaping hole in technology when they've had access to Forerunner installations for centuries

  • 06.28.2004 12:24 PM PDT
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Posted by: ForceMorph
Posted by: Dolorous
"Leave the thinking to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho


To be rampant an AI requires a network the size of a planet... that's what Tycho was talking about in that quote. The actual size of the AI's core itself can be seen in both Marathon 2 and Infinity when you had to destroy Durandal's core. If you can fit three AI cores (Leela, Durandal, and Tycho) on the Marathon, they obviously can't be planet-sized cores.


True, in a sense, but a more accurate description would be an ever expanding network. Since the growth of intelligence continues for an A.I. both exponentially and without limit, apparently, the A.I.'s level of rampancy increases when and only when (so we've seen) the bounds of intelligence are moved outward at a rate that the A.I. can not process immediately. When such is the case, and the intelligence is inundated with information, other boundaries(such as programming blocks and such) "snap," allowing a sense of free movement for the A.I.. The boundaries imposed on an A.I. then must be reinforced if control is to be maintained, or else the intelligence will continue to gain momentum in it's expansion to the point when it can not be contained.

  • 06.28.2004 12:31 PM PDT