- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
In page 235-236 in the book, The Fall of Reach there is some evidence that everyone can look to quickly and decide for themselves whether Cortana could "die" or not ''die''.
p. 235-236 The Fall of Reach
Cortana reminded Dr. Halsey of herself when she had been an adolescent: smarter than her parents, always reading, talking, learning, and eager to share her knowledge with anyone who would listen.
Of course, there was a very good reason why Cortana reminded dr. Halsey of herself.
Cortana was a "smart" AI, an advanced articficial construct. Actually, the terms smart and dumb as applied to AIs, were misleading; all AIs were extraordinarily intelligent. But Cortana was special.
So-called dumb AIs were engineered to function only were misleading; within set limits of their dynamic memory-processing matrix. They were brilliant within their fields of expertise, but were lacking in "creativity." Deja, for example, was a "dumb" AI--incredibly useful, but limited.
Smart AIs like Cortana, however, had no limits on their dynamic memory-processor matrix. Knowledge and creativity could grow unchecked.
She would pay a price for her genius, however. Such growth eventually led to self-interferance. Cortana would one day literally start thinking too much at the expense of her normal functions. It was as if a human were to think with so much of his brain that he stopped sending impulses t his heart and lungs.
Like all the other smart AIs that Dr. Halsey had worked with over the years, Cortana would effectively "die" after an operational life of seven years.
But Cortana's mind was unique among all the other AIs Dr. Halsey had encountered. An AIs matrix was created by sneding electrical bursts through the neural pathways of a human brain. Those pathways were then replicated in a superconducting nano-assemblage. The technique destroyed the original human tissue, so they could only be obtained from a suitable candidate that had already died. Cortana, however, had to have the best mind available. The success of her mission and the lives of the Spartans would depend on it.
At Dr. Halsey's insistence, ONI had arranged to have her own brain carefully cloned and her memories flash-transferred to the receptacle organs. Only one of the twenty cloned brains survived the process. Cortana had literally sprung from Dr. Halsey's mind, like Athena from the head of Zeus.
So, in a way, Cortana was Dr. Halsey.
But remember that Cortana was inside of Installation 04's database for hours before Chief got her back, she could have learned many techniques on how to extend her life. And I remeber an earlier poster saying that AI CANNOT live more that seven years....Hmmm, who is really annoying and floats around and has been around for 100,000 years, oh wait, I remember now, The Monitors ( Guilty Spark, and Pentient Tangent), of the Halos....So think before you state things as fact, and keep your mind open to possibilities.
[Edited on 5/17/2006]