I am an author writing a book, a completion of stories, and on one I am writing about an AI that has been driven insane by Thousands of years alone (50,000 to 45,000 years)
and after it host family was killed by the most dangerous virus ever released into the Dione megaplex.
Since I am writing sci-fi it is alright for me to curve science a little bit (I hate doing it) but it got me thinking, could an AI trapped in the lonely of depths of Dione, and with the ability to rewrite it programming (like a human mind), be driven mad?
I think so, if the AI was as human as possible with the an accurate working of the human mind. But still I am not sure, opinions please?
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Well the AI (Fa-Jell) does blame itself, it also has been calling for help for a few months time via a communication relay with just enough power to reach half way to Jupiter (which it did not know) (Cassini did not pick up the signals because Fa-Jell thought it was an enemy probe). Fa-Jell`s chip is cooled by radiators, its chip exists in the airless void of space. The chips cannot erode, the technology that made it is so advanced that its majority works off quantum mechanics, and will last for millions of years. Fa-Jell does not malfunction as one would guess for instance it knows it family is dead but Fa-Jell denies it, it does not allow itself to acknowledge it because of the pain, also it is very paranoid and now has a fear of being alone (once the teams found him this began) because of being alone for tens of thousands of years. The AI has long figured that all of humanity was dead, all but his loving family (he even talked to the skeletons, and denied that his owner [ which he calls father] is still alive on Enceladus).
This actually makes me sad for... him?
(I thought naming the AI was a nice touch)
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It has become evident we need a clear universal definition of insanity and mental illness to answer if insanity is only human. I propose insanity is when a mind breaks down and becomes disjointed and confuses wants, imagination and one`s perception with reality.
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Full Version: Is Insanity purly human?
Unexplained Mysteries Discussion Forums > Unexplained Mysteries > Metaphysics, Psychology & Psychic Phenomena
If an AI was implanted with human emotions to the extent of the ability for its mind to be unstable. Thus, if it lost its family, it would become depressed, most likely blame itself, and eventually let the chip which let it feel emotions start to erode. It also depends on your point of view. Insanity is a general popular and legal term defining behaviour influenced by mental instability. So I am guessing the equivalent to Insanity to a robot would be a malfunctioning processing chip. I would find it probable.
Stuffed this one up and had to leave before I could correct it. Sounds like a workable story, but you would need to explore the connection betweeen the ai and its host family, to show why it could have developed such a strong connection that grief made it go insane. A lot would depend of the nature of self awareness which the ai had developed. You seem to be assuming that it would develop an organic based style self awareness but given its nature and creation this might not be the case.
QUOTE (Drayno @ Jan 19 2008, 02:37 AM) 
If an AI was implanted with human emotions to the extent of the ability for its mind to be unstable. Thus, if it lost its family, it would become depressed, most likely blame itself, and eventually let the chip which let it feel emotions start to erode. It also depends on your point of view. Insanity is a general popular and legal term defining behaviour influenced by mental instability. So I am guessing the equivalent to Insanity to a robot would be a malfunctioning processing chip. I would find it probable.
The AI is built into the building, it is not a robot per say.
By the way how could I make it seem more human?
QUOTE (Mr Walker @ Jan 19 2008, 04:34 AM)
It depends on your definition of insanity. I would think that any self aware consciousness, be it organic or mechanical, is not just capable of insanity, but in fact has some predisposition towards insanity, under a number of conditions.
I would find it interesting if you expalined in your book why the ai was considered insane, and what circumstances had led it to become insane.
In organic intelligences two causes can be; a physical breakdown of the organism, or experiencing conditions which cause a dichotomy between beliefs and reality.
The same causes could be true for the ai. Either a mechanical flaw or defect, or experiencing something which conflicted with its inner sense of rationality and prior experience. Asimov explored this often, with his three laws of robotics. He postulated that if conditions should arise where two prime commands//conditions of the ai should come into irresolvable conflict, this might drive an ai "insane".
I wonder if combat ai's could suffer the equivalent of post traumatic stress.
I would find it interesting if you expalined in your book why the ai was considered insane, and what circumstances had led it to become insane.
In organic intelligences two causes can be; a physical breakdown of the organism, or experiencing conditions which cause a dichotomy between beliefs and reality.
The same causes could be true for the ai. Either a mechanical flaw or defect, or experiencing something which conflicted with its inner sense of rationality and prior experience. Asimov explored this often, with his three laws of robotics. He postulated that if conditions should arise where two prime commands//conditions of the ai should come into irresolvable conflict, this might drive an ai "insane".
I wonder if combat ai's could suffer the equivalent of post traumatic stress.
The AI, Fa-Jell, can alter it programming which is basically part of its mind.
Their is a conversation in the book that talks if it is even possible for an AI to go insane/mad. Fa-Jell has a kind of side short story.
Since true mental illness in humans is a result of chemical imbalance or 'faulty wiring,' I see no impediment to a robot or AI becoming insane. All he would need is some sort of fault in processing.
QUOTE (Mr Walker @ Jan 19 2008, 04:34 AM)
Stuffed this one up and had to leave before I could correct it. Sounds like a workable story, but you would need to explore the connection betweeen the ai and its host family, to show why it could have developed such a strong connection that grief made it go insane. A lot would depend of the nature of self awareness which the ai had developed. You seem to be assuming that it would develop an organic based style self awareness but given its nature and creation this might not be the case.
Thank you but to be part of a family the AIs were made to be as human as possible and to fit into families, Fa-jell later reveals this in his ramblings to Veldina (main character)
The story is not purely about Fa-Jell (please call the AI, Fa-Jell, he is essentially a person worthy of a name). The family AI is and was part of the family, and a poorly defined member of the family (which suggests that their were AIs made for being part of a families, but never specialized for individuals [the ones that created them found specialization of a mind un-ethical]). The AI experiences what is believed to be love (but know one can be 100% sure). The family AIs were part maid, part child, part adviser, part parent, how to include this I do not know.
Is this going to be helpful in defining Fa-Jell as a person and explain, well, his insanity?
(Fa-Jell is an important character in the story. The story is about the team finding humanity`s true lost history [ this is ware Fa-Jell becomes important ], a deadly virus, and hints at an ancient alien race mystery. To say the least the entire book/story is stuffed and complicated)
This reminds me of a movie with Robin Williams.
I think animals can get it to...Mad Cows Disease/Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) comes to mind (?)
Sounds like you have a well thought through character development. You might notice that in the first post I wrote I did not read your whole post carefully enough as you did indeed explain the emotional cause which may have caused the insanity. I had to leave the keyboard for a while and you obviously noted the post before I could delete it. Yes I would think it critical to background the nature of Fa-Jell and its purpose, as part of making its "insanity' more credible. By the way I think the fact that you have personified the ai to the point where you politely ask us to refer to it by name bodes well for your writing.
The name it self is interesting. Names always grow from the culture they come from. Is this an example of the language the people speak, a descriptive or technical reference to the nature of the ai, or is it a name with significance in the culture it comes from. It would be interesting as an aside in your novel to explain both how Fa-Jell was named, and what its name signifies. For example "faithful servant" has different connotations to "big red box," or even "giver of knowledge to children" You could, by having Fa jell explain his name to those who find him, explore his nature and purpose in the society where he was created.
As an aside,from a person who has averaged reading over one novel a day, for the last 50 years, with about 40% of that science fiction, you might need to look at the structure and complexity of your plotting. Some excellent authors do get away with extremely detailed and complex plots, but often the best novels (from a reader's perspective) are those where the author keeps his plot quite simple but xoncentrates on the quality of the characters. and the relationships between them. Empathy for, and enjoyment of, a nove'ls characters are as least as important as complex plotting. Allen dean foster's series about pip and flinx, illustrates this point, whereas someone like ian hamilton can lose me with the sheer complexity of his plotting.
Each to his own, of course, but the authors/stories I will remember for ever, from heinlein and asimov to brin, foster and weiss/hickman, or louis lamour and dozens of writers from other genres with characters like lincoln rhyme or jack reacher have the ability to make you really feel for ( and with) their characters, along with good, smooth moving plot development. I still laugh and cry at the memories of tasselhoff burrfoot and flint fireforge 25years or so after reading their story for the first time. (I may have got the names a bit wrong, but then I can't remember the names of most real people I met for a similar period of time 25 years ago,)
The name it self is interesting. Names always grow from the culture they come from. Is this an example of the language the people speak, a descriptive or technical reference to the nature of the ai, or is it a name with significance in the culture it comes from. It would be interesting as an aside in your novel to explain both how Fa-Jell was named, and what its name signifies. For example "faithful servant" has different connotations to "big red box," or even "giver of knowledge to children" You could, by having Fa jell explain his name to those who find him, explore his nature and purpose in the society where he was created.
As an aside,from a person who has averaged reading over one novel a day, for the last 50 years, with about 40% of that science fiction, you might need to look at the structure and complexity of your plotting. Some excellent authors do get away with extremely detailed and complex plots, but often the best novels (from a reader's perspective) are those where the author keeps his plot quite simple but xoncentrates on the quality of the characters. and the relationships between them. Empathy for, and enjoyment of, a nove'ls characters are as least as important as complex plotting. Allen dean foster's series about pip and flinx, illustrates this point, whereas someone like ian hamilton can lose me with the sheer complexity of his plotting.
Each to his own, of course, but the authors/stories I will remember for ever, from heinlein and asimov to brin, foster and weiss/hickman, or louis lamour and dozens of writers from other genres with characters like lincoln rhyme or jack reacher have the ability to make you really feel for ( and with) their characters, along with good, smooth moving plot development. I still laugh and cry at the memories of tasselhoff burrfoot and flint fireforge 25years or so after reading their story for the first time. (I may have got the names a bit wrong, but then I can't remember the names of most real people I met for a similar period of time 25 years ago,)
There is sci-fi precedent for artificial insanity.
In 2010, the sequel to 2001, A Space Odyssey, it is revealed that HAL, the artificially intelligent computer who ran the space ship, went insane. The problem was the conflict between his general instructions to tell the truth and cooperate with his human shipmates, and a special instruction for that final and fatal mission, to withhold information from them and lie to them.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/
In real life, AI researchers have programmed computers to simulate insanity. An early example is RACTER, who was developed to interact with ELIZA, an early natural language program (some knock-offs of ELIZA are called DOCTOR).
That actually was an early real-life AI strategy, based on a capability of the programming language LISP, which treated programs and data just the same.
As it turned out, though, the AI community came to accept the counsel of the software engineering community that programs are hard enough to write, debug, and maintain when they have a fixed text. That does not rule out the strategy, but it does make such projects difficult to fund in the current environment.
Hope that is of some interest. Good luck with your story.
In 2010, the sequel to 2001, A Space Odyssey, it is revealed that HAL, the artificially intelligent computer who ran the space ship, went insane. The problem was the conflict between his general instructions to tell the truth and cooperate with his human shipmates, and a special instruction for that final and fatal mission, to withhold information from them and lie to them.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/
In real life, AI researchers have programmed computers to simulate insanity. An early example is RACTER, who was developed to interact with ELIZA, an early natural language program (some knock-offs of ELIZA are called DOCTOR).
QUOTE
The AI, Fa-Jell, can alter it programming which is basically part of its mind.
That actually was an early real-life AI strategy, based on a capability of the programming language LISP, which treated programs and data just the same.
As it turned out, though, the AI community came to accept the counsel of the software engineering community that programs are hard enough to write, debug, and maintain when they have a fixed text. That does not rule out the strategy, but it does make such projects difficult to fund in the current environment.
Hope that is of some interest. Good luck with your story.
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