Ghost in the machine.
If one subscribes to the theory that the consciousness of Alt does not require the body of Alt, then she is more than a "digitized personality". We don't refer to people around us as "personalities". If classification of "body type" is necessary, then one has to consider the body-less, as Alt is, as well as those with bodies. The latter we have already broken down into terms for biological and non-biological. Properly, she is just a non-corporeal person.
If you subscribe to the theory that the mind cannot exist without the body, then it isn't Alt at all. Artificial Intelligence would be more appropriate, since there is actually no Alt. The "personality" that is observed is an artifact of the creation of the artificial intelligence.
Alt does not feel to me like a person. They feel more like a machine. This implies that Alt is dead and what we observe is nothing more than a complex artificial construct. Alt is an AI because the entity that we encounter is not the same Alt.
On the other hand, we have Johnny, who seems to be a person who "lives" on a fancy USB drive waiting to find a body to inhabit.
If one subscribes to the theory that the consciousness of Alt does not require the body of Alt, then she is more than a "digitized personality". We don't refer to people around us as "personalities". If classification of "body type" is necessary, then one has to consider the body-less, as Alt is, as well as those with bodies. The latter we have already broken down into terms for biological and non-biological. Properly, she is just a non-corporeal person.
If you subscribe to the theory that the mind cannot exist without the body, then it isn't Alt at all. Artificial Intelligence would be more appropriate, since there is actually no Alt. The "personality" that is observed is an artifact of the creation of the artificial intelligence.
Alt does not feel to me like a person. They feel more like a machine. This implies that Alt is dead and what we observe is nothing more than a complex artificial construct. Alt is an AI because the entity that we encounter is not the same Alt.
My interpretation of Alt is that this is not a single AI, but a collection of AIs working together to create an entity in the image of Alt.
On the other hand, we have Johnny, who seems to be a person who "lives" on a fancy USB drive waiting to find a body to inhabit.
I think she is a Human who after all these years in the Net developed the behaviour of a AI. She even tells us the longer we stay in the net the more it changes us and she has been trapped their for over 50 years.
Her Human part is in their somewere (even johnny believes so) and still fights for what she believes is moraly right and best for Humanity.
Especially if the theories about her being Dr Paradox are true. Even if its not she still shows human emotions. She even helps us the 1st time we meet her even tough she has a grudge against Johnny, she could have just as easily ignored us,killed us or left us trapped behind the Blackwall. Even in the end she could have trapped both V and Johnny yet she keeps her promise to the best of her ability.
Her Human part is in their somewere (even johnny believes so) and still fights for what she believes is moraly right and best for Humanity.
Especially if the theories about her being Dr Paradox are true. Even if its not she still shows human emotions. She even helps us the 1st time we meet her even tough she has a grudge against Johnny, she could have just as easily ignored us,killed us or left us trapped behind the Blackwall. Even in the end she could have trapped both V and Johnny yet she keeps her promise to the best of her ability.
The game doesn't really explain Alt good. I thought Alt was put in. And a rogue AI took over her Engram, erasing the human side. And just growing off her abilities and knowledge. Not her losing her humanity. How does that even make sense? Why does your humanity stay okay in the chip, but not the net. Johnny should have been an AI as well at that point. The net has some negative magic that just makes your human side go poof? This be a great way to "murder" people than. I thought Alt would be in semi heaven. Once out of Mikoshi. She could than terrorize Arasaka systems/world etc. before the firewall thing happened.
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I hope I can paste this. This is directly from Cyberpunk Red core rulebook (paper RPG), written by Mike Pondsmidth so it applies to the entire world of Cyberpunk, even move than the game's take on it.
Discussing the place of Artificial Intellects (AIs) in
the post-War period is...messy. Firstly, the War had
created or influenced multiple types of what Netwatch
called AIs as servants, slaves, or inadvertent victims.
And although humans in the meat world still tend
to lump them all together into one big ominous box
marked "AIs" the reality is that the various types of
machine intelligences all have their own factions and
goals.
1. Soulkilled Pseudo Intellects (SPI) are AIs that
were originally actual people but have had their
consciousness digitized and now exist only on
computers in the NET. The process is often not voluntary—
Soulkiller programs produce this type of AI.
Otherwise indistinguishable from Symbolic Analysis
AIs, these "ghosts" were created in huge numbers as
Arasaka put its infamous Soulkiller program to work
targeting enemies and rivals alike. The majority of
these SPIs have gathered in sanctuaries around
deserted mainframes and city systems abandoned
by Corporations or (as in the case of a number of
bio-plague attacked cities along the Asian Rim)
totally abandoned cities. Most of these "ghosts"
just want a safe place to live; rumor has it that Alt
Cunningham, the creator of Soulkiller and a digital
ghost herself, has created a number of "ghost towns"
in hidden places all over the remains of the Old
NET. They pretty much want to be left alone.
2. Critical Pathway Plateau (CPP) AIs are those
that come into existence by accident.
3. Transcendental Sentience (TS) AIs are emergent
AIs which were not programmed or created by
anyone, instead emerging from the creation of huge
operating systems that pervade an entire region of
the Old NET
Discussing the place of Artificial Intellects (AIs) in
the post-War period is...messy. Firstly, the War had
created or influenced multiple types of what Netwatch
called AIs as servants, slaves, or inadvertent victims.
And although humans in the meat world still tend
to lump them all together into one big ominous box
marked "AIs" the reality is that the various types of
machine intelligences all have their own factions and
goals.
1. Soulkilled Pseudo Intellects (SPI) are AIs that
were originally actual people but have had their
consciousness digitized and now exist only on
computers in the NET. The process is often not voluntary—
Soulkiller programs produce this type of AI.
Otherwise indistinguishable from Symbolic Analysis
AIs, these "ghosts" were created in huge numbers as
Arasaka put its infamous Soulkiller program to work
targeting enemies and rivals alike. The majority of
these SPIs have gathered in sanctuaries around
deserted mainframes and city systems abandoned
by Corporations or (as in the case of a number of
bio-plague attacked cities along the Asian Rim)
totally abandoned cities. Most of these "ghosts"
just want a safe place to live; rumor has it that Alt
Cunningham, the creator of Soulkiller and a digital
ghost herself, has created a number of "ghost towns"
in hidden places all over the remains of the Old
NET. They pretty much want to be left alone.
2. Critical Pathway Plateau (CPP) AIs are those
that come into existence by accident.
3. Transcendental Sentience (TS) AIs are emergent
AIs which were not programmed or created by
anyone, instead emerging from the creation of huge
operating systems that pervade an entire region of
the Old NET
if an AI is an artifical intelligence, she is an AI. an intellegience created by humans. She is however not the same type of AI as delamain.
You can think in layman's term. A sentient human being has a brain (hardware) that hosts its personality (software / "Natural Intelligence"). Soulkiller copy this software onto a different hardware (man made computer) and allows it to continue to operate through a sort of emulation of the original hardware.
But emulators are not 100% accurate. Emulators have glitches, have the necessity to use different peripherals and resources and, of course, what you copy is not a simple program, but a highly sophisticate, self learning, self modifying piece of code which is fully aware of what is happening.
The sole experience should be enough to cause madness, but what happens if a resourceful individual learns to dominate his new environment? Humans, after all, are master sat adapting to new environments. So the 'conscience' in the machine is neither human, nor artificial. The borrowed term of 'ghost' is very apt because it conveys the meaning of something is was, it is still, but is not the same.
But emulators are not 100% accurate. Emulators have glitches, have the necessity to use different peripherals and resources and, of course, what you copy is not a simple program, but a highly sophisticate, self learning, self modifying piece of code which is fully aware of what is happening.
The sole experience should be enough to cause madness, but what happens if a resourceful individual learns to dominate his new environment? Humans, after all, are master sat adapting to new environments. So the 'conscience' in the machine is neither human, nor artificial. The borrowed term of 'ghost' is very apt because it conveys the meaning of something is was, it is still, but is not the same.
Mold on fruit was the technical term he used, I believe.
so if I draw a picture of a fruit, its not artificial? because I copied it from real life?
"
adjective
- 1.
made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural.
yes there is a difference between a drawing I create from my mind, and a drawing with reference, but they are both artificial.
Software or any other form of intangible content is different: two copies of the same book contain the same writing therefore the idea within is the same, no matter who printed the book, the edition or the cover.
It's not possible to compare the an abstract idea, literature, music or software to physical goods
The mind is software running on the physical substrate of the organic brain. If you can emulate that physical substrate with sufficient fidelity in digital software running on a metal-and-silicon substrate, and transfer a digital image of the state of a particular brain to it, then the software - the mind - from that organic brain will continue running on the new metal-and-silicon substrate, probably without initially being aware of having been transferred.
The theory is quite straightforward, the implementation may be a little trickier.
However, I wouldn't call Alt an artificial intelligence. She's a perfectly normal natural intelligence, running on a new synthetic substrate.
thats a debate of copy versus original, whereas artificial is about how something comes to exist, not whether it is original or not. An engram is an interpolation designed by humans, and recreated.
Is a stereo system a natural sound? or an artificial sound? Is a TV screen artifical or natural? Is a light bulb artifical light or natural?
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She is not a natural intellegience she is an artificial estimation of a natural intellegience. You know her original soulkiller only had like 60-70% data accuracy, and like 80% volition accuracy?
Regardless, natural vs artificial is about the origin of something. Alt is a man made intellegience, that is a copy of a natural intellegience
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This reminds me of a long running debate in the Halloween industry. I was in Haunted House Animatronics professionally for a few years. Some of my peers insisted that robots could only startle but not actually scare customers and that they never could until the systems of the animatronic could successfully tell a joke on a stand up comedy stage.
I absolutely disagreed and said that it was not always the fault of the animatronic that lacked success to scare people in a HH it was the lack of skill of the people that implement the machine. Yes it is very much harder for a machine to tell a joke but there was a superb example of one that does it correctly constantly. Its is called a movie projector!
Naturally they would claim it was a person telling the joke in the movie not the machine. Thus completely missing the reality that it was not a person the audience was watching it was a machine projecting the simulation of a person.
it was a machine that was "PROGRAMED" by a person. Programed with the needed skill and implemented the correct way to succeed...
Anyway, say Alt has an exact copy of her consciousness but leaves behind everything else. If that everything else includes her soul then it is not Alt it is just an AI. Or say there is no such thing as a soul. Do we really know everything about how the brain works? Could there be some chemical filled gland or vein of personality DNA that we do not recognize yet because it is easy to miss as the consciousness data seems to be 100% all we need? I mean you would have to believe that she left behind absolutely nothing else that makes her Alt when she "left behind everything else".
That said, I would still totally try it myself for the chance to live forever (or close to it).
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I would say she is a collection of copied interconnected experiences that manifests as a series of coordinated electrical impulses of which produce coherent algorithms governed by the limitations of Alt's conscious and unconscious awareness while alive.
Is it Alt? IDK. The standard understanding is that the brain creates consciousness. A more comprehensive understanding is that the brain is one of a several receivers of consciousness. Given the philosophy scattered around the game, I would say the latter is what is being alluded too. Which at the moment is slowly being better understood.
Now brain matter or mass or volume is irrelevant. There are plenty of cases of people who have "water on the brain" who have very little brain matter, but are fully aware and in some cases extremely intelligent. All of us are limited by our experiences at any given moment and yet presented with infinite possible future experiences that can further expand our awareness and understanding of the universe. Though it is perfectly reasonable to say we are all infinite consciousness sharing a collective experience on an individual level. The universe has birthed a way to look upon itself and ask, "what am I?". In that way you could say that Alt never lived or died but merely shifted into a different representation of the experience called "Alt".
Is that what the "soul killer" App does? Idk, I think if CP2077 really presented a competent and comprehensive dive into these questions it would have spent more time on "flipping realities" on the player (experiential manipulation) and by the end we would no longer know if we were playing as V or as consciousness experiencing the universe through multiple facets of perception.
WORD
Is it Alt? IDK. The standard understanding is that the brain creates consciousness. A more comprehensive understanding is that the brain is one of a several receivers of consciousness. Given the philosophy scattered around the game, I would say the latter is what is being alluded too. Which at the moment is slowly being better understood.
Now brain matter or mass or volume is irrelevant. There are plenty of cases of people who have "water on the brain" who have very little brain matter, but are fully aware and in some cases extremely intelligent. All of us are limited by our experiences at any given moment and yet presented with infinite possible future experiences that can further expand our awareness and understanding of the universe. Though it is perfectly reasonable to say we are all infinite consciousness sharing a collective experience on an individual level. The universe has birthed a way to look upon itself and ask, "what am I?". In that way you could say that Alt never lived or died but merely shifted into a different representation of the experience called "Alt".
Is that what the "soul killer" App does? Idk, I think if CP2077 really presented a competent and comprehensive dive into these questions it would have spent more time on "flipping realities" on the player (experiential manipulation) and by the end we would no longer know if we were playing as V or as consciousness experiencing the universe through multiple facets of perception.
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