Artificial Intelligences

EXPERIMENTAL LORE FILE - CURRENTLY INCOMPLETE/SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Note : I designate AIs as 'she' by default because the word in French is feminine. But in truth, most AIs and SAIs are gender neutral (and could not give less of a shit about gender identity), and would more properly be referred as 'they'. Three notable exceptions are Arcadia, Ciel and Siris, who are all female, for various reasons.

Earth in 2160 has long since mastered the art of creating artificial, digital intelligences. These AIs are usually divided in 4 broad categories :

Self-Aware AI :

These aren't truly AIs, but are designated as such nevertheless (to the great annoyance of cyberneticists). They are programs that are aware of their own existence and are capable of roughly dog level intelligence.

Sentient AI :

The first 'true' grade of AIs, sentient AIs have (roughly) the intelligence level of a child, or the low end of teenagers. They possess civil rights, and eventually evolve into fully sapient systems. Their creativity is usually fairly limited, and most of them serve as low-level assistants or bureaucrats.

Sapient AI/Sophont AI :

A full on General AI, sapient grade AIs are fully capable of anything a human can do, sometimes even surpassing them in every fields. Sapient AIs are fairly common in military leadership positions (particularly in the UIS and in the MR) and high level corporate management roles, as they particularly excel at predictive analysis and quick reaction times. Other than that they are dispersed throughout the normal spectrum of jobs, which some even serving as political leaders, elected officials or ministers.

Super-AI/Arch AI :

Super-AIs (or SAIs) are....far, FAR beyond humanity. Typically a super-AI is composed of a series of central computer cores the size of buildings, with gigantic arrays of secondary nodes to handle specific tasks. There are only 5 Super-AIs in existence, and each has assumed a major leadership position.

List of Super-AIs :

Ciel - The most famous of SAIs, Ciel is the president (and effective dictator) of the UIS. She was originally created to handle the UIS' various military branches' logistics after the Terran Hegemony War, and took over the UIS in a coup known as the Winter Insurgency/Takeover, after the disaster of the Alpha Centauri Campaign. Contrary to European Federation propaganda, Ciel is actually extremely popular with the UIS people, as while she, herself, is unelected, she has restored democratic rule from the previous unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats that ruled the UIS from Washington, and put congress and various democratic institutions back into place.

Nostra - Nostra is...odd. Unlike the other SAIs, she wasn't created by a single government, or megacorporation, but was instead creating by a joint project of what little was left of the UN after the Terran Hegemony Wars. She was supposed to facilitate international trade and cooperation, and she did, and after a decade she essentially took over all of the remaining UN organisations, like the WTO or the WHO, and founded Nostra Incorporated, a massive financial and trading megacorporation whose sole goal was to carry cargo between the different power blocs, facilitate financial exchanges and promote business deals. She is, arguably, the richest of the SAIs.

Arcadia - Arcadia is, as far as all of the other SAIs are concerned, completely insane. To be fair, she was meant to be. Originally created as a research AI by the CERN, Arcadia went...progressively off the rails, first dabbling in financial machinations, then corporate building, and finally culminating in the creation of Arcadia Systems Incorporated (which everyone calls Arcadia Systems), a massive megacorporation focusing on technology and military hardware. Over the decades, Arcadia has progressively taken over the European Federation's military industry, buying out competitors or simply out competing them, and now stands as the largest, most powerful European megacorporation, with nearly uncontested supremacy over it's military and technology market. She is, overall, the most creative of the SAIs, and is responsible of a series of massive advances, like the discovery of hyperspace. She is also, oddly enough, the most diplomatic of all the SAIs, and is on friendly terms with all of them, serving as a go between when they need to speak to each other.

Lumen - Lumen is the end all be all of megacorp culture. Utterly ruthless, meritocratic, and having serious problems with understanding even the  concept of 'welfare' or 'taxes', she controls the Lumen Invicta Conglomerate, one of the largest corporations that make up the Brazillian Conglomerate, and by far it's largest shipbuilder. All in all, she controls 1/3rd of all of human space's shipbuilding capacity, military and civilian combined.

Ombra - Ombra (her name is due to the fact that her central core was originally built on the hidden face of the moon, for cooling purposes) is the second political SAI, as she effectively controls and rules over all of Luna, and controls the entirety of the Lunar Directorate's governmental functions and military apparatus. While she is, without question, a dictator (and one that does not allow even the slightest hint of democracy), she has proven to be rather peaceful. Intruders on her domain are dealt with ruthlessly, but other than that she is perfectly content for her to stay on Luna and rule it, commercing with everyone and staying out of major wars. She was originally created as an administrative and judicial SAI, with the purpose of administering and judging the mountain of claims, counter claims and the overall judicial mess that were the international and newly independent lunar colonies, each having competing claims over specific mineral fields and areas, which lead to several wars, until she stamped down on the problem.

Siris - Siris (whose name's origin no one knows) is a military and civil service/infrastructure focused SAI. Originally built by the Martian Development Administration under the old United States of America, her original goal was to build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to house human colonists on Mars, as well as allowing them to prosper. She sided with no one during the Martian Revolt, but continued to faithfully serve the newly founded Martian Republic, and eventually, when Mars was caught in the Interplanetary Wars, she was asked to take over naval command for the home fleet. Nowadays, she still handles all of Mars' vital infrastructure (literally, in that case), but also manages and administers the Martian Republican Navy, particularly it's procurement programs.