# Best AI?



## otistdog (Sep 28, 2005)

Question for all: Which is your favorite AI found in a book? What unique aspect (or apects) of it make it your favorite?

Please limit your answer to AIs that are originally from books. If a movie based on the book was produced, that's fine, but AIs appearing in novelizations are excluded. (Sorry, R2).

--Otis


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## ommigosh (Sep 28, 2005)

I really liked the AI in Ken McLeod's novel called Newton's Wake.  

     The machines pass that singularity point thingy when they become truly sentient and extremely powerful and a force to be feared.  It looks like there will be a classic sf apocalyptic combat between man and machine but what happens next is surprising in the extreme.

     Don’t want to spoil it for you.  Read the book instead.[font=&quot][/font]


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## bendoran (Sep 28, 2005)

the ai's in hyperion. the so called technocore.  Who build a god of machines with the shrike as their avatar.  wow!!!


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## A1ien (Sep 28, 2005)

The AI in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels is immense. They are created that way and are truly sentient and treated as such since they have equal rights in society. The Minds are amazing too, these are the sentient, uber intelligent computers that control the ships of the Culture.


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## lazygun (Sep 29, 2005)

Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers should get a mention I think.

Death to the Badlife!.


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## Rane Longfox (Sep 30, 2005)

Sleeper Service, from a number of Iain M. Banks' books. All the Culture Minds and Droids are kick-ass cool, but good ole' meat****** is just that little bit ahead of the rest


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## Leto (Sep 30, 2005)

MARVIN from Douglas Adams. So depressive, he's almost human.


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## MoonLover (Oct 1, 2005)

Lol, I had to do a double take when I read the title of this thread. You see, I used to work in the dairy industry, where the initials "A.I" have a totally different meaning!

Karen


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## chrispenycate (Oct 3, 2005)

I'm going for Mike , in Heinleins "the moon's a harsh mistress" (though I'll accept Solace in callahans place) due to evolutionary rather than precalculated creation (I never liked creationism)
Besides, he had a sense of humour- low, but humour, none the less.


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## dwndrgn (Oct 3, 2005)

Piers Anthony's rebel machines in Juxtaposition are a good example.


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## Arkangel (Oct 5, 2005)

I like the AI of John Keats persona in Hyperion. Bendoran, I would like to point out that Technocore is a collection of AIs more like a country or a company name where all the AIs reside not a single AI. They have difference of opinions and ideologies and the Technocore governs them. It is more like a elected governing body of the AIs.

AI of John Keats is more like human which falls in love. He revolts against the Technocore.

The Technocore AIs are constructed very nicely but they are so stereotypical. I do not understand why most of the AIs created want to destory humans. Exception to the SI AI in Pandora's Star in Hamilton's book, Marvin by Duglas Adams, Daneel R Olivaw by Asimov, and a few i have missed all want to either take over humans or destory them.

Why is this so. Is there a reason or just like Dan Simmons states in his book it is new gods replacing old gods. Why do we assume that any new AI or sentient being will replace us as the dominant intelligence.


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## bendoran (Oct 10, 2005)

it makes good reading 

ps i knew the technocore was a collection of AI, it would be impossible not to if you read the book.


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## amara (Oct 10, 2005)

i really like Multivac, a computer that can answer any question you ask it is pretty cool, and the fact that it develops a suicidal personality is pretty cool to


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## Dean (Jan 12, 2006)

My favorite AI, No question, The Kargs from DinosaurBeach by KeithLaumer. As a result of a stutter, during a time shift, a low end Machine man has his Psychological structure altered, discovering a higher IQ he duplicates the stutter, and was doubled. He does it again and again and on the 16 doubling exceeds the limit of his organisational matrix and lapses into a coma...to return as a SuperKarg that attempts to master the Chrono Cosm...finally ending as benevolent, its an incredible yarn, I like it so much I read it through regularly and aspire that someday I would love to write something equal to it. I hope You can forgive my sentimentality. The author having passed I should like to have met him, what an unusual viewpoint on AI and Forever.


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## HieroGlyph (Jan 12, 2006)

Dean said:
			
		

> ...The Kargs from DinosaurBeach by KeithLaumer...... its an incredible yarn...


I may only forgive you _after_ Ive read it, now that youve brought it to my attention in such a way


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## Neal Asher (Jan 12, 2006)

MoonLover said:
			
		

> Lol, I had to do a double take when I read the title of this thread. You see, I used to work in the dairy industry, where the initials "A.I" have a totally different meaning!
> 
> Karen


 
Even though I too write of AIs, I live in rural Essex and know exactly what you mean -- throws a whole different light on the question and summons up some rather questionable images.


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## HieroGlyph (Jan 12, 2006)

Heh, with a name like MoonLover and cows and 'moons' and possible AI's and arms and soap and such: all images are questionable!!!


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## Neal Asher (Jan 12, 2006)

'Artificial Insemination' for any who haven't picked up on it yet.


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## Azathoth (Jan 12, 2006)

Erasmus from the Butlerian Jihad and the Machine Crusade was pretty awesome.  In an attempt to be creative, he slaughters a bunch of humans, tears out their organs, arranges those body parts in a stew of blood, and then copies what he sees onto canvas.


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## Gwydion (Jan 13, 2006)

Cortana from the Halo novels


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## Dean (Jan 15, 2006)

The first time I read it I simply could not put it down and just kept turning pages. Best wishes.


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## LetumComplexo (Feb 14, 2013)

Personally I'm a pretty big fan of Jane for Orsan Scott Card's Ender book series. But I also feel compelled to say that the AIs from William Gibson's Neuromancer series just exude badass. Then there's the progression of AIs and networked AIs from Isaac Asimov's The Last Question. I think there are too many awesome AIs to choose from. So I'm going to go ahead and say all of them, especially those who learn to live along side humanity instead of trying to annihilate them.


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## J-Sun (Feb 14, 2013)

Riffing on what A1ien and Rane Longfox said (loong ago): the best part of Banks is his AIs - something goes out of the pages when the AIs aren't on them. But I can't pick a particular favorite from them and it's a relatively minor thing.

And on what amara said: there's something different about entities like R. Daneel Olivaw and others of Asimov's in that they're robots with brains but the hardcoded morality and non-transcendent intellects makes them seem different from today's usual AI characters so it's hard to compare but, otherwise, Olivaw is one of the most memorable and interesting AI characters, not to mention the title character of "The Bicentennial Man" and so on.

And on what Dean said: I haven't read _Dinosaur Beach_ but I think I have it somewhere. I have read Laumer's Bolo stories and those are very interesting takes on sentient tanks who are very human and un-human at the same time. So I wouldn't doubt he could do other great AIs as well.

Probably _one_ of my favorites, anyway, is Greg Bear's _Queen of Angels_ AI - I think it was called Jill. One of the most central, developed, interesting AIs I've read.


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## Vertigo (Feb 14, 2013)

Isn't it fun when an old thread gets dug up like this

So... one of my favourite AI characters is Neal Asher's Sniper from the Spatterjay books. 

However I have a problem with this. Most of the favourite AIs that have been presented here, at least the ones whose books I have read and therefore know, (haven't read Queen of Angels, J-Sun) is that they are mostly really just smart human intelligences in a machine. I have come across few that really seem to have been given a true otherness; an AIishness if you will. Maybe Banks' Minds come fairly close, but even with them, their thought process and logic is essentially human; bigger, faster, smarter maybe, longer term outlook maybe but in the end their motivations always seem fundamentally human.

I'd like to see someone create an AI with a truly different outlook. Consider what our human motivations are and then consider what an AI's would be. For example our most basic motivation is preservation of our genes; what might be the most fundamental motivation for a self-aware AI?

Off the top of my head I don't think I've ever found one that really achieves what I'm after, thouth another who comes close though would be Tony Ballantyne in his Recursion series of books. In the first of which the main antagonist is an isotated AI and its motivations, fears and strategies are very much those of an AI rather than a living creature.


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## gully_foyle (Feb 15, 2013)

The Minds from the Culture (Iain M Banks). They are petty, jealous, mildly malevolent, sympathetic, sentimental, sarcastic, snarky. Basically they are the equivalent of greek gods in my mind.

Also the AI in Neuromancer, as someone else said, badasssss.


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## Stephen Palmer (Feb 15, 2013)

Vertigo said:


> However I have a problem with this. Most of the favourite AIs that have been presented here, at least the ones whose books I have read and therefore know, (haven't read Queen of Angels, J-Sun) is that they are mostly really just smart human intelligences in a machine. I have come across few that really seem to have been given a true otherness; an AIishness if you will. Maybe Banks' Minds come fairly close, but even with them, their thought process and logic is essentially human; bigger, faster, smarter maybe, longer term outlook maybe but in the end their motivations always seem fundamentally human.
> 
> I'd like to see someone create an AI with a truly different outlook. Consider what our human motivations are and then consider what an AI's would be. For example our most basic motivation is preservation of our genes; what might be the most fundamental motivation for a self-aware AI?
> 
> Off the top of my head I don't think I've ever found one that really achieves what I'm after, thouth another who comes close though would be Tony Ballantyne in his Recursion series of books. In the first of which the main antagonist is an isotated AI and its motivations, fears and strategies are very much those of an AI rather than a living creature.


 
All good points. Much as I love Neuromancer et al, Gibson was one of the worst offenders when it came to "there is a mystical point at which an AI is intelligent enough to become conscious." I think that's unrealistic. Any truly conscious AI must exist in a society of other similar AIs where none have any direct access to each other. Just like us, in fact...


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## Allegra (Feb 15, 2013)

I also love Iain M Banks' machines. Sometimes they are more attractive than his human and other creatures. I wish he will write more books like Excession. And yes, Marvin of Douglas Adams is depressingly adorable!


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## Mirannan (Feb 15, 2013)

If you like the idea of AIs as ghastly monstrosities, I present two candidates; the one from "I have no Mouth, And Must Scream" and, possibly even nastier, the Queen of Pain from Orion's Arm.

And, of course, an honourable mention has to be made of HAL.


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