We did some brainstorming and got a little ways with plot ideas- as it stands it goes like this (I'm going to be repeating some ground here, but bare with me)
So to start with, a way, way back, there was a technological illumination. Humans cracked A.I. It revolutionalised a lot of things, and in a couple of years, robots went from being your everyday toaster to your co-worker. It didn't take long for robots to feel like, in fairness- if they didn't get a say in how we made babies, we shouldn't get a hand in how they create new AI. And so it was that robots took the monopoly on robotics micro-engineering. And then overall engineering. And then cybernetics.
Fast forward hundreds of years later, and our city is on the roads to recovering from a long, arduous war. It's only been a couple of years since martial law was phased out, there's still a bit of rationing (enough for a black market), and it's not entirely unusual to see poverty riots/ghost streets from bomb destruction. There's a lot of general languishing for both robots and humans, though it affects them differently. The need for fancy robots is getting pretty thin; they don't need diplomatbots anymore, it's a lot more practical to get car upgrades. And the regulation over cybernetics is harsh for humans, despite the levels of injuries there are both civilian and war related, because of the costs, the resources needed, and the apparently difficult procedures/health risks there are. There's a waiting list for treatment, but unless you are rich, powerful, famous, a war hero or the occasional adorable PR child, there's no chance.
Right, then.
- We have Officer Robot and Officer Buddy who are pals
- They are beat cops, basically
- They do beat cop things, small time puzzles, get-to-know-the-world type exploration
- It's nice
- Only thing is Officer Buddy's got a war wound that's stopping him from being a full detective (Officer Robot is also a couple of upgrades away from qualifying)
- Officer Buddy doesn't turn up for his shift one day
- His house is empty
- You have to find your buddy
- Your search takes you into a what's basically a chop-shop where Buddy is messed up
- Something something about investigation, going undercover as a human so the chopshop doctors don't think you are a robot snoop
- This is where both of us started to get a little distracted
- Where was I
- Robot discovers that things are not what they seem at all- humans could very, very easily get cybernetic implants. Robots are worried that if humans can be robots, what will robots do?
- You can't take your pal to a regular doctor because then he'll be in trouble for doing illegal things.
Subplots/Design Considerations
- multi-path endings/early game enders mean no idea is too dumb, melodramatic or cheery. Go nuts with that. If you want to see an ending where if you pick up a flower in a 5 minute window at the beginning of a game and keep it for 6 hours straight then give it to Officer Buddy at just the right moment and he doesn't go off and the game ends with everyone just being pals forever the end then I think we should go for it. Let's make Dan's life difficult and give him lots of things to program and it'll be great.
- There's animosity in a lot of groups that could be played on - the military vs. the police, the... well, I have it down as the League of Misopolemiacs, but the guys aggressively peaceful chaps, that are non-plot vital
- Officer Robot and Officer Buddy are tight at the beginning of the game, since they've been partners for a while. But at first Robot was trepiditious since he got the feeling that they were only partnered because they were the oddballs of the station and he'd worked hard to become a cop and be accepted. I like to think that Officer Buddy was the sheep to Robot's baby elephant, though, and just refused to be pushed away. Maybe it was Officer Robot's.. creation day? chip activation remembrance day? and Buddy brought him a little flower in a pot, and Robot thought he was making fun of his background but Buddy had no idea, he just thought Robot would just like it. Robot was taken aback, because did like and they were friends forever.
- There are some robots who think it's unfair that humans get to be robots but robots don't get to be humans. There have been a couple of serial killers. One of them jammed some dude's eyeballs into his headpiece and just sobbed until the cops showed up.
- But seriously I think this is a valid thing, I bet in the future from this game we'll see robots that have squishy human organs or something. I mean, we have some pretty rad stuff. I bet they could find a reason for jamming a kidney or 2 in a robot.
- If you do enough little side bits/exploration I think you should get promoted. NOT YOUR BUDDY THOUGH HE'S A LOOSE CANON
Things to consider
- It's at risk of going a little Deus Ex- By which I mean I'm pretty sure this is just Deus Ex
- How do we end this
- Help
Danny, I have the full conversation transcipt you can have, but it's pretty much just this but spread out with a lot of 'no wait, what's and 'what about if not that thing but this thing' scattered in between.
That was long and boring to type up. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT.
Awesome, just wanted to clarify though, what is the relationship between humans and robots? Are we still the dominant species? What is preventing the robots from taking control of the world?
ReplyDeleteYou raise a very good point that I tackled yesterday. I wrote the words 'robot vulnerabilities' then drew a circle around it and then fell dead asleep. Ideas to be forwarded to 44 Wicklow Street.
DeleteI just have to think.. why WOULD robots take over the world? I mean, it's a lot of work. There's already a society that (pretty much) accepts them and has given them a place where they fit in and a purpose. If they do become dominant, I imagine it would be a gradual and natural process - less ENSLAVE ALL HUMANS!!!, more a constant robot integration. Suddenly one day there are more TV adverts for McDonalds Robot Oil than for people food and it dawns on everyone that there are an awful lot of robots now but actually everything is going pretty much okay.
ReplyDeleteIf they are sentient with feelings and ambitions, they're not going to be black and white. Some robots will want to run for president, some robots will want to take the world by force, some robots will run human slave operations, some robots will fund orphanages. I reaaally don't want to go down the all-robots-are-evil route.
The thing about computers is that they can formulate plans by looking at a number of moves ahead. Not only that but they can store all those moves in their memory. Take the chess algorithms for example; not even the top chess players in the world can beat the top ai because that computer has calculated every outcome before the game has even started. They also have the power to do something for ever, eg Google Spider. When you simulate an accurate human brain you are also giving them the standard computer power on top of the human mind. All human minds (at least to some degree) are superstitious, selfish, and fearful. When you add to that "incomprehensibly obsessive and the power to effectively see into the future", that's a person you do not want to piss off.
DeleteWhat you have to consider is what it is a robot desires. No computer is "evil", just in the same sense that no human is "evil", but say Westboro Baptist Church got a robot, educated it, then let it free into the world. What if it's main desire was for the church to appreciate it's contribution. Not only could it find a way to bring mass destruction on a huge scale, but it could also get away with it. And repeat it for ever.
Take another example. You set a robot to collect copper until you tell it to stop. Then you die. It's now going to collect all the copper. If you take any of the copper back, it'll just collect it again. Electronics industry dies, global communication breaks down, opportunists find a way to exploit the situation and the world returns to the dark ages. ....What if it was iron? There's iron in blood. That could have some pretty mad effects on the eco system.
Anyway my point is that good and evil is relative, badly designed systems can go disastrously wrong, and robots as smart as humans are simultaneously smarter than humans.
If a robot just runs a simple program with no ability to be self aware, then sure, that's dangerous, if it is programmed to be dangerous or programmed with poor foresight. Like Terminator going after Sarah Connor. You can't talk the terminator out of pursuing Sarah Connor. It looks like a person, it can pass as a person, but really, it is just following its program. I can't remember why in that other movie there is a terminator SAVING Sarah Connor but it is probably a new program? Anyway where were we.
ReplyDeleteI think the level of AI we're dealing with in this game will make that kind of behaviour a thing of the past. In order for AI to be TRUE intelligence, it will be based on a more organic system. Not that they have meat brains but I mean, their minds will have the ability to develop like us organic lifeforms. They aren't made with the ability to understand everything about the world. Sure, they can be programmed with a visual database so they can recogise objects and understand language and all kinds of things immediately, but they'll also have an elasticness to their mind which lets them interpret, evaluate and respond to new situations and stimuli.
Like people, how the robot responds to situations and forms its own ideas, hopes and dreams will be down to its formulative years (which may never stop) and culture just as much as its model number and accessories.
If a robot WANTED to destroy things, then it would be able to do so. Just like a person also could. And yes, it could be more dangerous than a human. But it would be an anomaly, not a feature inherent in robot-kind.
I definitely think we should have pushed past programmed behaviour in this world. Except maybe for things like toasters, who shouldn't be allowed to ponder the meaning of life.
Mmm hmm! They aren't going to be golems; the point of AI is that it's regular intelligence with the same capabilities and limitations (in the sense that a robot won't be able to act without considering the personal 'morals' that have been instilled in it during it's development, just like humans do).
DeleteCan a robot communicate with another robot like a computer can connect to another computer? could humans also network similarly, if they had like a new fangled brain jack?
Like a Vulcan mind meld only with less Picard crying.
Actually, it'd probably be too complex, wouldn't it? Once you get to the point of AI it'd be a nightmare having to sort all those bits out enough to properly brain jack into one another.