221 réponses à ce sujet

[Uber Rod]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

Rip504 wrote...

I am not saying it is right,or what I think should happen. Just a random possibilty. (It was in another thread thats why I quoted it.) Also how is brainwashing different in one case from the other?

Remeber Admiral Xen considers the Geth to be programs. You do not feel bad about rewriting a program. She still considers them to be AI.(Still not agreeing with her.)

Legion is going to either rewrite or destroy the Heritics then rather just letting them be. The Heritics chose to help the Reapers even before having a new program installed by the Reapers. Why do you feel Legion has the right to make this decision? Never do they ask if the Heritics would ever want to rejoin the Geth.The Geth just make the decision for them,or destroy them.(Considering when faced with the decision to stay or leave the Heritics have left 100% of the time. Doesn't Legion make a statement similiar to this one about the Quarians? Why would they care about the Heritics and not care about making peace with the Quarians?) Ps. The Heritics left the True Geth before they accepted help from the Reapers. It was their decision to leave.

Edit:  If I do something Illegal and enjoy doing it. It is not your right to come and make me change my mind... What the Geth did was an act of war against the Heritics,they were not making a morale choice in my opinion. They realized the Heritics were a threat and needed to be dealt with.

The difference lies in the options tried already. In legion's case, he and his people already let the heretics go, no hard feelings (yup, I said it). The Heretics chose to rewrite Legion and his people, thus, the peace option already tried, force comes and saves the day.

The Quarians have never tried peace with the Geth, this is the whole cause of all their problems. They attacked first without giving the Geth the same chance that legion gave the heretics. To then go from a history of "shoot first, try peace later" to "Let's just rewrite them, it's easier than attempting peace" is where the problem lies.

I have to agree. The Quarians, once they realized that the Geth had become sentient, which is against Council Law, panicked and attacked. 

The Quarians didn't have a choice but to try to turn the Geth off. If the Council found out it would have been disastrous for the Quarians. Sure if they had approached the Geth calmly and in the spirit of cohabitation I'm sure things would have worked out much differently. The Geth may have even left peacefully and left the Quarians alone.

[Inverness Moon]

Uber Rod wrote...

I have to agree. The Quarians, once they realized that the Geth had become sentient, which is against Council Law, panicked and attacked. 

The Quarians didn't have a choice but to try to turn the Geth off. If the Council found out it would have been disastrous for the Quarians. Sure if they had approached the Geth calmly and in the spirit of cohabitation I'm sure things would have worked out much differently. The Geth may have even left peacefully and left the Quarians alone.

It would not surprise me if the geth were willing to help repay for the quarians for any problems caused by punishments placed on the quarians by the Council for creating the geth.

Shandepared wrote...

Uber Rod wrote...


I have to agree. The Quarians, once they realized that the Geth had become sentient, which is against Council Law, panicked and attacked.

The quarians didn't "attack"  because they were afraid of the Council, they did it because they were afraid of the geth, and rightly so.

Considering the geth opinion on the situation is so far removed from what the quarians thought, there was obviously a serious flaw in the quarians' reasoning that needs to be corrected. It might have something to do with that whole fearing the unknown hardware error.

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 13 octobre 2010 - 12:56 .

[Inverness Moon]

Shandepared wrote...

Inverness Moon wrote...

Considering the geth opinion on the situation is so far removed from what the quarians thought, there was obviously a serious flaw in the quarians' reasoning that needs to be corrected.

The quarians were acting without all the facts. However I feel this is justified because if the quarians took the time to get all the facts it might be too late. The fate of their species was at stake, they needed to take a course of action that minimized the possibility of extinction.

Part of this is that I think the quarians were projecting in some way on the geth. I'm not sure if that is the right word. Anyhow, what I mean is that the quarians thought the geth would rebel and resort to violence, etc., because that is what the quarians would do in the geth's situation, no? Considering that the quarians did create the geth, I'm wondering why they expected the geth to logically conclude that violence is the answer when the opposite was true in hindsight.

There will only be a time when it was "too late" if you assume the violence is going to happen anyways. I think there is a flaw in reasoning (fear of the unknown) in there somewhere that needs to be considered. Fear of the unknown existed to keep their ancestors alive, right? But in this case it did the exact opposite. I think that means evolution is in order.

If every race were to create their own race of AI like the geth, then eventually the only ones that would be left mostly intact and less likely to be wiped out are the ones that don't fear the unknown.

Shandepared wrote...

Also fear of the unknown is not a hardware error. It is a survival mechanism, one that is partially responsible for your very existence today. If we never feared the unknown we'd be killed.

That survival mechanism is obviously no longer entirely appropriate based on what happened to the quarians.

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 13 octobre 2010 - 01:07 .

[Inverness Moon]

Shandepared wrote...

Inverness Moon wrote...

 Anyhow, what I mean is that the quarians thought the geth would rebel and resort to violence, etc., because that is what the quarians would do in the geth's situation, no?

Perhaps they had other fears. All we have are Tali's own words on that. The reality might be a little bit more complex. A.I. were already illegal, presumably because of the danger. The quarians discovered one day that they either had or would soon have millions upon millions of A.I. running rampant in their society. These were A.I. that were never designed to be A.I., which means they were an accident, which means they were probably unpredictable.

You are asking the quarians to take a leap of faith and put themselves in danger in the hopes that the geth won't attack. What if the quarians take the peaceful approach and are wiped out because of it? Would you still support their decision? Well, I can answer that: you would. You'd say it was tragic that they went extinct but at least they kept the moral highground.

I think that's pretty disgusting.

If you're suggesting the geth would suddenly become unpredictable or "run rampant" after reaching the level of intelligence attributed to AIs then I disagree. I doubt there was anything to suggest their behavior would change radically, so I believe the quarian fears about the situation distorted their logic, as emotion often does.

There is also no leap of faith involved, and you're assuming any danger exists in the first place. You also can't answer for me since that hasn't happened.  It's amusing how you asked a question of me, answered it yourself then called the answer disgusting.

All this talk of the quarians putting themselves in danger and the geth running rampant or suddenly rebelling is you projecting your own actions onto the geth.

Basically, the quarians expected the geth to behave like them, but that was obviously not the case. They need to revise their thinking.

Inverness Moon wrote...

That survival mechanism is obviously no longer entirely appropriate based on what happened to the quarians.

It is absolutely appropriate based on what happened to the Protheans. As I said, your own post backs it up. The quarians were afraid of the unknown and the unknown hurt them.

Lets be perfectly clear, the unknown hurt them because they attacked and tried to destroy the unknown.

Also, what happened to the protheans is that they succumbed to a trap. That situation is not even applicable here because the reapers launched a surprise attack when the protheans didn't even know they existed.

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 13 octobre 2010 - 01:55 .

[Zulu_DFA]

Shandepared wrote...

Also fear of the unknown is not a hardware error. It is a survival mechanism, one that is partially responsible for your very existence today.

It didn't work, did it?

Never mind, you say it yourself: "partially". There are also other survival mechanisms: curiosity and courage. Something Cerberus is all about. True, they often get the individuals demonstrating them killed. But they work fairly well at the population level.

So, in my opinion, the Quarians' mistake was that they showed too much of fear and too little of courage and curiosity.

Geth were artificial intelligence created by accident - something never before heard of. It was worth studying. As it remains to the present day.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 13 octobre 2010 - 02:27 .

[Inverness Moon]

If we always gave into our fear of the unknown we would have probably never discovered fire.

[Turin_4]

[quote]They never said how many Geth programs were connected into the body that asked if it had a soul.[/quote]

The answer doesn't matter, and actually gets less damning to the Quarians the fewer networked Geth there were in the platforms asking the question.  Because if as seems unlikely - who wants stupid machines? It's difficult to imagine a Quarian prior to the war not wanting a networked Geth - the Geth was relatively isolated, well then, what happens when it is connected?

[quote]How do we go about classifying this sort of phenomenon?  Is it really sentience, or is it a matter of processing capabilities.[/quote]

If the human brain really sentient?  Certainly if we leave it alone, certainly not if we start lopping off chunks of it piecemeal.

[quote]

Ergo I think that if a platform can communicate and question its
own existance, we could extrapolate that there is a consiouness and
therefor is sentient.  The conjecture to that I am pointing out is that
there could have been multiple Geth programs downloaded into that
platform that sparked the Morning War.  We don't have enough
information.[/quote]

But if Legion is to be believed, the Geth that asked those questions was not an unusual Geth, and it's highly unlikely it was some isolated platform.  But it is possible, but my question is, what does it matter if it was just an isolated platform?

----

[quote]
The Quarians didn't have a choice but to try to turn the Geth off.
If the Council found out it would have been disastrous for the Quarians.
Sure if they had approached the Geth calmly and in the spirit of
cohabitation I'm sure things would have worked out much differently. The
Geth may have even left peacefully and left the Quarians alone.[/quote]

Sure they did.  They could have attempted communications with the Geth.  You're acting as though the only choice when one has committed a crime is to attempt concealment at all possible costs.  The Geth might have acted differently, and they might not.  Who knows?  We'll certainly never know now.

----
[quote]Things are made of smaller things. Amazing.[/quote]

Shandepared refuses to engage in an actual rebuttal, instead relying on a pithy insubstantial comeback.  Amazing.

[quote]
The quarians didn't "attack"  because they were afraid of the
Council, they did it because they were afraid of the geth, and rightly
so.[/quote]

Why were they afraid of the Geth?  Here's another Shandepared special: because they're inorganic, right?  Why does that matter?  Because you have to fear inorganics.  Why do you have to fear inorganics?  Because they're inorganics, duh!

[quote]
The quarians were acting without all the facts. However I feel this
is justified because if the quarians took the time to get all the facts
it might be too late. The fate of their species was at stake, they
needed to take a course of action that minimized the possibility of
extinction.[/quote]

The situation you've described in this paragraph recommends no course of action whatsoever.  The only thing it points to is dire consequences if you screw up and the necessity to act quickly.  It doesn't necessarily point to the demand to act quickly and militantly.  Need to act quickly =/ need to act militantly.  And before you go all 'someday we'll have a federal government that isn't treasounous' nonsense on me, please be aware that you really have no idea what my personal politics are, though that particular remark of yours is pretty indicative of yours.

[quote]Also fear of the unknown is not a hardware error. It is a survival
mechanism, one that is partially responsible for your very existence
today. If we never feared the unknown we'd be killed.

What you don't know can and will kill you.

In fact, your post backs this up.[/quote]

Ahhh, the good old 'jingoism=good because fear of the unknown is good' argument.  No.  What fear of the unknown is supposed to drive us towards is to make the unknown known, not attempt to kill the unknown before we even try to find out if attempting to kill the unknown will prove utterly disastrous to us instead!  Fear of the unknown, channeled properly, in evolutionary terms, leads us to learn, not react too swiftly.  Especially when you've got ample evidence beforehand, as the Quarians did, that you cannot predict the outcome of your actions.

The Quarians had tons of evidence from their enormous experience with the Geth that they could not predict the outcome of their further attempts to control or switch off the Geth.  But they were scared.  "Fear of the unknown" works great when the unknown is a scary shape shadowed by your fire on the cave wall, but when you're dealing with techno-industrial created AIs, the same response will tend to have a chance to be enormously self-destructive if you apply it.

Evolution means evolving, Shandepared.  You don't just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.  That's what we've got big brains for.  We're not supposed to just keep trying to kill things.  And before you blithely discount that as a naive point of view, please bear in mind that the most successful empires and leaders in history that your 'fear of the unknown is good' outlook would doubtless love to hold up?  They get their way much more often by persuasion than actual force and killing.

[quote]
Perhaps they had other fears. All we have are Tali's own words on
that. The reality might be a little bit more complex. A.I. were already
illegal, presumably because of the danger. The quarians discovered one
day that they either had or would soon have millions upon millions of
A.I. running rampant in their society. These were A.I. that were never
designed to be A.I., which means they were an accident, which means they
were probably unpredictable.[/quote]

You said it right here: "Probably unpredictable", but even here you're still off.  The Quarians have no information on motives or intentions of the Geth, only on their own ability to influence and control them.  The Quarians can only speculate, completely speculate, on Geth intentions.  Quarian ability to control and influence them, on the other hand, is demonstratably deeply flawed.  So by all means, let's go ahead and try to kill them, making our first gesute now that we have very clear evidence (well, except to you, for whom soul-searching isn't a sign of sentience, even though it was to the Quarians) of sentience of genocidal hostility.

That's a great idea.

[quote]
You are asking the quarians to take a leap of faith and put
themselves in danger in the hopes that the geth won't attack. What if
the quarians take the peaceful approach and are wiped out because of
it? Would you still support their decision? Well, I can answer that: you
would. You'd say it was tragic that they went extinct but at least they
kept the moral highground.[/quote]

Well, no.  I don't think he would, and I certainly wouldn't, but by all means keep putting words in the mouths of others.  It certainly makes your stunning lack of arguments easier to sustain.  I think the Quarians should have done the things most likely not to have gotten their race nearly wiped out, and do you know what that is?

Not relying on their ability to technologically control the Geth immediately after, in spite of their supposed overwhelming technological advantages over the Geth, they had just failed to do so.  Seriously.  It's not hard to follow.

[quote]

It is absolutely appropriate based on what happened to the
Protheans. As I said, your own post backs it up. The quarians were
afraid of the unknown and the unknown hurt them.[/quote]

The world is more complicated than, "Is the unknown going to hurt me?  Not if I hurt it first!!!!!!"  Sometimes it won't hurt you unless you hurt it first.  Or sometimes hurting it will inflict a disease on you by doing so.  Or sometimes, sometimes, sometimes.  Besides, your reasoning is ridiculous.  You say the Quarians were right to be afraid of the unknown, because the unknown hurt them.  Here's why that's just plain stupid: the unknown was hurting them in defense of itself.  You cannot reasonably say they were right to 'fear the unknown because it hurt them' when they were the ones to do the first hurting!'

Modifié par Turin_4, 13 octobre 2010 - 02:28 .

[Geowil]

Turin_4 wrote...

Ergo I think that if a platform can communicate and question its
own existance, we could extrapolate that there is a consiouness and
therefor is sentient.  The conjecture to that I am pointing out is that
there could have been multiple Geth programs downloaded into that
platform that sparked the Morning War.  We don't have enough
information.

But if Legion is to be believed, the Geth that asked those questions was not an unusual Geth, and it's highly unlikely it was some isolated platform.  But it is possible, but my question is, what does it matter if it was just an isolated platform?

It matters as people are arguing whether or not the Geth are sentient.  If only one program was in that platform, then yes each single Geth program is already sentient.

But if questioning their own existance takes more then one program, then I do not think that we should label the programs themselves as sentient, but rather the hardware platforms that have specific amounts of programs running in them.

The point I made about not having enough information was we do not know the extent of advancement in one Geth program.  If we knew we could make a fair estamation of how many programs were running in the platform that sparked the morning war then we could maybe come to an agreement about how many Geth programs it would take to make a sentient Geth hardware platform; while we could try to use Legion as an example, he may have more programs running then is necessary.

Modifié par Geowil, 13 octobre 2010 - 02:44 .

[Turin_4]

But if questioning their own existance takes more then one program, then I do not think that we should label the programs themselves as sentient, but rather the hardware platforms that have specific amounts of programs running in them.

But the thing is, they're networked, and they communicate at incredibly fast speeds, even between platforms. It would be...well, very difficult to really determine just how many sentient Geth programs there were in, say, a suburban area, for example. As for Legion, he said himself he has an unusually large number of Geth programs running for a single platform.

[Inverness Moon]

Geowil wrote...

But if questioning their own existance takes more then one program, then I do not think that we should label the programs themselves as sentient, but rather the hardware platforms that have specific amounts of programs running in them.

Geth are sentient when operating in networks. Whether that is a thousand programs in one platform or a thousand programs spread across a thousand platforms makes little difference I think.

It is the whole that is sentient, and their mobile platforms aren't part of their identify and don't really contribute in any way.

[Andrekky]

I have a very simple reason for thinking the geth to be sentient. (since this has been questioned).

In ME1, we learned that the geth (that would be later known as the 'heretics') worshipped Sovereign. Not just followed, or obeyed, but worshipped. It's easy to dismiss this, but do take into account that the geth actually -kneeled- in front of an altar devoted to Sovereign on Feros, and in ME2, Legion does refer to Sovereign as a 'God' (wether it's from his or the heretics perspective is irrelevant, they are both geth). Religion, faith and worship is something that (as far as we know) humans in all cultures have had for as long as we can record our status as anything else than beasts. Why a machine would worship another machine is subject to discussion, but it's no conclusion reached by a mathematical calculation.



The whole discussion of who is mostly to blame for the Morning War I find quite irrelevant, even though my personal opinion is that the geth have a right to fight for selfpreservation. There's been a lot of arguing about when the geth had sentience - once again I find it quite irrelevant to the current situation in the ME universe but when the geth asks "Do these units have a soul?" that, in my ears, suggests an extremely primitive stage of self-awareness and identity. Mainly because the word soul has no meaning to a machine. The stage of actually wondering about this word is an extremely big step of identity-development, since it has no relevance to the assigned tasks (which is the only thing a machine SHOULD be concerned about), but only to the geth as a being (in this case, we have to regard plural entities as one being).

What I wrote above is my reason for thinking of the quarians shutting down or disabling the geth as atrocious. I see why they did it and I understand the motivations for doing so, but I still think it's horrible. Like someone said before, I'm sick of AIs in today's sci-fi being regarded as evil butchers of humanity. Honestly, I have high hopes for the geth. The thought of AI gaining a self-consciousness and pursuing their/it's own future is almost beautiful to me, it makes me smile.

I don't know if you think of artificial life as real life or not, but in this case, I do. Ian Malcom's "Life will find a way" is something I can connect to where the geth started and where they are now.

The most optimal solution is peace, but if there has to be war I'm with the geth any day. The way the geth 'society' functions compared to how quarian society functions makes me feel that the geth are more tolerant, productive and have a much higher potential overall. Both in the sense of a war against the reapers, and as a future species in the intergalactic community.


Oh, and Xen disgusts me.

[Zulu_DFA]

Inverness Moon wrote...

Geowil wrote...

But if questioning their own existance takes more then one program, then I do not think that we should label the programs themselves as sentient, but rather the hardware platforms that have specific amounts of programs running in them.

Geth are sentient when operating in networks. Whether that is a thousand programs in one platform or a thousand programs spread across a thousand platforms makes little difference I think.

It is the whole that is sentient, and their mobile platforms aren't part of their identify and don't really contribute in any way.

Geth and sentience are like water and wetness.

Take one molecule, and it's not wet. Take three or five or ten H2O molecules, put them together, and it's not really water yet. Take enough H2O molecules, and it's your wet water, which you can drink or wash your face with or fill in a water pistol.

[Rafe34]

The question is only a question- in terms of morality- because there is doubt regarding the true nature of the Geth's sentience. If it was a different race, one who was sentient from the start, and they were attacked with every intention of being annihilated by the Quarians, it would be obvious who was right and who was wrong.

Geth on their own are not sentient, they are merely a program, much like the VIs that are on the Citadel and the Moon, (Luna). Only together are they capable of sentience. After having Legion in your party, it seems to me to be quite obvious that they deserve every bit as much respect as any other species in the galaxy.

The solution here seems obvious. The Geth are practical, logical creatures, without true morality, or the sense of holding grudges. Someone should simply ask them to *give* the homeworld back to the Quarians. Chances are, if that removed much of the Quarian's desire to annihilate the Geth, the Geth would take the offer. There is no logical reason for them not to. One world is as good as another to them.

Modifié par Rafe34, 15 octobre 2010 - 05:06 .

[Terraneaux]

Rafe34 wrote...

The Geth are practical, logical creatures, without true morality...

What?  'True morality' basically requires logic.  You'll note that the 'orthodox' Geth believe that organisms, whether organic or inorganic, have the right to self-determinate i.e. to not be enslaved.  How is that anything but a moral statement?

[Zulu_DFA]

Terraneaux wrote...

Rafe34 wrote...

The Geth are practical, logical creatures, without true morality...

What?  'True morality' basically requires logic.  You'll note that the 'orthodox' Geth believe that organisms, whether organic or inorganic, have the right to self-determinate i.e. to not be enslaved.  How is that anything but a moral statement?

Inorganic organisms... logic...

[runs away]

[Andrekky]

Terraneaux wrote...

Rafe34 wrote...

The Geth are practical, logical creatures, without true morality...

What?  'True morality' basically requires logic.  You'll note that the 'orthodox' Geth believe that organisms, whether organic or inorganic, have the right to self-determinate i.e. to not be enslaved.  How is that anything but a moral statement?

I agree here. I also think that the geth (through Legion) show many similiar tolerant tendencies. You would think that a machine race which reaches decisions about its course of actions and standpoints through consensus would be authoritarian and narrowminded towards other species out of the sole fact that they're 100% agreed on what would be right respectively wrong.

Legion occasionally points out flaws in organics, but not in a way that declares the geth/synthetics superior. He compares how the organic race(s) work compared to the geth and explain why they can work differently. Compared to what the other races think of the geth and how certain fleshy organics think of them on this thread, I'd say thats a more than mildly superior tolerance

[Jabarai]

Andrekky wrote...
..... when the geth asks "Do these units have a soul?" that, in my ears, suggests an extremely primitive stage of self-awareness and identity. Mainly because the word soul has no meaning to a machine. The stage of actually wondering about this word is an extremely big step of identity-development, since it has no relevance to the assigned tasks (which is the only thing a machine SHOULD be concerned about), but only to the geth as a being (in this case, we have to regard plural entities as one being).

What I wrote above is my reason for thinking of the quarians shutting down or disabling the geth as atrocious. I see why they did it and I understand the motivations for doing so, but I still think it's horrible...

They prepared the things as far as to see them malfunctioning. Whether or not to destroy the hardware at that point hardly seems like a moral dilemma. To me, what makes the Geth valuable and worthy of any sort of respect is the fact that they've further evolved in an isolated environment. They are now undoubtedly quite different from when the Quarians decided to put an end to the sad history of mistakes that is the birth of the Geth.

However, few things would make me happier than to see them unite for a common enemy. Maybe something good can result out of long and trying times.

PS: I have to say I'm actually thoroughly impressed to see a couple of exemplary video games encourage us to discussions of great depths on matters far from everyday banter. This is true role playing, I say! :happy:  If you think about a film such as 2001: Space Odyssey, where the director openly aimed to stimulate the audience and give them something to chew on and ponder... over and over again... I'd say Bioware has done something to the very same effect.

[Geowil]

Ok, I think I have summed up my opinions about whether or not the Geth are truly sentient.

I just was playing through the Reaper IFF mission with Tali on the team and she remarked that, when Legion first saves Shepard's butt, that one Geth program, un-networked, has the same level of intelligence as a Varren.

In light of this I would say that it is not the Geth, singular, that are sentient but their network that is sentient-esq.
Without their network, and without loading lots of program into the platforms, the Geth would not be capable of too much, if anything, more then anything instinctive.

Just like brain cells, as was pointed out earlier. They are not sentient but work together to create sentience. I think we should look at the Geth this way as well. As a whole, the Geth race is one sentient being.

And Jabarai makes a point, we do not know how much the Geth have advanced since the Morning War occurred. I
think I remember Tali saying in ME1 that even networked the Geth were not supposed to be able to become anywhere near sentient (summarizing) in the beginning. And that only after the Quarian's upgraded the Geth several times to increase their productivity did they start displaying individualistic behaviors, again summarizing.

Modifié par Geowil, 17 octobre 2010 - 06:07 .