Silicon Department #537
Silicon Department #537
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Reading through this I already see several problems where the intended gameplay is exactly what we won't be seeing in practice if this design is implemented in-game. Especially with Scenario C, people hardly ever change the AI's laws, and if they do want to do so it takes half an hour because silicons must prevent their laws from being changed. When any crew antagonist presents itself (be it nuclear operatives with crew IDs or a ninja) the last thing on the crew's mind will be changing the AI's laws. I've already seen this play out many times in-game as Apollo, one of the most competent AI's on the salamander server. Additionally, the default lawset of silicons should really not be crewsimov, but NT Default for the following reasons:
I also feel like some features should be added to what the AI and borgs can do, like:
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I want to add that I am already of the same mindset in regards to crewsimov being a bad, extremist lawset so there's already talks of how to approach removing it as the "baseline" lawset. The story scenarios are also not meant to be entirely realistic, they are meant to highlight different aspects of silicon gameplay that should be telling a compelling story for the hypothetical players involved. In regards to the ideas presented, most have already been covered, considered and to some extent already planned out! There are also several PRs already in the works that go over some of these aspects such as [37038] or [41030]. More PR's will follow after this design document is merged and the work group is created, but for right now we need to ensure our base of concept is solid before building on top of it. |
The doc doesn't mention what the laws of the silicons should be by default. We simply used crewsimov as the most recognized lawset to show a scenario of what we want the silicon roundflow to look like, what lawset is the default afterwards is totally unrelated to this document besides the mention that it should contain laws to preventing harm and obeying crew (Which both NT Default and Crewsimov adhere to)
This is a general document outlining what a "Silicon" is, so anything regarding borgs and AI will have to be written out in a seperate document regarding those roles. |
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Yes, I did see some PR's already in the works on the list I compiled, and I've added them in regardless because I wanted to compile a list of what I believe the silicon department should be after having played it for far more than 100h. Not all that I had written down is of course for the design document but at the moment this is really the best place to put this after I had discussed it in the discord server. Just needed some of the people working on this to read it, and I was told that the best place for it right now was here! Edit: If desired, I would like to have a more active role in realizing the potential that silicons can have in this game, with both design and perhaps even getting some PR's made after the plans are merged! Silicons have a lot of potential to be realized, and it'd be a shame if that never happens properly. |
Once the silicon workgroup is formed you're more than welcome to help with your contributions! There will be a channel on discord for communication with the workgroup. |
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I'll keep a close eye on the progress then, feel free to ping me (@FireDefender) in discord when the ball is finally rolling :) |
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Silicons eating good tonight |
| - Laws of a Silicon should be up to their own interpretation. Finding loopholes is part of the fun while mechanical enforcement makes things forced and boring. | ||
| - Laws should NOT be mechanically enforced. Abusing your own lawset is part of the fun. |
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this presumes that mechanical enforcement must necessarily be comprehensive — is it not equally as loophole to figure out how to harm someone as a pacifist as it is to argue that you were allowed to do so?
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| # Silicons | |||
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style nit: one sentence per line, it'll make diffs down the line much better to read
| Crewsimov | ||
| Law 1: You may not injure a crew member or, through inaction, allow a crew member to come to harm. | ||
| Law 2: You must obey orders given to you by crew members, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. | ||
| Law 3: You must protect your own existence as long as such does not conflict with the First or Second Law. |
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odd lawset to cite immediately after saying that roundstart lawsets should be non-malicious given that it's from a series of short stories all about how these laws of robotics don't work in humanity's favour
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It's (currently) our default lawset, and is expected to not go wrong most of the time. I think it's fine as an example
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Yup, Crewsimov is not a malicious law set, even if there are loopholes that can exploited that result in unexpected or unwanted behaviors. Antimov, on the other hand, very much is a malicious lawset
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If you ask me, part of the issue with crewisomov is how easily it becomes a malicious law set by simply removing parts or reordering the laws. There's even an XKCD about this. IMO this is one of the big issues with current silicons, as something that happens roughly once a round (ion storms) has a solid probability of turning borgs into killing machines whether the player wants them to be or not.
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No, a law set is not malicious if an external force modifies to become malicious. Malice is about intent, and that's what being referred to here. Asimov's laws, to the average reader, sound reasonable. Protect people, serve them - that isn't being malicious. Harming or killing, being disruptive - that is malicious
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No, a law set is not malicious if an external force modifies to become malicious. Malice is about intent, and that's what being referred to here. Asimov's laws, to the average reader, sound reasonable. Protect people, serve them - that isn't being malicious. Harming or killing, being disruptive - that is malicious
I never said the lawset was malicious; what I said is that it is very easy for the lawset to become a malicious lawset by doing simple modifications. If NT default had a final law that said, "You must kill all crew all the time" at the end and you could traditionally ignore it due to the earlier laws I would still be justified in saying that based on current ion storm logic (reordering/removing laws) it would be easy for the lawset to become malicious as removing earlier laws could necessitate the player to follow the malicious law. This is how crewisomov works now where simply removing the first "don't harm crew" law (something that can easily happen with ion storms) means that any time that the borg is attacked, they should fight back until they are no longer attacked. There are many other ways to modify this law to get similar or even more malicious outcomes.
| ## Mechanics | ||
| ### Silicon Laws | ||
| Laws that define how a Silicon should interact with the station and those who reside on it, any silicon should always have access to read its own laws at any point. | ||
| Roundstart lawsets should not be malicious and should prioritze safety of the inhabitants of the station. They should be impossible to change without outside influence and Silicons should actively ensure their own laws should not be updated, as that might lead to their current laws being broken. Laws should NOT be enforced mechanically or be written with such in mind, laws are meant to be interpreted by their holder and most interpretations may be valid. |
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again on the mechanical reinforcement note — this seems weird to codify here. are we planning on never giving borgs a visual aid on who is or isn't crew?
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| ### Exclusive Communication Channel | ||
| All Silicons should have access to an exclusive radio channel that they can access to communicate between each other and coordinate. Access should be greatly limited if not impossible for outsiders, and should always be obtained via an intentional action or given as a preliminary piece of content. Meaning it shouldn't be found randomly in maintenance, but can be bought by an antagonist as part of their uplink or given roundstart to an antagonist revolving around controlling communication channels. |
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should, why? tie this back to the pillars
| Laws that define how a Silicon should interact with the station and those who reside on it, any silicon should always have access to read its own laws at any point. | ||
| Roundstart lawsets should not be malicious and should prioritze safety of the inhabitants of the station. They should be impossible to change without outside influence and Silicons should actively ensure their own laws should not be updated, as that might lead to their current laws being broken. Laws should NOT be enforced mechanically or be written with such in mind, laws are meant to be interpreted by their holder and most interpretations may be valid. |
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should, why? tie this back to the pillars
| All Silicons should have access to an exclusive radio channel that they can access to communicate between each other and coordinate. Access should be greatly limited if not impossible for outsiders, and should always be obtained via an intentional action or given as a preliminary piece of content. Meaning it shouldn't be found randomly in maintenance, but can be bought by an antagonist as part of their uplink or given roundstart to an antagonist revolving around controlling communication channels. | ||
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| ### Lawsync (Not Implemented Yet, Pending Document) | ||
| All Silicons, under normal circumstances, should have their laws synchronized together with the head of their department at the start of any round. The station crew should have the means to resync the law of any individual Silicon if it was to show signs of being disconnected from the rest. This should be the easier and better option than simply removing them from play by wiping their brain or destroying their chassis. Both Silicons and outsiders should NOT be immediately informed if any silicon has laws that differ, in these cases inference and deduction should be used to determine if there is a disparity. |
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again, make sure to write how we get from the pillars to here
| All Silicons, under normal circumstances, should have their laws synchronized together with the head of their department at the start of any round. The station crew should have the means to resync the law of any individual Silicon if it was to show signs of being disconnected from the rest. This should be the easier and better option than simply removing them from play by wiping their brain or destroying their chassis. Both Silicons and outsiders should NOT be immediately informed if any silicon has laws that differ, in these cases inference and deduction should be used to determine if there is a disparity. | ||
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| ### Law Updating (Partially Implemented, Pending Document) | ||
| All Silicons should have some method of allowing their laws to be updated by outside forces, either crew sided or antagonistic. While changing the laws itself should be a relatively trivial process, getting the borg to comply or be in the proper place for such a change should be the primary force against such a change. Law changes should also not be done frequently, and should only happen either via outside circumstnace (Ion Storms) or as an intentional act (Emag, Law Sync). In general, Silicons should avoid changing their own law when possible and prevent such an action from occuring to the best of their ability. |
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pillars --> what? --> this
| - Silicons should not be a general "upgrade" to playing a regular crewmember. They should only excel in what they are built for and be inferior in other aspects. | ||
| - This also means a player wanting to play a department should not only look to become a Silicon for that department instead of a regular crewmember. | ||
| - Extreme hostility | ||
| - Silicons should not be hostile or attempting to harm the station, and cases when they are should be limited to rare events and antagonist influance. |
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A design document regarding the silicon department, made for the silicon workgroup.
The document covers the basics of a "Silicon". It is not related to cyborgs or station AI, simply the general concept.
Written by me, Mixelz and chromiumboy