BY LETTER
Sapient Structures
 Image from P Bourne (copyright used with permission) |
In many worlds and polities the buildings, roads, public transit vehicles, parks, and other smart structures have their own turingrade intelligence and have all the rights that go along with it. There is often no clear dividing line between sentient structures and standard aioids; a general (if simplistic) approach is to say that if a device or structure has software integral to its being, it is a sentient structure (or sentient artifact). If however its resident ai can be changed for another ai without affecting the structure, then that resident ai is an aioid. Throughout the galaxy there are at least ten quadrillion sophont level sentient structures or artifacts, almost all of them in the Inner Sphere and older Middle Regions and provincial systems and habitats.
Articles
- AI, ai - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Etymologically, Artificial Intelligence, although the original use of the term "artificial" has long been meaningless in this context. Broadly speaking, "AI" means any non-organic sentient being, although it is most often applied to those of SI:1 or greater (in contrast to aioids). When spelt in lower case the term can refer either to any subsingularity aioid as well. - Artificials - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
generic term for any sophont of a non-biological nature [noun] - Henon - Text by Steve Bowers
Outer Volumes planet with independently sentient cities - Keepers - Text by Stephen Inniss
A very large class of sentient, to sapient to transapient beings who are the managers or "guardian spirits" of a specific area such as a dwelling, a park, a wilderness or manufacturing district, an arcology or city, a hab, or even an entire world or megastructure. Most are informorphs, or aioids specifically designed for such work. - Kockengen, Clade - Text by Stephen Inniss
An ancient polysomatic clade with its origins in the Nanoswarms period.530 to 900 AT: The Nanoswarm Age - M-Life - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Machinic non-biological life as seen in neumanns, hylonanecologies, and other inorganic organisms or ecologies. In practise M-life, B-life and A-life tend to merge, especially because of the ubiquity of biotech and bionanotech. - Siris Habitat - Text by Tapio Erola
Subversive peripatetic relativistic fractal habitat / museum-ship - Zhang Qian - Text by Steve Bowers
Sophic League planet with mobile cities.
Related Topics
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
additional notes by John B and Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 14 August 2001.
additional notes by John B and Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 14 August 2001.
