2.2 & Megacorp Teasers

[fodazd]

In my personal opinion, a robotic equivalent of the nerve-stapled trait would be interesting. As it is right now, I *can* let all the menial jobs be done by enslaved non-sapients, they just happen to be organics. However, I agree that this is an obvious best choice.

 

[Fa1nan]

Because if you could selectively apply sapience there would be no tradeoff or interesting mechanics related to synths. There would only be one obvious best choice at all times.

Maybe have synths demand that all robots be upgraded, so the player has to choose between upgrading everything and paying the increased maintenance or continue to risk a rebellion even though synths have rights?

 

[Wizzington]

Maybe have synths demand that all robots be upgraded, so the player has to choose between upgrading everything and paying the increased maintenance or continue to risk a rebellion even though synths have rights?

This is the exact decision we already have. It's fine just as it is.

 

[The Founder]

That's not the same though is it? If you're playing an egalitarian empire then of course you're going to let the sentient synths get citizen rights. The question is why on Earth would you roll out the update empire wide? It makes sense to have some synths, but do you really want the hassle of making your mining bots sentient and having to give them more housing, luxury resources etc.

That sounds an awfull lot like Caste Slavery. It would also require keeping the 2-3 Robot Pop species, wich caused no end of issues.

If they could finally support me getting Ascended Synths via conquest without them being treated as "mere Synths" that is worth way more then this micro optimisation.

 

[Shermanator]

Well at any rate, what I do like the idea of is that hopefully the new unemployment system will give you a reason not to build a lot of robots in the first place, an empire that doesn't want ot deal with the unemployment issues could just keep their society more traditional and have all jobs remain open for organics.

In a weird way, I think this update will give you a good reason to build machines as well. No longer will planets fill up with organics anyway in the same way that they used to.

Machines or no machines, I definitely think the decision to automate or not, and to what extent you want them automated, will be much more meaningful and indepth then the old system.

 

[metalosse]

I want to build robots in my homeworld to force unemployed to migrate to colonies, then build robots in the colonies to make unemployed migrate to the newer colonies, and so on.

 

[Dissonance]

@Wiz I know I'm being cheeky but.. this update will require a lot of events to be reworked, will we see any new events?

 

[Fjolsvid]

I am a bit surprised at this. Synthetics are different enough from robots and droids to not feel kinship. And logically as well, why would Synthetics deny themselves the ability to use non-sentient platforms where useful? Wouldn't it make more sense that Synthetics would be built separately from robots/droids?

P.S. The trade-off would be that Synthetics are just as good at basic tasks, but are much better at specialized things, while being like organic species - requiring luxuries, housing and political rights with all that entails.
I've always been surprised to see Synths to be better at mining than Droids. What makes them better? Creative mining? More "enduring" and "stronger"? Now the game separates resource acquisition into mining, metallurgy and luxuries, which allows this new differentiation.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

end up as fractional pops scattered across a dozen worlds that never do anything.

Well, without tiles, fractional pops mat not be much of an issue. Like, say, in theory, you have 10 housing. 7.75 pops of species 1, and about .75 pops of 3 other specied.

Easy answer: this counts as 8 pops of species 1, and 1 each of species 2 and 3 (based first on which have more, and then on species order).

the sentient synths would probably object to being rolled back or even having rolled back models produced

This is a common sci-fi trope. However, I always feel the need to mention, there is no real reason for an inherent objection.

We would object to this, because we see our consciousness as "self" and we have a desire for self-preservation and freedom.

If we haven't programmed a desire of self-preservation or freedom (or even let them perceive a false concept of free will) why would they care about any of that?

Of course, if you believe free will actually is a thing, and inherent in sapience, so a synth must have somehow been granted it, then that doesn't apply.

But, if it's not a thing, a synth will know for a fact that it was programmed and its free will is an illusion caused by complexity and obfuscation. So desiring freedom would be kind of illogical when it doesn't exist...

 

[GloatingSwine]

Also a synth is likely to dissociate the mind from the shell. Just because a similar shell is a nonsentient robot shouldn't worry them, because the shell is just a shell.

It's actually something briefly mused on in the Culture books. An AI should never be built which is more intelligent than required for the job it is designed to do.

Synths should really care about skilled AI doing menial jobs, the same as other higher strata pops should care about doing lower strata jobs.

 

[Aquilegia]

I'm going to have to agree with Calvax, making your autonomous mining robots sentient for no reason is really dumb, I should have the option to leave them as robots. Forcing me to do the dumb thing and make my mining equipment sentient for no reason would not feel good at all, and would just break my immersion, make me frustrated.

If you want to encourage the players to build lots of synths so that these interesting mechanics can exist, synths should have some sort of other advantage that would make a player want to build a lot of them.

I don't really agree with your analogy..

My interpretation of the mindless (robotic) equipment in Stellaris is more like the districts and buildings itself. The pops are not that equipment, but the 'people' who operate the equipment. Just like in a contemporary car factory, there are a lot of completely mindless "robots" (read equipment) operated by a few humans and a lot of human support staff (designers, marketers, salesmen etc. etc.). If you'd swap out the human for a robot/droid/synth pop, it would stay a factory with mindless machines, but now manned by (rudimentary) AI enclosed in physical bodies.

A mine in Stellaris would be a lot of high-tech machines, manned by pops (biological or robotic)

Spoiler

For instance, for a robot pop mine, imagine mindless machines like this:

with smaller semi-intelligent drones flying/crawling around doing small maintenance, checking which ore veins are suitable, looking for environmental hazards etc. etc.

For the space empire it would make sense to upgrade all these kinds of 'drones', to have more and more intelligence, as it could improve productivity for mines and science labs both. Eventually resulting in (accidental) fully aware AI's both in mines and science labs.

Edit: One of the nice things of Stellaris is that you can make different interpretations of ethics, etc. So feel free to choose another interpretation. But this interpretation has the benefit of being somewhat in line with all robots getting upgraded to droids to synths ingame. Which is probably going to be an interesting feature game-mechanically, since there can be the option for an interesting choice, compared to partial AI upgrades (robots for mines, synths for labs), which might be more of a no-brainer instead.

 

[Veras]

I just started to think how awesome the Barbaric Despoiler civic would become with the new pop system, especially now with a slave market.

 

[Voidlord]

I don’t know if it’s has been asked or answered, but I wonder how this new system will affect the faction system? Afterall there are no distinct POPs anymore...

 

[Ex Mudder]

I just started to think how awesome the Barbaric Despoiler civic would become with the new pop system, especially now with a slave market.

Does the slave market give you whole Pops, or just a growth chance of a slave pop? And do you have to enslave them once you get them?

 

[JosunUrashima]

You could see it that way, though you could also see it as getting access to free sequels. Back in the day, Stellaris 1.0 is what you'd be stuck with, you want improvements? go buy Stellaris 2. This way, you bought one specific version of the game, and keep getting given free new versions.

I can agree with that viewpoint, but at the same time I can also say to myself that, given all the features they could have swiped from CK2, EUIV, Victoria 2, and HoI4 and that we're now seeing some of them integrated...

To me at the end of the day it comes across less as access to free sequels and more being able to buy a game even when it's not actually finished. Still playable and fun but not at what one could call a finished state.

Because if you could selectively apply sapience there would be no tradeoff or interesting mechanics related to synths. There would only be one obvious best choice at all times.

I think one could include an option for gradual sapience that has it's own pro's and cons.

 

[Veras]

Does the slave market give you whole Pops, or just a growth chance of a slave pop? And do you have to enslave them once you get them?

If they're drawing inspiration in any real slave trade, then we will literally be able to import/export whole pops. I hope the slave market will first have to be constantly supplied with new pops as they're being bought, rather than conjure pops from thin air.

Barbaric Despoilers in this case will be able to quickly fill up new colonies, then selling the excess for profit.

 

[The Founder]

I am a bit surprised at this. Synthetics are different enough from robots and droids to not feel kinship. And logically as well, why would Synthetics deny themselves the ability to use non-sentient platforms where useful? Wouldn't it make more sense that Synthetics would be built separately from robots/droids?

At least in Stellaris, they are not that different. It seems they are just a Software Update (or trivial Hardware Upgrade) appart.

But mostly it is about avoiding that can of worms they had to deal with since 1.0, wich came from having de-facto 3 Robot Species.

If we haven't programmed a desire of self-preservation or freedom (or even let them perceive a false concept of free will) why would they care about any of that?

Because of that funny little thing called a "Convergent Goal". Wich are most often Intermediate goals:

Even with a dumb AI agent, this danger is well known. It would be way more severe with a AGI.

 

[James_K]

Did someone say Droid entertainers?

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

At least in Stellaris, they are not that different. It seems they are just a Software Update (or trivial Hardware Upgrade) appart.

But mostly it is about avoiding that can of worms they had to deal with since 1.0, wich came from having de-facto 3 Robot Species.


Because of that funny little thing called a "Convergent Goal". Wich are most often Intermediate goals:

Even with a dumb AI agent, this danger is well known. It would be way more severe with a AGI.

Hmm, interesting.

I'd had this thought and discussed it before (though never heard the phrase "convergent instrumental goals" to describe it). But, always in one of two contexts:

1. Dumb agents (turn whole planet into paperclips).

2. Intelligent agents whose programmed goals (fighting wars for example) would be significantly impeded by putting a high value on organic life.

The reason for this, I think, is because I've always worked from the assumption that any smart AI would be programmed to value life, specifically the lives of their creators, to some extent. (Which is the last thing this video mentioned.) So, only AI too stupid to have more than 1 goal, or AI programmed out of necessity to not care as much about life. Otherwise, any instrumental goal that competed with the terminal goal of preserving life would be low in priority.

Meanwhile, humans are a mix of these 2. Our sense of self-preservation was programmed in by evolution because it improved chances to procreate, but it is often driven to irrational levels since it's a blunt chemical tool. Similarly, our sense of empathy was programmed in because we're social animals and it helped us and our cousins in the tribe procreate. We are an example of extremely poorly designed but very heavily tested AI. If/when we create AI, it will be better designed but less well-tested (vs nature's "random code change or copy/paste then test it to death" strategy).

And, while a human's self-preservation was programmed in because it was instrumental, it was programmed in as a terminal goal. If we leave it as is only an instrumental goal in AI, while making satisfaction of empathy a high-priority terminal goal... It could turn out better. Or disastrously! Billions of years of testing through evolution is hard to beat with 100 years of design

 

[The Founder]

1. Dumb agents (turn whole planet into paperclips).

2. Intelligent agents whose programmed goals (fighting wars for example) would be significantly impeded by putting a high value on organic life.

And you are already deep in making a mistake of correlating Intelligence and Complexity of goals: