NOVEL WEB Great Archives (Artificial Intelligences)
Artificial Intelligences.
Note : I designate AIs as 'she' by default because the word in French is feminine. But in truth, most AIs and SAIs are gender neutral (and could not give less of a shit what the meatbags call them), and would more properly be referred as 'they'. The two notable exceptions are Arcadia and Siris, who are female, for various reasons.
Earth :
Earth in 2160 has long since mastered the art of creating artificial, digital intelligences. These AIs are usually divided in 4 broad categories :
Self-Aware AI :
These aren't truly AIs, but are designated as such nevertheless (to the great annoyance of cyberneticists). They are programs that are aware of their own existence and are capable of roughly dog level intelligence.
Sentient AI :
The first 'true' grade of AIs, sentient AIs have (roughly) the intelligence level of a child, or the low end of teenagers. They possess civil rights, and eventually evolve into fully sapient systems. Their creativity is usually fairly limited, and most of them serve as low-level assistants or bureaucrats.
Sapient AI/Sophont AI :
A full on General AI, sapient grade AIs are fully capable of anything a human can do, sometimes even surpassing them in every field. Sapient AIs are fairly common in military leadership positions (particularly in the UIS and in the MR) and high level corporate management roles, as they particularly excel at predictive analysis and quick reaction times. Other than that they are dispersed throughout the normal spectrum of jobs, which some even serving as political leaders, elected officials or ministers.
Digitalized humans, also called digitalized personas, are also all categorized as sapient AIs, and it is considered taboo in 2160 Earth to ask an AI whether they were created or born biologically.
Super-AI/Arch AI :
Super-AIs (or SAIs) are....far, FAR beyond humanity. Typically a super-AI is composed of a series of central computer cores the size of buildings, with gigantic arrays of secondary nodes to handle specific tasks. There are only 6 Super-AIs in existence, and each has assumed a major leadership position.
List of Super-AIs :
Ciel - The most famous of SAIs, Ciel is the president (and effective dictator) of the UIS. She was originally created to handle the UIS' various military branches' logistics after the Terran Hegemony War, and took over the UIS in a coup known as the Winter Insurgency/Takeover, after the disaster of the Alpha Centauri Campaign. Contrary to European Federation propaganda, Ciel is actually extremely popular with the UIS people, as while she, herself, is unelected, she has restored democratic rule from the previous unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats that ruled the UIS from Washington, and put congress and various democratic institutions back into place.
Nostra - Nostra is...odd. Unlike the other SAIs, she wasn't created by a single government, or megacorporation, but was instead creating by a joint project of what little was left of the UN after the Terran Hegemony Wars. She was supposed to facilitate international trade and cooperation, and she did, and after a decade she essentially took over all of the remaining UN organisations, like the WTO or the WHO, and founded Nostra Incorporated, a massive financial and trading megacorporation whose sole goal was to carry cargo between the different power blocs, facilitate financial exchanges and promote business deals. She is, arguably, the richest of the SAIs.
Arcadia - Arcadia is, as far as all of the other SAIs are concerned, completely insane. To be fair, she was meant to be. Originally created as a research AI by the CERN, Arcadia went...progressively off the rails, first dabbling in financial machinations, then corporate building, and finally culminating in the creation of Arcadia Systems Incorporated (which everyone calls Arcadia Systems), a massive megacorporation focusing on technology and military hardware. Over the decades, Arcadia has progressively taken over the European Federation's military industry, buying out competitors or simply out competing them, and now stands as the largest, most powerful European megacorporation, with nearly uncontested supremacy over it's military and technology market. She is, overall, the most creative of the SAIs, and is responsible of a series of massive advances, like the discovery of hyperspace. She is also, oddly enough, the most diplomatic of all the SAIs, and is on friendly terms with all of them, serving as a go between when they need to speak to each other.
Lumen - Lumen is the end all be all of megacorp culture. Utterly ruthless, meritocratic, and having serious problems with understanding even the concept of 'welfare' or 'taxes', she controls the Lumen Invicta Conglomerate, one of the largest corporations that make up the Brazillian Conglomerate, and by far it's largest shipbuilder. All in all, she controls 1/3rd of all of human space's shipbuilding capacity, military and civilian combined, and her personal 'asset defense fleet' rivals an EFSN fleet in firepower.
Ombra - Ombra (her name is due to the fact that her central core was originally built inside of a deep crater where light never reaches for cooling purposes) is the second political SAI, as she effectively controls and rules over all of Luna, and controls the entirety of the Lunar Directorate's governmental functions and military apparatus. While she is, without question, a dictator (and one that does not allow even the slightest hint of democracy), she has proven to be rather peaceful. Intruders on her domain are dealt with ruthlessly, but other than that she is perfectly content for her to stay on Luna and rule it, trading with everyone and staying out of major wars. She was originally created as an administrative and judicial SAI, with the purpose of administering and judging the mountain of claims, counter claims and the overall judicial mess that were the international and newly independent lunar colonies, each having competing claims over specific mineral fields and areas, which lead to several wars, until she stamped down on the problem and took over.
Siris - Siris (whose name's origin no one knows except the Martian Republic's highest officials, and they aren't telling) is a military and civil service/infrastructure focused SAI. Originally built by the Martian Development Administration under the old United States of America, her original goal was to build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to house human colonists on Mars, as well as allowing them to prosper. She sided with no one during the Martian Revolt, but continued to faithfully serve the newly founded Martian Republic, and eventually, when Mars was caught in the Interplanetary Wars, she was asked to take over naval command for the home fleet. Nowadays, she still handles all of Mars' vital infrastructure (literally, in their case), but also manages and administers the Martian Republican Navy, particularly it's procurement programs.
Alcheryos :
Dungeon cores & defenders :
Dungeon cores and their monsters/defenders are usually the most well known example of AI on Alcheryos. Due to the former being the main source of the life giving mana, and the latter killing anyone and anything trying to get to the former, they are intrinsical to every part of life on Alcheryos.
The degree of sapience of dungeon cores is...debatable. No one is sure why, but dungeon cores range from taciturn, nigh on pacifist sages to psychotic genocidal muderbots, out to exterminate everything around them. Still, as a rule of thumb, dungeon cores are considered to be fully sapient, and capable of understanding what is spoken to them, although they might not chose to respond.
Dungeon defenders are even more complex. To put it simply, some are pure, dumb programs with zero capacity for adaptation or initiative, reacting like simple automaton to stimuli, while others are complex artificial intelligences to put some made on Earth to shame. Due to a very odd phenomena that no one, not even the UDC, has been able to pin down, dungeon defenders staying near the dungeon core or it's avatar for long periods of time will start to evolve, progressively become smarter, tougher, to the point that they can gradually gain sentience and even outright sapience.
Undead :
In pure technical terms, the undead, such as zombies, skeletons, or ghouls, are artificial intelligences, as their biological processing systems (brains) are usually either non existent or rotted past the point of usefulness, they are usually animated through either an artificial core or a hijacked abomination of the original hosts' core. It is part of the reason why the undead are so frighteningly hard to kill as well, since decapitation, or any kind of hit on vital organs will incur little to no damage, and most undead can simply ignore dismemberment.
The extent of which liches and death knights could be considered AIs is highly disputed. Both require the soul and more or less intact core of a living person (although the core can be artificially replaced by something else, it is so much more dicey and complicated that it is rarely attempted), and at most could be considered digitalized personas. Liches however are generally considered to be more AI like, as their soul is usually housed within a support system called a phylactery, and remote controls their body, while death knights still have their souls inside their bodies, albeit artificially bound to it.
Undead are not considered unholy on Alcheryos, as the goddess of undeath is a well known pantheon member, but they are widely viewed as repulsive and unnatural, and while most sapient undead like death knights and liches will be tolerated, sometimes even accepted, more often than not more simple undead like skeletons or zombies are not. The rare places where they are accepted usually demand that a certificate proving the bodies were risen as per the will of their previous host.
Vampires :
While some would consider vampires undead (something which vampires and the various churches vehemently reject), they are for most a wholly different category.
Most vampires are technically AIs. Artificially created through complex rituals and arcane machinery, they are artificial intelligences through and through. Some however, are converted from living beings, and thus would be more accurately called digitalized personas. While some consider the ensuing quasi-immortality extremely seductive, many balk at the transformation to vampire, notably because it requires a magical oath of fealty to the duke and duchess of the Western Marches, but also because of the reputation vampires have, notably due to the numerous atrocities caused by their use of blood magic during wars.
Neonites :
Also called 'the discount option' by vampires, neonites are exceedingly complex golems infused with the core and soul of a sapient. Since all neonites are, by definition, born of a previously biological sapient, all of them are digitalized personas rather than full on AIs. Despite requiring an incredibly powerful individual for the procedure to be even attempted, a surprising number of neonites exist on Alcheryos, mostly because of their effectively infinite lifespan and the lack of prejudice leveled against them, relative to vampires or undead. Most neonites are viewed as wise, sensible, and outside of fringe cases, fully accepted into society.
Golems :
What most people from Earth in 2160 would consider as magical AIs, if asked the question.
Most golems aren't sentient, and are basically the equivalent of good old Earth robots. Usually given simple directives and limited programming, they are good at very restricted tasks and not much else. While not as widespread as the use of robotics on Earth, they are surprisingly common in a number of places, notably the Tark Hegemony, where they make up a decent chunk of the workforce.
Some golems are sentient but not sapient. Most of those have the level of intelligence of dogs, with decent capabilities to improvise within their knowledge base. Used mostly for combat, exploration, or as assistants.
Sapient golems are highly unusual, mainly because of the amount of effort and the cost involved, even compared to creating a neonite, and thus usually it is considered better to seek a candidate for undeath, neonization, ect. Still, some archmages and wyrms persevere, and eventually create fully sapient golems. Those can range from human level to something bordering on an SAI, if given the right resources to work with.