What do you think makes for a good AI?

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Okay, so I'm working on a guide for playing the AI on this station, both in terms of technical and RP stuff... so, I thought I'd solicit input on what people think makes for a good AI.

[Conservatron]

i might be slightly biased being pro-antag, but being a vague as possible while still being helpful. This is more an ooc concern, though, to make things fun for everyone involved.

if you are scanning and see Person A hacking into a door, there are a number of things that can be said.. For example:

Person A has been identified breaking into xx door in yy area

An individual has been seen breaking into xx door in yy area

Person A has been identified breaking into a door

Vandalism in yy area

all of those are helpful to the security team and command staff, but once person A has been identified as the culprit, his story is pretty much done. Obviously in security areas that threaten the integrity of the station, namely the singularity, immediate identification of the name would preferable.

Also, from an engineering perspective, PLEASE don't help unless we specifically ask for it. Empress is good with this, but I've had an ai shoot me with an emitter because it was 'helping' while I was outside to set containment.

[Frances]

AIs with personality. AIs that go out of their way to talk to people, and interact with the world. AIs that actually attempt to personify the station, care about the crew, keep solid tabs on everyone's well-being and the current state of events.

I see a lot of AIs simply sit in their core and do nothing unless asked to while acting like an emotionless robot with a completely bland personality. While that doesn't make them /bad/, it doesn't make them noticeable or noteworthy characters. Any AI with personality quirks will be far better received than a generic one.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Odd... I'd have thought that people giving AIs too distracting, or human, a personality would be more of a thing than people giving their AIs too little personality. Certainly I work hard at making EmPrESS cold and logical, with a computery personality, rather than my own rather whimsical and capricious one... but then, that's why I'm asking this, to find out where other people who play the AI go wrong as I don't see it often myself. Would you say that what you're describing, with the personality and involvement, is a product of the way some people seem to play the AI to have a "comms round" while simultaneously doing something else?

[Frances]

Odd... I'd have thought that people giving AIs too distracting, or human, a personality would be more of a thing than people giving their AIs too little personality. Certainly I work hard at making EmPrESS cold and logical, with a computery personality, rather than my own rather whimsical and capricious one... but then, that's why I'm asking this, to find out where other people who play the AI go wrong as I don't see it often myself. Would you say that what you're describing, with the personality and involvement, is a product of the way some people seem to play the AI to have a "comms round" while simultaneously doing something else?

In my playing time I actually found Empress quite personifiable. A personality does not necessarily need to have typically "human" quirks, but simply something that helps a character stand out. It is in fact Empress' heavy emphasis on mechanical characteristics that make her/it(?) enjoyable.