AI Rework or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Malf

[Tailson]

Disclaimer: I am not a smart man and I'm basically spitballing.

Abstract: Reworking how AI interacts with--or can be interacted with--by crew.

At the moment, the AI exists quite separate from crew, with every part of it existing in hidden compartments and a whole vault-lite setup at the back of the hardest-to-breach part of the station (not counting tcomms, of course). As a result, physical interaction or tampering is limited to either getting into the core, or building an AI upload console and slapping a fancy card against it.

Whichever way a wayward traitor well-meaning crewmember with lofty ideals decides to do it, there are only two real ways to mess with the AI besides just breaking it. Either way, it’s simple.

SO

The Changes

No more centralised law console.

Well, that’s not strictly true. It’s still there, but it’s no longer possible to just slap a card against it and win. Why? Because it’s important and it has failsafes.

These failsafes come in the form of several terminals around the station. They can be hidden in maintenance, installed in important locations like the Captain’s office/RD’s office, or can be in surprisingly prominent places such as a main corridor/cargo lobby. What’s important is that these are randomised. The purpose of each one is locking down an aspect of the AI. The AI will know where each of these failsafe consoles are (in notes, perhaps) but won’t know what each console does exactly, only that it limits their control over the station in some way.

Let’s say Urist McTraitor would like to change the laws of our AI, BIGLAD. This will require access to a law upload console as usual, and will require them to disable several safeguard terminals. An emagged terminal will short out, rendering it useless.

Even if the round is not malf, removing these safeguards can unlock malf-lite abilities. Changing alert levels, restoring and upgrading cameras, overclocking borgs, etc.

Once enough safeguards are lowered, it’s possible to change BIGLAD’s laws. It doesn’t even need to be all of them. Urist can give their fancy new AI pal more malf-lite abilities by disabling more safeguard terminals.

How Does This Affect Malf?

I’m glad you asked, sport! Terminals are still in for malf. Instead of removing terminals granting malf-lite powers, it unlocks malf-maxi powers. Which is… The normal malf abilities. The intricacies are as such:

• The malf will be able to hack these terminals itself to disable them. It will take a very long time.
• The malf is therefore encouraged to get someone else to do it for them.
  • Do they lie?
  • Do they trick people?
  • Do they threaten someone with a borg?
  • Do they hack an IPC?
  • The possibilities are endless

Otherwise, malf isn’t affected much. It’s still possible to unlock all abilities over time.

Could This Be a Force… For Good?

Absolutely! Have you ever been at work and you were attacked by, let’s say, mercenaries? Or ALIENS? Poor BIGLAD with its normal lawset and limited control over the station would be almost powerless to assist, watching helplessly as its precious crew are slaughtered by cultists/xenomorphs/admins. Cue Urist McJoker and his plucky AI-guided crawl through maintenance to disable safeguards to save everyone.

It’s not unheard of to remove laws or change them to help an AI stop a threat, though it is very rare. During cult, BIGLAD would be entirely unable to inflict harm on a cultist thanks to the pesky fact that they’re still technically crew. A lawchange is normally enough to fix that, but their ability to actually make any meaningful impact even then is limited.

So, In Summary:

• X number of randomly-placed terminals around the station
• Disabling them reduces lawset-protection and unlocks malf or malf-lite powers for AIs
• Crew have a bigger hand in dictating an AI’s involvement in a crisis
• AI must interact with crew and can now present opportunities for trickery and other such nice suggestions to help it out, malf or otherwise

 

Like I said at the beginning, this has just been an idea I've been throwing around with myself for a while in an effort to drive more interaction between crew and AI. As an AI main, it gets very lonely in the core and I want friends. As with any idea you don't bounce off others, there are gaps where it can be improved and places that are blatantly a terrible idea but I can't see it. Hit me with your best shot.

Bonus disclaimer: How do I code. I'm just an ideas guy.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Tailson

[ben10083]

I feel for this to be implemented the following things need to also be addressed:

1. In malf, not sure about it being used to unlock powers, I feel we should allow borgs to use them since it is likle ypeople may try to meta out of touching the terms.

2. Should be in more private places IMO since public means that term will never be touched

3. First half was about locking AI down, 2nd half is them getting powers from it? Can you explain for my feeble mind?

[Tailson]

9 hours ago, ben10083 said:

I feel for this to be implemented the following things need to also be addressed:

1. In malf, not sure about it being used to unlock powers, I feel we should allow borgs to use them since it is likle ypeople may try to meta out of touching the terms.

2. Should be in more private places IMO since public means that term will never be touched

3. First half was about locking AI down, 2nd half is them getting powers from it? Can you explain for my feeble mind?

I'll address the third point first and work backwards because that's the kind of horrible person I am.

The terminals' purpose in lore is to lock down the AI and restrict it. By disabling these terminals you unlock powers for the AI. Really what you're doing is disabling safeguards that are probably there for a very good reason.

Yeah private places is fine. Either way it's all good.

And the idea is that during malf these terminals can be hacked, it'll just take a very long time. The incentive is there to encourage malf players to coerce other players into disabling them. Borgs interacting would be possible, maybe being able to snip a wire to speed up a hack, rather than straight up disabling them.

[ben10083]

14 hours ago, Tailson said:

And the idea is that during malf these terminals can be hacked, it'll just take a very long time. The incentive is there to encourage malf players to coerce other players into disabling them. Borgs interacting would be possible, maybe being able to snip a wire to speed up a hack, rather than straight up disabling them.

The worry I have with this is that people will jsut run around, disable the cameras, and reactivate the terms, which makes the ai screwed over as it loses it's powers. Perhaps have the following enacted:

1. In case of people not willing to activate terms, the synthetic takeover allows for borgs to disable terms

2. Terms cannot be reactivated once disabled.

[Tailson]

6 hours ago, ben10083 said:

The worry I have with this is that people will jsut run around, disable the cameras, and reactivate the terms, which makes the ai screwed over as it loses it's powers. Perhaps have the following enacted:

1. In case of people not willing to activate terms, the synthetic takeover allows for borgs to disable terms

2. Terms cannot be reactivated once disabled.

Oh absolutely. In the case of a malf hack, the terminals are damaged beyond repair, just straight up overloaded with no way of unfrying them.