Mr.Popper Posted March 17 Posted March 17 I believe this is an oversight rather than an intended feature, but AI is missing several human accents in the "mimic accent" verb, and this is likely true for cyborgs as well (I will test and edit this post at some point to confirm). Additionally, the Eridani suit option is listed twice in the UI (the second as "Eridanian (2)". The missing accents are as follows: Native Silversun Gadpathurian Reinstated Eridanian Dreg Vulgar Morozi* Fisanduhian Novi Jadranic* Native Orepitter Providence Trinarist Galatean Tsukuyomian Valkyrian High Morozi* Europan Assunzionii San Colettish Port Antillean Mictlani Scarabs Eridanian, Dreg* Vysokan Non-Coalition Frontier Imperial Frontier* Empyrean Svarogite Bursa *Accents which could be argued to be improper for AI/cyborg, but which have been included in this list for the sake of accuracy.
Desven Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Counter-argument: remove most accents from AI. Unlike synthetics, AI and cyborgs are meant to be tools and not actually people. Keeping in mind that it's an SCC ship, it would make sense for AI to be limited to TTS or Biesellite accents at most. Mictlanian accent for AI doesn't really make sense, but in that regard, Solarian doesn't either. 1
Fluffy Posted March 17 Posted March 17 I concur with Desven, it doesn't really make much sense for the AI to have a wealth of accents, especially as the AI team (for what I understood) wants it used as a tool (as per:) While emulating one accent, the one for where it was manufactured, is fine, a selection of accents seems antithetical to it being just a tool 1
Mr.Popper Posted March 17 Author Posted March 17 9 minutes ago, Desven said: Counter-argument: remove most accents from AI. Unlike synthetics, AI and cyborgs are meant to be tools and not actually people. Keeping in mind that it's an SCC ship, it would make sense for AI to be limited to TTS or Biesellite accents at most. Mictlanian accent for AI doesn't really make sense, but in that regard, Solarian doesn't either. IPCs also are not manufactured as "people", they are effectively cyborgs with more autonomy. The reason IPCs have unique accents or appearances in the first place is so they can appear more relatable and human to organics. This is why text-to-speech exists in the first place and why it has gradually become more lifelike, both IRL and presumably in the Aurora universe. Really, any synthetic speech is a form of text-to-speech just with more set dressing to be appealing to organics. Therefor it makes perfect sense that the SCC and other companies would dress their synthetic units with more realistic voices, especially those expected to interact with humans like medical, service, clerical borgs, or the AI itself. Why would an intelligent corporation ever want their products to be less appealing? If the developers needed to limit accent selection for OOC reasons like bloat, I think it would be fair to narrow it down to TTS + all of the Biesellite accents (including Antilles and Mictlan preferably), but this is not the case as far as I can tell. Removing selection now would only be detrimental to players for no good lore reason as outlined in the rest of this post.
Noble Row Posted March 17 Posted March 17 While AI are more tools, yes, they're supposed to be mimicking the crew they serve so people are more trusting to the omniscient disembodied voice. AI across all of Science Fiction also use a variety of accents. Getting an AI whitelist is an extensive process that even involves an interview, I'm sure such a strenuous process entrusts people to be able to use things such as a tiny little tag next to their text that gives other people a vague idea what you might sound like. This is completely harmless, and if you've managed to go through the gauntlet of getting an AI whitelist, I'm sure you're responsible enough to handle that tiny arbitrary icon. I see no reason why they wouldn't have access to accents that make them more personable to the crew they serve, and if you see someone abusing such privileges, I encourage you to ahelp it or report it to the AI whitelist team such as @ReadThisNamePlz
Desven Posted March 17 Posted March 17 13 minutes ago, Mr.Popper said: IPCs also are not manufactured as "people", they are effectively cyborgs with more autonomy. The reason IPCs have unique accents or appearances in the first place is so they can appear more relatable and human to organics. This is why text-to-speech exists in the first place and why it has gradually become more lifelike, both IRL and presumably in the Aurora universe. Really, any synthetic speech is a form of text-to-speech just with more set dressing to be appealing to organics. Therefor it makes perfect sense that the SCC and other companies would dress their synthetic units with more realistic voices, especially those expected to interact with humans like medical, service, clerical borgs, or the AI itself. Why would an intelligent corporation ever want their products to be less appealing? If the developers needed to limit accent selection for OOC reasons like bloat, I think it would be fair to narrow it down to TTS + all of the Biesellite accents (including Antilles and Mictlan preferably), but this is not the case as far as I can tell. Removing selection now would only be detrimental to players for no good lore reason as outlined in the rest of this post. IPCs are manufactured in a variety of roles and many of themes in synthetic lore are about what it truly means to have a soul, freedom, etc. Also, keep in mind that IPCs on the ship are not manufactured for the ship. There are IPCs that come from Vysoka, from Mictlan, from Mars... these IPCs were designed to be used there in the first place and are now in the Horizon for whatever background story your character has. It's not the same with AI and stationbounds. We've had problems before with stationbounds where they would rush to the old roboticist and get an accent tag, then pretend to be full characters with OP access, beating characters like first responders by miles. The thought has always been that stationbounds are not characters but tools. You might join as a stationbound for a while to help power the SM if you're not feeling like playing a full round as your engineer character. They're not chill buddies to hang out at the bar as you might with a synthetic. In every case, we can presume stationbounds and AI were made to be used in the Horizon only. It makes no sense to have a story of a stationbound that was actually made in Biesel and somehow survived and found employment as a tool in a spaceship. Even before, we had the rule that stationbounds would explode if they got away from the station, I don't know if that still happens. What I mean is... why would you have a million modules for a one-thing tool that is meant to be used in a single place? Sure, you can program Siri to speak to you in an American or British accent, but we would really need to think about a limited list of presets an AI for the Horizon would have that doesn't make them full human-like characters. 1
Carver Posted March 17 Posted March 17 In what world would the SCC be unwise enough to program Trinarist/Dominian/Dreg/Gadpathurian accents into their AIs? 1
Sniblet Posted March 17 Posted March 17 (edited) Restricting the AI's accent selection both makes the role even more boring than it already is, and doesn't particularly make sense for Horizon. A Gadpathurian ship would use a Gadpathurian AI because only Gadpathurians are onboard and they're a pack of nationalists with no friendly interest in any non-Gadpathurians. The Horizon is a Bieselite ship in a legal sense, but on many days you can expect more Moghesians than Bieselites on deck. This doesn't mean that AIs should be able to speak Hegemonic, because there's no significant AI industry in the Hegemony to train AIs to speak Hegemonic, but it does mean that there's a market for AIs speaking that way on Horizon. Likewise for Coalition and Solarian accents, which do come from AI-capable places. If a place has significant ability to train AIs to speak an accent (or often has synthetics trained into that accent on their behalf - Silversun), and there are people on Horizon who would find that accent familiar (this is true of all accents), and hearing the accent coming out of the ship is not alarmingly bad for Horizon's image (dreg, Himean, etc) then it makes sense for an AI to be able to speak that accent. "It's a Bieselite ship" rings hollow for this when Bieselites are a minority on the ship. I've taken the ACCENTS_ALL_IPC list and trimmed out the choices that would look bad. No dregs, no Himeo, no Trinarists. Vysoka and Assunzione are maybes because of what their synth relationships are like, but I'd rather err on the side of player choice when handling maybes. I'll PR this change. ACCENT_CETI, TTS, XANU, COC, ELYRA, ERIDANI, SOL, SILVERSUN_EXPATRIATE, SILVERSUN_ORIGINAL, PHONG, MARTIAN, KONYAN, LUNA, GIBSON_OVAN, GIBSON_UNDIR, VYSOKA, VENUS, VENUSJIN, JUPITER, CALLISTO, EUROPA, EARTH, ASSUNZIONE, VISEGRAD, SANCOLETTE, VALKYRIE, MICTLAN, PERSEPOLIS, MEDINA, NEWSUEZ, AEMAQ, DAMASCUS For reasons that I don't fully understand myself, ACCENT_ALL_IPC includes no Galatean accents and no Port Antilia. I'm assuming this is not an oversight, because neither of their pages mention synthetics once. The current AI selection, for reference: ACCENT_CETI, TTS, XANU, COC, ELYRA, ERIDANI, ERIDANI, SOL, SILVERSUN_EXPATRIATE, PHONG, MARTIAN, KONYAN, LUNA, GIBSON_OVAN, GIBSON_UNDIR, VENUS, VENUSJIN, JUPITER, CALLISTO, EARTH, VISEGRAD, PERSEPOLIS, MEDINA, NEWSUEZ, AEMAQ, DAMASCUS, PLUTO This removes Pluto and the second Eridanian suit, and adds all of those that look to have been forgotten by oversights. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/18682 Edited March 18 by Sniblet action 1
Mr.Popper Posted March 17 Author Posted March 17 31 minutes ago, Desven said: It's not the same with AI and stationbounds. We've had problems before with stationbounds where they would rush to the old roboticist and get an accent tag, then pretend to be full characters with OP access, beating characters like first responders by miles. The thought has always been that stationbounds are not characters but tools. You might join as a stationbound for a while to help power the SM if you're not feeling like playing a full round as your engineer character. They're not chill buddies to hang out at the bar as you might with a synthetic. You are right that borgs and AI should not be masquerading as normal characters- that defeats the point of IPCs- and people should absolutely not be playing them that way. However, they are still characters in the sense that someone is playing them and they are playing a role, albeit a programmed one. Ideally, a station-bound should be limited to at most a two-dimensional persona as dictated by its programming, with no room for actual character development or activity outside of its designated role. Anyone who oversteps this clear limitation should be appropriately punished by staff or job banned if necessary, the job itself should not be neutered unreasonably because of a few bad apples. 37 minutes ago, Desven said: In every case, we can presume stationbounds and AI were made to be used in the Horizon only. It makes no sense to have a story of a stationbound that was actually made in Biesel and somehow survived and found employment as a tool in a spaceship. Even before, we had the rule that stationbounds would explode if they got away from the station, I don't know if that still happens. What I mean is... why would you have a million modules for a one-thing tool that is meant to be used in a single place? Sure, you can program Siri to speak to you in an American or British accent, but we would really need to think about a limited list of presets an AI for the Horizon would have that doesn't make them full human-like characters. Up until this point I have played under the assumption that cyborgs (and robots and androids) are common synthetic constructs bought and sold like any other commodity for corporate or private use, with those on Horizon only being distinguished by their laws and SCC vetted programming. This appears to be supported by the wiki, but if I am wrong and the official stance is the opposite please let me know so I can adjust my synthetic characters accordingly. Otherwise, I agree that canonically cyborgs should not be able to speak in every accent available under the mimic accent verb but this is something players can self-regulate. This is true for many things mechanically possible in HRP, players are given the benefit of the doubt to self-regulate and punished if they go out of line. I assume the verb exists so that a newly spawned cyborg can set their voice at their convenience rather than accidentally getting stuck with the wrong one when they spawn in- cyborgs have a verb to change their name for presumably the same reason. If you really want to stop cyborg players from abusing this it could be a one-time option, but this is superfluous when those offenders can be handled individually. 43 minutes ago, Carver said: In what world would the SCC be unwise enough to program Trinarist/Dominian/Dreg/Gadpathurian accents into their AIs? I agree actually. I only mentioned this briefly but several of the accents listed in the original post would be strange or inappropriate for a corporate synthetic to use, but were mentioned nonetheless because I am not an expert on the lore and would rather leave it at staff discretion which of the missing accents should be added. I probably should have clarified this originally but I will say it here instead- I do not think synthetics should be able to use whatever accent tag in the game they want, but they should have a reasonable selection of options that comply with lore.
ReadThisNamePlz Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Hey, I suppose I’ll speak on this. I’m not a maintainer, so ultimately it will be up to them. AI is a tool. Yes. It’s purpose is to act like a support system to the crew and command, etc. I’ve covered this in a recent complaint. However, it having accents is fine. I do not want to see AI with Dominian accents, or even native silver tongue accents. These two are pretty niche, whereas AIs should not have niche appearances. With all of that said, the lack of some of the mentioned accents is not intentional to my knowledge. I think as new accents were added, there was just an oversight. Accents should really be used to indicate where the SCC acquired the AI from or maybe to cater to the crew majority that is on shift. Like a lot of Solarians would be happy with a Earth accent, or vice versa with Biesellites But again, to be entirely honest, I do not want to see niche accents being used by AI because the background of a lot of those accents could be points of contention for the crew. Silversunners don’t like Idris, Dominians dont like..well, AI, Trinarist is strictly IPC. I’d be fine with a Galatian model. 1
ReadThisNamePlz Posted March 17 Posted March 17 2 minutes ago, Mr.Popper said: Otherwise, I agree that canonically cyborgs should not be able to speak in every accent available under the mimic accent verb but this is something players can self-regulate. I do not trust players to self regulate. That may be rude, but I have been here too long to think I that if we give someone a chance at something new, and go “don’t use it” - eventually they’ll use it.
NerdyVampire Posted March 18 Posted March 18 I don't feel like an AI should have access to an accent if the people using that accent wouldn't be fabricating or using AIs in their culture.
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