§3 [eng] - Rex in Space: AI and Synthetic Intelligences

 

July 9, 2023

Rex in Space and Synthetic Intelligences

There is a great debate about the spread, or rather consumption, of AI, artificial intelligence, today. It is a topic that has always successfully seduced the creativity and curiosity of science fiction writers. Almost 50 years ago, Isaac Asimov hypothesized the positronic brain, a form of intelligence intended for a physical space in the robot's head. He theorized the three laws of robotics, thinking that this positronic intelligence had a place and a where, therefore a physical identity hosted by a powerful body, that of the robot. 

Chatgpt is now a widespread computer intelligence, or rather a program, programmed and launched, which has the power to manage, analyze, and even perform operations on everything connected in a network. Considering the pervasiveness of the internet, it is everywhere and its boundaries, for now, are constituted by the commands defined by programmers. In chatgpt, you cannot ask questions about violence, sex, or even more popularly about clinical diagnoses. At least not yet. All this influences a sci-fi writer as a mine of stimuli...

In Rex in Space and in the Galaxy of XX (twenty) Planets, there are different modes of expression and existence of synthetic intelligences, i.e., not originating or linked to the biological organ of the brain.

 There are forms limited to contexts, diffuse forms, and autonomous forms. The Galaxy of XX Planets is large and in all that space, humanity needs every resource and form of operability possible. In space, as in the sea, the only law is survival. Men, especially those who lived before the great galactic reform, which led to the constitution of the XX Planets and their alliance pact about 500 years ago, followed the principle of the usefulness of synthetic intelligence at all costs, including warfare.

On the day of the events recounted in Rex in Space, there is a moderate paranoia towards non-human and humanoid intelligences. This distrust has led men to recover ancient techniques for data processing and storage. At the center of everything is Rex's planet, but we will talk about it later. Just as there will be space to talk about the spin-off of the main narrative plot of Rex in Space and its sequels, linked to synthetic intelligences, the Centuria.