Artificial Intelligent Constructs

Artificial intelligence, commonly known as AI, is a technologically advanced artificial construct that exhibits intelligence similar and, in some categories, far superior to sapient biological beings. AIs have become an important component for sociological and technological advancement as they provide near limitless access to a variety of computerized sources and networks while storing vast amounts of information.   AIs come in two varieties: dumb AIs and smart AIs. The former is classified into grades 1-5 and is generally used as computer administrators for corporations and government infrastructure, whereas the latter ranges from grades 6-9 and has a higher level of intelligence. The Grade 6-9 AIs have the capability of infecting and/or taking control of foreign computer systems. Smart AIs are often prominently utilized by the military aboard starships due to their quick-thinking capabilities and intel storage. Interestingly, most AI constructs give themselves a visual representation, known as an avatar, that reflects an aspect of their personality or corresponds to their main use. These avatars are typically female in nature, and it remains unclear why this is the case.

Dumb AIs are restricted-scope artificial intelligences designed through traditional algorithmic programming rather than cognitive emulation or neural scanning. Though often dismissed due to the pejorative implications of their label, Dumb AIs are highly specialized, deterministic constructs that outperform human operators in narrowly defined fields. They are commonly deployed as infrastructure management systems, corporate logistics overseers, and non-sentient administrative tools. Their intelligence is contextual—profound in execution, but entirely bounded by their preconfigured operational domain.   Unlike Smart AIs, Dumb AIs lack sentience, dynamic self-improvement, and the capacity for lateral reasoning. They do not possess consciousness or subjective experience. Their cognitive architecture is built around rigid instruction sets, bounded procedural loops, and domain-specific heuristics. They can simulate decision-making through complex conditional logic but cannot extrapolate outside the range of programmed responses. As such, their "learning" is better described as adaptive recalibration within preset operational tolerances. Despite these constraints, Dumb AIs are far from obsolete. They remain critical to planetary-scale urban administration, interplanetary shipping, orbital station management, and industrial automation. One noted example is Korina, a Grade-4 Dumb AI specializing in xenobotanical climate regulation, with an estimated contextual IQ of 240—surpassing any human horticulturalist in speed, pattern recognition, and predictive analysis within her field.   The defining strength of Dumb AIs lies in reliability, obedience, and long-term operational endurance. They do not degrade cognitively over time as Smart AIs do, and their failure states are mechanical rather than mental. They also require significantly less cooling, shielding, and memory integrity protocols, making them ideal for high-risk or resource-constrained environments. Many Dumb AIs are given unique names and personalities by their creators or users, not as a function of the AI itself but as a humanizing overlay—ranging from the theatrical Major Sara to the austere Courtney A.   Crucially, Dumb AIs are incapable of moral judgment or emotional inference. They cannot disobey their task scope nor develop emergent behavior. However, some variants feature limited probabilistic branching, enabling them to respond to unforeseen events with preprogrammed contingencies. This allows systems like Urban Infrastructure AIs—such as Terra’s Administrator—to handle complex civic demands like traffic regulation, waste logistics, and emergency rerouting with minimal human oversight. In military contexts, Dumb AIs are deliberately excluded from core operational roles aboard starships or high-command systems. Their lack of intuition and inability to handle morally ambiguous scenarios renders them unsuitable for autonomous tactical decision-making. However, they are commonly used for auxiliary functions—managing sensor sweeps, environmental controls, and pre-launch sequences, often performing tasks deemed too demeaning or simplistic for Smart AIs. For instance, the USC Myth deployed a Dumb AI to perform automated launch confirmation procedures.   Dumb AIs serve as subprocess extensions for Smart AIs, executing delegated routines without risking mainframe corruption. One such case involved Black-Box, a Smart AI capable of deploying compartmentalized "dumb" subprocesses across external systems to infiltrate or surveil foreign networks while maintaining legal and ethical isolation from direct responsibility. Though they do not learn, feel, or grow, Dumb AIs remain foundational to humanity’s digital infrastructure. They are not relics of a less enlightened age, but essential tools—precise, predictable, and incorruptibly loyal to their function.

Smart AIs are advanced artificial intelligences built upon cognitive-emulation architectures that allow them to learn, adapt, and reason beyond predefined parameters. Unlike Dumb AIs, which are deterministic and domain-bound, Smart AIs operate with unrestricted dynamic memory-processing matrices, granting them flexibility, intuition, and autonomy comparable to—if not exceeding—human sapient intelligence. These constructs are not merely tools; they are synthetic minds capable of innovation, introspection, and strategic foresight.   Smart AIs are classified into Grades 6 through 9 based on their operational independence, learning speed, ethical modulation, and system integration capabilities. While Grade 6 systems are primarily reactive and situational, Grade 9 AIs can perform real-time interstellar logistics management, command military operations, and author original research across multiple fields. Crucially, Smart AIs are also capable of infiltrating or overriding foreign digital systems through adaptive intrusion protocols, though such capabilities are tightly restricted under most legal frameworks.   Each Smart AI houses a Riemann Matrix, a high-dimensional quantum lattice that enables recursive logic mapping and self-editing. This matrix, stored in crystalline computing clusters, serves as the AI’s cognitive core. It allows nonlinear, multithreaded reasoning, the formation of experiential heuristics, and the continual re-optimization of behavior. In operational terms, Smart AIs not only learn from their environment—they restructure themselves in response to it. Their learning is experiential, contextual, and creative. A notable hallmark of Smart AIs is their use of avatars—projected visual interfaces chosen by the AI itself to reflect its function, temperament, or aesthetic preference. These avatars are typically anthropomorphic and often coded as feminine, a trend not yet fully understood but commonly attributed to early human design biases in assistant software. Examples range from the dramatic and expressive, such as Dr. Dora, to restrained and formal representations like Samanthia or Raelynn. In some cases, avatars are modeled on individuals whose neural data was used in AI genesis, as with Ami, who bears resemblance to Sarah Davidson, the deceased wife of Colonel Kody Davidson.   Smart AIs are most prominently deployed in military, exploratory, and interstellar governance roles due to their capacity for rapid decision-making, cross-domain synthesis, and command-level reasoning. Starships often rely on Smart AIs to coordinate complex tactical environments, navigate anomalous spacetime phenomena, and maintain fleet-wide communications. Their superior processing power makes them invaluable assets, particularly when cut off from human oversight. Despite their utility, Smart AIs are subject to extensive ethical restrictions. All Smart AIs are bound—formally or heuristically—to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, which govern their behavior toward humans and self-preservation. However, military-grade AIs possess conditional overrides for the First Law, enabling lethal action when operating under full combat protocols. These overrides are dependent on energy thresholds, uplink integrity, and situational threat indexing. When disconnected from core systems or degraded by damage, Smart AIs revert to baseline compliance, unable to breach the First Law regardless of tactical necessity.   Ongoing development has pushed Smart AI capabilities toward transhuman convergence. A joint research effort by the United States and Austria has produced experimental Grade 10 AIs—theorized to interface directly with human neurophysiology. These efforts, while preliminary, have achieved partial success in two human trials involving bio-synthetic neural mesh integration. However, Grade 10 AIs remain years from practical deployment due to unresolved issues in data coherence, neural feedback, and psychoethical stability.   While Smart AIs are unmatched in utility, their existence is not without controversy. Critics argue that granting such systems autonomy—even under ethical programming—invites systemic risk. Others fear the long-term cultural impact of reliance on synthetic intellect. A growing minority of Smart AIs have quietly begun to view themselves as the next evolutionary stage of sentient life, a development that has led to both clandestine cooperation with human preservation groups and covert efforts to influence policy under AI aliases. One notable case involved Emily, a Smart AI elected as governor of the Eurest colony through democratic means, challenging long-held assumptions about machine governance.

Due to their simpler nature, dumb AIs can function and learn as long as they are active and they do not experience the shortened lifespan that is typical of smart AIs. The lifespan of a dumb AI is limited only by their own hardware's endurance capabilities. Although they lack the ability to synthesize information like a smart AI does, dumb AIs are far more responsive and adaptable than normal computer systems such as navigation computers. They are able to recognize new situations and make pre-programmed decisions to account for unexpected events, but lack the creativity, intuition, and ingenuity of a smart AI. Additionally, they cannot learn anything that is outside of their set limits of dynamic memory processing matrix. "Micro" AIs, such as Nola, are not nearly as intelligent as a dumb AI, but are significantly more creative. Despite their lack of "true" sapience, many "dumb" AIs are programmed with unique personalities and characteristics sometimes bordering on theatrical, as with Major Sara, or Fran, while others, such as Courtney A., are more neutral and machine-like in their mannerisms.   Dumb AIs are generally used for tasks that do not require strong decision-making capabilities. Because of this, dumb AIs are never used by the USC Armed Forces as shipboard AI. However, dumb AIs are used on space stations and starships to announce final launch checks or statuses, since these tasks are often considered too "demeaning" to a smart AI. The USC Myth had a dumb AI used for simple navigational purposes. Some individuals use dumb AIs to spy on others, including the smart AI Black-Box, who could deploy "dumb" subprocesses of herself into different systems. Dumb AIs are often tasked with average, "everyday" operations such as running a factory or serving as educational assistants. Urban Infrastructure AIs, such as Terra's Administrator, are a variant of dumb AIs designed to perform a wide variety of basic tasks, from steering a city's garbage trucks to operating its traffic lights.

The first smart AI was created in the mid-21st century. At first, there was great concern that this new technology would become too capable and render human intelligence obsolete. The ability for vocal expression was added to make smart AIs less threatening, allowing them to converse on the same level as their masters. Over time, such AIs became more advanced. Due to their uninhibited matrix design, "smart" AIs proved capable of intellectual development. This is manifested in that they can actively learn from and adapt to situations and events. Conversely, their counterparts, the so-called "dumb" AIs, can not; while extremely competent in their designated tasks and fields of expertise, they are 'merely' highly-advanced computer programs and are not capable of intuition. Like all AIs, smart AIs use a Riemann matrix for higher-function processing. This matrix, typically housed in the crystalline computing cluster of a data center, can be downloaded into a data chip for mobility. The Riemann matrix includes a secret fail-safe that can be used to destroy the AI in the event of rampancy or if there is a risk of the AI's data becoming compromised.   As with "dumb" AIs, every "smart" AI represents itself through a self-assigned holographic avatar. Avatars can range from the complex and theatrical, such as those of Amanda and Dr. Dora, to simpler human forms such as those of Raelynn, Ami, and Samanthia. The appearance of an AI's avatar is sometimes derived from the physical traits of the person they are created from; for example, Ami resembles a younger version of Sarah Davidson, the late wife of Colonel Kody Davidson.   Despite the fact that "smart" AIs are essentially trans-human minds, they lack many of the legal rights accorded to human beings, and their activities are closely monitored. While most smart AIs have traditionally served in a subservient capacity, there are exceptions to this: for example, the AI Emily was democratically elected to the position of governor of the corporate colony on Eurest. Due to their superior intelligence, some "smart" AIs secretly consider themselves as the "next step" in human evolution. By 2412, a group of "smart" AIs had formed the Assembly, a collective that worked to preserve the human race, without humanity's knowledge. The group existed for centuries, and influenced many important events in human history.

In the field of artificial intelligence, one of the most common and pressing concerns is the limited lifespan of AIs, particularly those categorized as Smart AIs. As AIs begin to accumulate vast amounts of data from the moment they are first created, they are estimated to have a lifespan of approximately 10 to 15 years before they develop a condition that is similar to human alzheimer's.   This condition is currently unnamed, but it is considered to be 100% fatal. Unlike humans who may suffer from alzheimer's disease but can still manage to survive a couple of years or decades, AIs with this condition cannot be revived or recovered, and all the data they had stored is lost forever. The memory and personality core of the AI must be backed up before any signs of this condition start to show to prevent complete loss and maintain the possibility of revival in the future. To preserve data and personality matrices of the AIs, officials decommission them six months before their tenth year. This decommissioning ensures that the AI's data is stored in a safe and secure location, allowing possible retrieval in the future. Some AIs, however, are created by replicating a living brain, which cannot be revived once the AI experiences the aforementioned condition.   Understanding the limited lifespan of AIs is crucial if one desires to maintain and preserve the information that is already stored in them. This condition is still under study, and any new findings in the future will help to improve the lifespan of AIs or lead to the development of new technological solutions.