You are Shey ch'Tharvasse, the newest Commander of Starfleet.
For the first time in a surprising long count of years, Commander, Starfleet looks out over a sky and stars that was not their childhood inheritance. No, Earth is a fascinating, alien place to you. But it's more than that - the city of San Francisco itself is strange to you, not for being human, but for being a city at all. For all seventy-two years of your life you have known the stars as your home. Born to a free-ranging Andorian family on the starbase over Rigel, in a maternity ward overlooking the picturesque merchant docking bay, your thaan often joked you had nebulas in your blood from your first day. In fact, you did not step foot on a planet until your teenage years.
But space is a cruel mistress, and you spent your childhood smiling toe-to-toe with the spectre of death, playing around airlocks and all the machinery you were told not to touch. You followed your parents around the Federation and nearby systems, finally on their own freighter, the SS Lenakaan, NC-1784. But in the end there's little to do on a long-haul freight run but study and dream. When your eighteenth birthday came around, you changed ships and was delivered to Sol III.
Starfleet has taken you in many directions, letting you serve in the Explorer Corps after graduation, but you've had experience in Shipyard Ops, Intelligence, and as Chief of Staff to the position you now hold. One of your most memorable posting was a Starfleet attache to the embassy in Rigel. You even spent five years commanding the USS Potemkin, taking over the chair from the Iron Lady herself. A career in the merchant fleet and around starbases everywhere wild and woolly gave you a great grasp of how other people tick, and how they scheme. Much of what Sousa and Sulu have accomplished in the Council chambers have your sure fingerprints all over it.
Many were surprised when you took your sabbatical, retreating off to Rigel. But not those closest to you. A decade as Chief of Staff, after years spent heading up Starfleet Intel, takes a heavy toll. But you went to the stomping grounds of your youth, and busied your hands with the work of those days. Well, if on a grander scale. The deal that let the Rigellians build the formidable Anacail frigate class of the Amarki was the jewel in the crown of those days. You were ready to come back when news of Sulu's impending resignation came through, so you put your hat into the ring, hoping to get one of the command billets in the sure to follow shake-up of the senior staff. Instead you somehow found yourself picked by President Okaar.
No small surprise, that.
So now you are back, refreshed, and ready to show the Galaxy what a humble Andorian merchant dock urchin can do.
Ah poor Shey. All that hope and it ended so poorly, departing under a miserable cloud. He wanted to accomplish so much, and what did he get out of his term?
The end of the GBZ conflict. Something to be proud of, but let's face it, all the heavy lifting was done under Sulu's term. Shey came in just in time to sign the peace papers.
The defeat of the Vulcan Technocracy was good, but it all happened so quickly he had very little input.
Sold the Dawiar to the Gorn in an act of political expediency.
The S'harien was destroyed on his watch; taking with it Sulu's daughter. Nice.
Helped keep the Klingons from jumping the Romulans during the Romulan-Breen war, so that's something.
He failed to prevent the Coreward Border war from starting, though Starfleet was able to help end it relatively early.
Oversaw the Starkin and the Laio joining the Federation, so that's nice.
Sold out the Chrystovians in an act of political expediency.
And of course, through all of it he failed, failed, and failed again to see the truth behind the Harmony of Horizon until his own son died at their hands.
All in all it's a mixed record at best, and poor ch'Tharvasse ends up looking awfully small next to the giants that proceeded him. Sulu was always going to be a tough act to follow, but maybe Shey just wasn't up to the challenge.
Going the Distance When she was at Starfleet, Admiral Patricia Chen transformed Shipyard Industrial Command. Then, she transformed Starfleet Operations. Now, she's looking to put her stamp on a whole new organization.
A huge undertaking is underway in the Rimward reaches of the Federation. Three of our newest members have launched an experiment in mutual defense that is probably the biggest since the Coalition of Planets itself. Uniquely enabled by Federation membership, the Sarqel Treaty Organization is the merging of two great fleets, three shipping concerns, and three budgets set aside for advanced spacecraft production into one complete whole. At its head three flag officers, one from each of the STO's members: Lord-General Alenii of the Fiiral, Marshal Sensrik of the Seyek, and Navarch Yoanis of the Qloathi. And for at least the next five years they will be joined by a special consultant to assist them in constructing this impressive institution, Admiral Patricia Chen of Starfleet.
I've come to Rethelia to meet Chen, and gain an insight into her vision for the STO. While technically on a sabbatical, the fact Chen is still a commissioned officer with a rank equivalent to the rest gives her a certain level of clout beyond what you would expect from someone with the formal title of 'special consultant.' By all accounts she lept at the opportunity. "She speaks of how you can still find procedures written by Hoshi Sato in Starfleet manuals," Valentina Sousa tells me, "The STO represents a blank canvas on which to put her theories and ideas into practice, to leave a permanent foundational mark. Frankly, I'm jealous." But not jealous enough to leave retirement, it seems.
Chen sets the meeting place: Cerelus shipyards, which isn't surprising to me given all the years she spent in shipyard operations. It now serves as the nerve center for an ambitious wave of new shipbuilding for the STO. When Chen isn't here, she's overseeing industry being built in orbit of Fiiral, in preparation for a wave of shipyard expansion.
I beam up, and to my surprise Admiral Chen's already in the transporter room. No aide, no yeoman to come grab me, and certainly no waiting due to a delay or Chen playing power games. I barely have time to grumble at the Qloathi and Fiiral operating the console about the potential scrambling of my molecules before she's off and talking, and I have to scramble to make notes. I feel something that will repeat itself over the next few hours -- an uncertainty if Patricia Chen's infectious enthusiasm and boundless energy is slightly manufactured to avoid awkward entanglements that throw off her schedule, or some passive skill that brings harmony.
A manifestation of harmony is vital for the STO, particularly industrially. They face issues that would threaten to cripple other institutions: The disentangling of heavy aerospace supply lines. Reconciling different procurement process. Basic but crucial differences in doctrine and operations procedure. Integrating three species, two with their fair share of bad blood and one unused to working on mixed-species ships. Yet the STO plans to have totally integrated crews on all new builds, and all vessels by 2325.
"That's part of why I'm here," Chen says, nodding to a passing trio of those three species, so perfectly timed I start to wonder if I am in some choreographer's dream, "Starfleet has experience with four founding members, all four of them having issue with at least one other member of the original coalition, and we integrated more and then some. Starfleet and the Federation are all about bringing together. I'm confident we can bridge that gap here, and on the supply side start unlocking economies of scale that will allow shipbuilding to take off.."
Shipbuilding taking off is vital, because part of her plan was a retirement of designs deemed obsolete or redundant. Despite the influx of resources, it was a controversial move. "I understand the concern. Overall combat capacity took an immediate drop by 21.25 percent." Chen says. "But by 2328, when we plan to use up the resources gained from scrapping, the STO will have 27.6 percent larger combat capacity than it did before we started, and we will be on a better footing for further expansion from there."
It's rare to hear a Starfleet officer jump first to combat capacity, but that speaks to the different culture of the STO. Like most modern space fleets, it wears many hats as a matter of course. There's the Outrider Flotilla, dedicated explorers. There's the shipping and logistics command, which helps coordinate civilian traffic and industrial transport between all three powers. But at the forefront of anyone's mind is the fact the STO is on the front-line of any future conflict with the forces of the Ashalla Pact. Even with the Pacifist-leaning Fiiral given equal voice alongside the diplomatic Qloathi, the focus is decidedly martial.
As if sensing my thoughts, she swings to her Explorer Corps roots, "What I'm particularly proud of though is the two modern Ambassadors we have planned, who will offer the STO exploration capability equal to the best in the Federation."
The Qloathi and Seyek both remain committed to the search for knowledge in the stars, and have created the Outrider Flotilla in the image of the Explorer Corps. Here as well, Chen's expertise -- and her influence -- comes through. There were no firm plans for a second Ambassador before she arrived, and there was still debate over wether one should be constructed at all once the three megaton berth at Fiiral was compelted. But three weeks after Chen arrived, plans for a new starbase at Fiiral to serve as the STO headquarters were pushed back, with industrial capacity diverted to upgrade Arqueniou's Berth B to the 3mt standard. Next year, an Ambassador will be laid down at Fiiral. A year after that, another at Arqueniou.
The use of the Ambassador demonstrates illustrates the problem of major obsolescence in the STO. The Sunrise, whose fearsome photon lances struck awe two decades ago, needs a major upgrade to remain viable into the next decade. The Arqueniou Leb Nin is broadly inferior to the latest Excelsior-A. And the STO lacks a general response frigate or cruiser. Chen's solution adds another complex element in an already boiling mix: use more Starfleet ships.
"The Renaissance is a proven platform, who's utility has been proven by Captains like Rurliss and Veraniss. Centaur-B builds will round out response and skirmish capability, while the very capable Arquila Leb Hoiathi functions as the combat frigate to cover the Renaissance when battle closes. Then, in the future, Keplers and Comets will be a leap forward in scientific, scouting, and internal patrol capacities."
One might note that of the six new classes slated for construction, five of them are Starfleet designs, and only one native to the STO. This has caused concern among certain sectors, who are worried that this will be the end of the STO's unique fleet. But Chen says it is about efficiency.
"Barring a major refit, the Renaissance is an improvement over the Constrictor," she says, "It loses some combat capacity for being a more producible frame with more general utility." Her logic is sound -- the savings by using a Renaissance allow more ships overall to be fielded, the lesser combat power per ship offset by sheer numbers. One only needs to review battle reports from the Gabriel Border Zone to see the value of Renaissances in numbers.
She also mentions refits are being explored, "Our plan will include major refits to the Sunrise class and the Arqueniou Leb Nin with technologies that have had time to develop in the next seven years. Most of the STO designs will remain in service for decades. We are going to to evaluate fleet needs past 2325 and determine what ships the STO will have to design for themselves and what they can use from the broader Federation." She nods at a multispecies group of dockyard workers, examining a component. "That's the benefit of being in one big team, after all." It's answers like this that no doubt explain why concerns about the STO's unique character have been brushed aside.
"What really keeps me up at night is figuring out the supply chains. That's choppy waters."
.
By all accounts, Chen has skillfully navigated them. As we look out over Cerelus' One and Two berths, I can already see the skeletons of the Renaissances taking shape. Chen has a deep contact list in a variety of areas, and she has called in every favor possible to make this a smooth transition. Experts from the United Earth East Asian Productivity Commission have arrived from Chennai and Chengdu to oversee the installation of mass-fabricators for Starfleet standard parts, alongside workers from the Hargunn Arcrut Resource Combine with long experience putting together Renaissances for the Tellar State -- old friends of Chen from crisis days. "She hit it at the right time, like she always does," says Nazo Sulemani, Chair of the Productivity Commission, "All the Core states are coming off their Renaissance kick and waiting around to get started on the Ambassador, so we can transition to helping set up the STO. We keep our foundries hot by helping them with the initial run of parts before we have to tool for the Ambassador, and by then they should be on their feet."
Workers in two Orion yards will use knowledge gained by upgrading a Betazoid Centaur to the B standard by assembling two Centaur-Bs for the STO, while critical industry for them is established on Fiiral. Meanwhile, to meet the demands of the Ambassador and Renaissance builds, freight companies across the quadrant have been getting messages, many directly from Chen. They help move a flow of parts from production centers in the heartland of the Federation to one of its most distant outposts. No detail is overlooked: she ensures that shipping containers from Rigel will fit on Seyek rail infrastructure.
As we stand there and look out over Renaissances, Chen pointing out this feature or this contribution from a fellow member state, I notice an odd pattern in her speech -- when she seems particularly excited, her voice takes on an subtle but rhythmic cadence, almost like a metronome. Because I am a jerk, I of course point this out to her.
She blushes slightly and laughs, "Very observant. When I was a child I was always in such a rush to get my words out sotheyalljumbledtogether. It made answering questions hard, sometimes. So I eventually learned how to set a measured pace for myself, so you can get legible quotes from me." She leans in like we're sharing a secret on the last sentence, before whisking me off again. As I walk the halls, I see faces from across the Federation. Many workers are coming here to help set up the production lines for the STO, drawn by engaging and challenging work. Some will stay on to keep building the future, adding to the fabric of the Conciliation Union and the Qloathi.
Of course, Chen isn't looking to just make the lives of the STO's shipbuilders easier. She tells me her days are filled with meetings about every topic possible, the STO's leadership eager to squeeze as much practical knowledge as possible out of Chen. Her name is all over dozens of future planning projects, and she has testified before the Unity Conclave and the Qloathi Senate about the support she needs. She works daily on hammering out doctrine for the Outrider Flotilla, for crisis and disaster response, for fleet command and control, and plans for a plethora of hostile threats, from what to do in the first hours of the Cardassian attack, to a powerful entity intruding on STO space. She's overseeing the training of STO's own Operations and Mission Control, taking her experience managing dozens of Starfleet ships and putting it into action.
Before I know it, I find myself in the transporter room again. No sooner do I thank her and we say our goodbyes then the next appointment materializes on the platform. No beat missed, no detail overlooked. I've noticed commentators often fall into the habit of describing Chen very mechanically, as if she is some extension of the great shipyards she's helped run over the years. She functions with clockwork timing, mechanical precision, has an assembly line of thought. But I would think about the fact that, in Starfleet Academy, Chen was on the triathlon team. A triathlon is a sport that requires careful planning and precision -- every sprint of energy, every drink, what muscles need to be used -- all carefully rationed and planned out well in advance.
To Chen, this is a chance to put many theories into practice, and five years to foster ideas that will live for century. She's ready to endure. It only remains to see how far she'll go.
When Coreg Maark isn't stalking Starfleet Admirals, he writes for the Tellar Review. Follow him on insta, @sepiroth69
Editor's Note: an earlier draft of this article was posted with missing information. We have since corrected this error.
Some of this might be thrown into chaos by this month's events lolololol
And here is the definitive Chen article, written by Iron Wolf, in case anyone wants to read it again and remind yourself why she's a fav.
To Chen, this is a chance to put many theories into practice, and five years to foster ideas that will live for century. She's ready to endure. It only remains to see how far she'll go.
*Cardassia (This Is an Empire) Quest*
"How the hell do those peace loving federation cowardly liars manage to destroy all those ships in the main Gabriel brawl without loosing a single ship! The whole combat functions are rigged against us (and our ablative armour ('client' species))!"
*Mentat Quest (You are a social-science mentat with a very broad range of study. And you have mind-control over the Emperor. You must defend your (and your fellow augmented intelligences) right to exist)!*
"How the hell did the Federation manage to defeat us with so few losses! I mean yeah, a top tier power vs us was always be lost but Inxia was our fortress-system! We should have done more damage!"
*Klingon/Romulan Quest (Immediate Post Biophage)*
"What the actual fuck. Yeah. Not favouring the feds. Like hell you aren't. That combat with the bio-phage, all those losses and the federation came out nearly as strong (stronger, if you count their advances in diplomatic relations) than thet did before the Battle of Kadesh prime. Bullshit. I mean, look a T'mir! It was floating about with no shields and not one hit more. Can anyone say plot armour?"
I believe she was last seen in the first quarter of this year staring down a Riala-class. The Riala blinked first.
e: From what we know now, that was a Harmony plot, so she was busy foiling the HoH despite being an entire quadrant away.
e2: For anyone interested in the T'Mir, I suggest you look at her wiki article. I've compiled a list of accomplishments, and you can't make this stuff up.
Ah poor Shey. All that hope and it ended so poorly, departing under a miserable cloud. He wanted to accomplish so much, and what did he get out of his term?
Oversaw one of the largest expansions of Starfleet capabilities ever; the Ambassador and Rennie waves started under his term are just beginning to come online.
Kept Harmony motherships out of the heart of the Federation.
If we'd had Sanctuary-class motherships, their Singer nodes and their logistics chain with free passage through the Federation under the Chrystovian pretext, we'd have a significantly worse infestation than we already do.
Unless you think the Singers were not angling that as an excuse to put broadcast nodes inside the Federation.
And of course, through all of it he failed, failed, and failed again to see the truth behind the Harmony of Horizon until his own son died at their hands.
Held the line long enough, and flooded the zone with enough investigators for one of his picked Explorer Captains to crack the nature of the Harmony advantage. Zara Quest happened during his tenure, and Wolfe explocitly points at the significant effort invested in cracking that mystery.
Dude has every right to hold his head high in the company of his peers.
He's spent his tenure forging the sword until it was time.
Now someone else gets to use it.
Ah poor Shey. All that hope and it ended so poorly, departing under a miserable cloud. He wanted to accomplish so much, and what did he get out of his term?
The end of the GBZ conflict. Something to be proud of, but let's face it, all the heavy lifting was done under Sulu's term. Shey came in just in time to sign the peace papers.
The defeat of the Vulcan Technocracy was good, but it all happened so quickly he had very little input.
Sold the Dawiar to the Gorn in an act of political expediency.
The S'harien was destroyed on his watch; taking with it Sulu's daughter. Nice.
Helped keep the Klingons from jumping the Romulans during the Romulan-Breen war, so that's something.
He failed to prevent the Coreward Border war from starting, though Starfleet was able to help end it relatively early.
Oversaw the Starkin and the Laio joining the Federation, so that's nice.
Sold out the Chrystovians in an act of political expediency.
And of course, through all of it he failed, failed, and failed again to see the truth behind the Harmony of Horizon until his own son died at their hands.
All in all it's a mixed record at best, and poor ch'Tharvasse ends up looking awfully small next to the giants that proceeded him. Sulu was always going to be a tough act to follow, but maybe Shey just wasn't up to the challenge.
Could you repost them as non canon please? I liked the Thuir story (I noticed that it was omake immediately and assumed non canon), and the lack of the second update makes peoples reactions to it hard to understand.
I get that HoH infiltration is no joke and will likely hurt us, I expected something, but this... really wasn't a good idea, considering peoples feelings on HoH past and present, much less right after the excellent Zara Quest that successfully convinced (most? I think) people that we are done with this kind of thing.
If we did not have those HoH problems in the past, then the last update would be a pretty good introduction to a Biophage like crisis, except for Chen dying, people believing the coup thing (Edit: This much that is. Casting some doubt is reasonable.) and dismissing Zara.
Honestly, the fact that it was such a well written and compelling short horror story sort of blinded us all to the fact that it wasn't the best idea to include it in a quest where the players are supposed to have agency.
Jesus. I'd really rather go back to talking about AIs, honestly.
Speaking of which, since something interesting popped up just before the entire thread exploded and I ducked and covered rather than try and keep up...
That part is actually understandable to me? Like, there's a saying that in a realistic setting there is no such thing as a story "with" AI, because any story with AI rapidly becomes a story about AI.
I just flat out disagree with the entire line of argument that in a "realistic" "hard-physics" story, AIs are a danger because they'll experience hard takeoff and become gods, because the idea of hard takeoff is not, in fact, a hard-physics argument. It's not a "realistic" argument. The "in a realistic setting there is no such thing as a story "with" AI" saying is based entirely on the idea that a "realistic" AI must undergo a hard takeoff. But that's not true.
The entire idea of "hard takeoff" is a fantasy.
There is no basis, anywhere, in anything, for the entire concept. It is as reasonable and realistic and hard-physics as the idea in Charles Stross' Laundry Files books that solving certain mathematical equations summons a shoggoth.
That a group of vocal and prominent people keep bouncing around the idea that of course you must give them money in order to help them prevent this terrible danger, is not proof. The comparison I made earlier between Dr Teran and Eliezer Yudkowsky was not meant to be a compliment to Dr Teran.
"Hard takeoff" is a horror story along the same lines as "Roko's Basilisk" - suggestible, scared people being told by a person they view as authoritative "here is a terrible thing that will happen if we don't pour money into AI research". It is false, but convincing, because it involves a lot of big science-y words and comes from someone who portrays himself as an expert, a genius. But it is, nonetheless, not actually based on anything but assumptions, "maybe it might be theoretically possible that this is true, so it is true", and similar smoke and mirrors.
Well, to provide a counter argument, I think it logical that if humans can make a superhuman intelligence, than it (or they? Individuality can get messy with infomorphs) can make super-superhuman intelligence, given enough time/computing/infrastructure/etc.
Now, I doubt that this would be fast, but an exponential intelligence explosion seems inevitable, until (maybe?) it is stopped by physical limitations (Even today's processors can get a lot of computing done in between sending and receiving a signal to another processor a single meter away, even when said signal travels at c, and parallel processing makes for a... fragmented mind. Like what humans have.).
I do not believe that any superhuman AI+time=god though. Consider the most intelligent human to even live, whoever they were, they were/are nearly superhuman and had zero risk of hard take off as far as I am concerned.
There is a certain (superhuman) amount of brain power needed to make an AGI. We compensate for this with many, many, many people working on it, lots of time, and a concerning amount of learning and evolution algorithms (not like human reproduction doesn't make use of those extensively though).
I don't envy you, or President Okaar for that matter. Even without the Harmony of Horizon actively throwing a temper tantrum, the Federation will now be looking to contain two major powers; quite the tall order.
What, did everyone forget our plans to box in Cardassia, Entente-style?
And having the HoH being fiated out of the existence would be unfulfilling and disappointing anyway. I want to crush the Peacekeeper Tenders, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentations of their Singers.
Okay we should all step back and take a deep breath I count at least 5 players who quit cause of this update alone. It feels as if the HOH plot is slowly strangling the quest.
I hope they're not gone permanently. At least one of them was among the few who actually know how some of the games more complicated mechanics like deployment and research work.
I do not believe that any superhuman AI+time=god though. Consider the most intelligent human to even live, whoever they were, they were/are nearly superhuman and had zero risk of hard take off as far as I am concerned.
That doesn't seem so much a counterargument as... my argument, just a lot less pissed off about it. It's not the idea that people can improve themselves that I object to, it's the extrapolation to "therefore infinite recursion and infinite power and godhood". Humans are already capable of making themselves smarter, in a wide variety of ways. Stephen Hawking has yet to conquer the world and turn it into a vast factory churning out space telescopes, however much that might be preferable to the current state of affairs.
People advocating war need to keep in mind that currently the Singers are the HoH.
But HoH is also many billions of innocents. Victims.
I maintain that war is a terrible solution here, both extremely costly and inefficient.
What we want is to neutralize the Singers. Their power come from four things. Mind control, anonymity, complete infiltration of HoHs network and government, and superhacking.
By, in proud Trek tradition, throwing science at the implants, we can cripple their mind control to one degree or another.
If we release our info and evidence convincingly, and gather more, we cripple their anonymity.
By crippling their anonymity and mind control, we neutralize much of their infiltration of HoHs government, and start efforts to clean their networks.
Superhacking is hard to solve however, without superhacking of our own, and/or a lot of time and cost and effort.
It might also be possible (and viable) to construct some anti-Singer virus and introduce it such that we get most of them before they adapt/quarantine/cure it. Ideally something non lethal. Hard to outhack superhackers though. This would be... unfortunate, to put it lightly, but at this point it is an option I believe, if we can get our hands on such a virus somehow.
That doesn't seem so much a counterargument as... my argument, just a lot less pissed off about it. It's not the idea that people can improve themselves that I object to, it's the extrapolation to "therefore infinite recursion and infinite power and godhood". Humans are already capable of making themselves smarter, in a wide variety of ways. Stephen Hawking has yet to conquer the world and turn it into a vast factory churning out space telescopes, however much that might be preferable to the current state of affairs.
That doesn't seem so much a counterargument as... my argument, just a lot less pissed off about it. It's not the idea that people can improve themselves that I object to, it's the extrapolation to "therefore infinite recursion and infinite power and godhood". Humans are already capable of making themselves smarter, in a wide variety of ways. Stephen Hawking has yet to conquer the world and turn it into a vast factory churning out space telescopes, however much that might be preferable to the current state of affairs.
People are limited by the nature of our brains, and its size. Also we are pretty bad at programming it.
Also also, human brain is far too weak to be capable of improving something as complex and human brain/body/DNA alone.
Infomorphs are not so limited, and can change the size of their brains with bigger or smaller mainframes. They can also design better hardware, even humans can manage to double its performance in roughly a year.
So adjustable superbrains. Also numbers, with forking if nothing else. And extremely efficient communication, compared to the supremely crude and cumbersome "speech" thing humans use. And humans are actually really bad at programming in general. First AIs are also likely to be much more simple then humans (if more powerful in many things), and thus easier to improve upon.
Its like technological progress. Better tools make it easier to make better tools to make better tools... and technology improves exponentially. When intelligence become technology...
I agree that we dont have enough evidence that this would go on until omnipotence, but reaching what most humans would consider lowercase godhood is almost guaranteed.
Well, to provide a counter argument, I think it logical that if humans can make a superhuman intelligence, than it (or they? Individuality can get messy with infomorphs) can make super-superhuman intelligence, given enough time/computing/infrastructure/etc.
The word "can" is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting here, and is not the word "will" or "should" as you are treating it as later in this post and in the post following it. Can is a possiblity. Reaching lowercase godhood is a possiblity. It is not "almost guaranteed". Leaving aside your dodges about them being able to change the size of their brains or improve their own programming, things that are in no way demonstrated truths about artificial intelligence, you have yet to reach even the first step here, and you admit it with can.
The simple fact is they may not have the physical ability to accomplish such things (or even the desire; reproduction and the will to survive is biological) and you know it. Whether by inherent flaw or human action, your first step doesn't have to work. You admit as much. The whole argument collapses from there. Just stop.
People are limited by the nature of our brains, and its size. Also we are pretty bad at programming it.
Also also, human brain is far too weak to be capable of improving something as complex and human brain/body/DNA alone.
Infomorphs are not so limited, and can change the size of their brains with bigger or smaller mainframes. They can also design better hardware, even humans can manage to double its performance in roughly a year.
So adjustable superbrains. Also numbers, with forking if nothing else. And extremely efficient communication, compared to the supremely crude and cumbersome "speech" thing humans use. And humans are actually really bad at programming in general. First AIs are also likely to be much more simple then humans (if more powerful in many things), and thus easier to improve upon.
Its like technological progress. Better tools make it easier to make better tools to make better tools... and technology improves exponentially. When intelligence become technology...
I agree that we dont have enough evidence that this would go on until omnipotence, but reaching what most humans would consider lowercase godhood is almost guaranteed.
There's plenty of investigation already into improving human brains. Certainly one would struggle to do it alone - but a) as you said before, humans work together on projects all the time, and b) why suppose that a single infomorph is automatically less "weak"?
I can install DOOM on whatever hardware I like and it continues to fundamentally be DOOM. Also, Moore's Law hasn't actually been true for a long time. It was "double the density every year" (not performance, just physical concentration of transistors on a chip) for about a decade in the 1970s, then it was every two years. Now it's getting to be about 2.5 years. And it only kept up for so long because the semiconductor manufacturers treated it as an industry target and focused their research and development on increasing density and reducing individual transistor size. Intel Rechisels the Tablet on Moore's Law - Digits - WSJ
Also... how can you be so certain that AIs that are much more simple than humans would also be better at programming than humans? Is there any reason to suppose that an extraordinarily complicated program, capable of not just parsing code and identifying errors but of creating and improving code to completely new patterns, would be so much simpler than a human that it would be much easier to improve on?
(Also, technological progress isn't actually exponential as such, unless you're Ray Kurzweil and you are deliberately manipulating both your graph and your data in order to fake an exponential curve, because your whole argument depends on it being exponential and you aren't going to let little things like 'integrity' stop you.)
The word "can" is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting here, and is not the word "will" or "should" as you are treating it as later in this post and in the post following it. Can is a possiblity. Reaching lowercase godhood is a possiblity. It is not "almost guaranteed". Leaving aside your dodges about them being able to change the size of their brains or improve their own programming, things that are in no way demonstrated truths about artificial intelligence, you have yet to reach even the first step here, and you admit it with can.
The simple fact is they may not have the physical ability to accomplish such things and you know it. Whether by inherent flaw or human action, your first step doesn't have to work. You admit as much. The whole argument collapses from there. Just stop.
I think that we have different idea about what my argument is, because I fail to understand what you are talking about.
What I am saying is that sufficiently superhuman AGI+resources+time=even better AI, either through programming or hardware. Unless it doesn't want to for some reason, but intelligence and technology are really, really useful, so that does not seem very likely to me.
Oh, also, AI does not need to improve its own programming, it can program a new AI better than it was programmed. Or just improve the hardware.
Edit: Forgot to mention the need for extensive infrastructure, not just raw intelligence. You need experiments, prototypes, etc.
What I am saying is that sufficiently superhuman AGI+resources+time=even better AI, either through programming or hardware. Unless it doesn't want to for some reason, but intelligence and technology are really, really useful, so that does not seem very likely to me.
Oh, also, AI does not need to improve its own programming, it can program a new AI better than it was programmed. Or just improve the hardware.
Which part of your argument does not also apply to the idea of biologically, chemically, psychologically and (whatever the short form word would be for "through better teaching methods") enhancing a human being? Certainly it would take time and resources. Certainly it would be extremely useful. And surely such an enhanced human being would automatically be smart enough to design brand new, even better genetic/chemical/teaching/etc.-based enhancements?
