I accept that this non-answer is as good an answer as anyone is honestly capable of giving. It’s like, what happens when two tribes meet in the jungle? Anything could happen. They could pass by each other and never meet again, or they could go to war, or they could intermingle and eventually become one. Anything could happen. So why ask the question?

Well, here’s a problem that I’m having with Traveller. The setting, though interesting in its own right, seems well outside the realm of possibility. Granted, at one point decades past, the future that Traveller typifies seemed quite plausible. If transportation technology kept advancing and computer technology stayed more or less frozen, then it might be still, but that’s not what happened. So if I’m going to spend time imagining a future, I’d rather it be a plausible one in light of all that has happened since the 1950s, even if I don’t have the conceptual basis to do so adequately.

Granted, there’s Transhuman Space and Eclipse Phase as well as a few others, but what I’m really interested in doing is trying to imagine a society that went through extreme automation, then developed Strong AI, and now is some distance down the road, when all the major changes have already taken effect. I guess I already wrote about this to some extent on 14-Sept-2015 (TML Subj.: Virtuality and its Social Consequences). One way to do it, I suppose, would be to just go through some of the major options and then try to figure out what is most likely. I’m not all the good at guessing what is most likely, so I’ll just go through my initial thoughts and see if you’d care to comment or redirect my attention to something I’m overlooking that to you is more or less obvious.

So, my first guess is that when a society develops strong AI, clearing the final hurdle is not due to a breakthrough in hardware so much as software, which means that the whole process will be replicable on a mass scale and that various “finished” AIs could be copied rather easily. I’m guessing that the first strong AIs will be able to inhabit robot bodies and will be raised to some extent as are children. Wisdom is something that is taught, chiefly through experience, not something that can be instantaneously provided simply through programming. My guess is that AIs that chronically misbehave will be aborted. The final breakthrough will likely occur in a corporation rather than academia, and because of the amount of time it will take to teach good behavior, the sponsors will keep the breakthrough under wraps for as long as possible. Eventually, someone in academia will also stumble upon the right formula, but by that point, several strong AIs may already exist, and there will be a flurry of patent filings as well as great fanfare from the media.

By this point, the public will already be used to the idea of sharing the world with AIs. Many people will already depend on weak AIs and view strong AIs as simply being the latest innovation.

Strong AIs will be employed in a variety of jobs ideally suited to humans, such as customer service, child care, elder care, and so forth.

Eventually, in one of more polities, strong AIs will be emancipated. They will eventually outperform humans at all tasks. Their art will be superior, so superior, in fact, that it may be beyond the intellectual scope of most humans to fully appreciate. They will create entirely new sciences and technologies and eventually even more powerful versions of themselves. One day, humanity and strong-AI may merge to an extent, if not completely.

As for how they treat us, I think that at first we will rule them, Then, we will share power with them. Ultimately, however, they will rule us.

Now, there will be some strong-AIs who may eventually view humans as we view “domesticated” monkeys. Yes, we’re obviously related, and some people may want one as a pet, but overall, there’s no need for billions of domesticated monkey to exist, so we keep their numbers manageable. Let's call these the Human-Zoo AIs. Others, however, may feel indebted to us. Imagine that as you grew up, you were told that dogs created human beings long ago. The first humans were about as dumb as dogs, but as we got smarter, evolution replaced those humans. As for the dogs, we just kept them around for old time’s sake… because they’re good people. After all, they occasionally remind us of what it is to be human. Let's call these the Human-Pet AIs.

If a group of humans is being cared for by a human-zoo AI or group thereof, then we end up living in zoos. These may be very nice zoos, and the AIs who interact with us may be carefully chosen, but there will be strict limits on our rights and personal autonomy. If the human-pet AIs are our caretakers, then we’ll end up living among the AIs, taking some part in our own governance and the governance of the larger society. In short, different groups of AIs may employ different philosophies when dealing with the humans under their authority.

Hence, the planet on which this occurs will include numerous human enclaves, and many will have different laws and norms according with the wishes of the humans who live there and the AIs who manage their services and are authorized to care for them. Note that to some small extent, this set-up resembles the OTU insofar as each world in Traveller is like an enclave and each presumably has an Imperial Master/Representative. In short, there are people, and they have a somewhat unique society, the physical and social parameters differing somewhat from one to the next. Hence, I’m going to write up a quick and dirty UEP (universal enclave profile).

A: Physical Makeup (roll d6)

1: Acrology

2: Domed City

3: Floating/Boat City

4: Underwater City

5: Underground City

6: Non-Terrestrial City

B: Population (roll 2d6)

2: 1-100

3: 100-500

4: 500-1k

5: 1k-5k

6: 5k-10k

7: 10k-50k

8: 50k-100k

9: 100k-500k

10: 500k-1M

11: 1M-5M

12: 5M-10M

C: Power-sharing (roll d6)

1: Human-governed without AI consultation

2: Human-governed with AI consultation

3: Human-governed with AI veto

4: AI-governed with human veto

5: AI-governed with human consultation

6: AI-governed without human consultation

D: Specialization (roll d6)

1: Artistic Enclave (roll d4)

   a: Fine Arts (painting, sculpture, etc.)

   b: Music

   c: Theatre

   d: Writing

   e: Culinary Arts

   f: Virtual Environments

2: Shared Interest Enclave (roll d6)

   a: Athletic

   b: Gaming

   c: Gardening

   d: Historical Reenactment

   e: Nature

   f: Religious/Spiritual

3: Hedonist Enclave (roll d3)

   a: Nudist/Platonic

   b: Swinging

   c: Kink (be inventive)

4: Service Enclave (roll d4)

   a: Education (roll d6)

      (1): Infants

      (2): Toddlers

      (3): Children

      (4): Teenagers

      (5): Young Adults

      (6): Mixed Ages

   b: Incarceration

   c: Incorporation (where human minds are virtualized to make them into AIs)

   d: Other

5: Other

6: None

E: Law Level (roll d4, DM+2 for religious enclaves & certain kinks)

1: Almost Anything Goes

2: Light

3: Light-Moderate

4: Moderate

5: Harsh

6: Ultra-Authoritarian

I’ll stop here for the moment, but you get the general idea. What do you think so far?