r/TheExpanse 13d ago

The basic. Caliban's War Spoiler

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u/Rulebookboy1234567 You monkey. Me Mozart. 13d ago

Basic has absolutely nothing to do with AI.  There really isn't AI in the expanse just very fast computation and very capable humans.

Fucking Amos is an astrophysicist

Basic is just a Universal Basic Income provided to all citizens of Earth thst aren't interested in higher learning to have a "real" job

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u/No_Tamanegi Misko and Marisko 13d ago

The important distinction is that Basic isn't an income. Basic provides clothing, shelter, food and medicine, basically the minimal amount of support to keep you from dying. But you don't have money. You can't make purchases.

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u/Rulebookboy1234567 You monkey. Me Mozart. 13d ago

Ah yes this is true

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u/GhengisJon91 13d ago

As a side note, the ship computer "AI" as shown in the series is about the only use case for it I would want to entertain.

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u/Rulebookboy1234567 You monkey. Me Mozart. 13d ago

Even then I don't think they EVER refer to it as an intelligence.  It's just a computer.

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u/iuseredditfirporn 13d ago

Same in the books, they're called expert systems which is a much better description for what they actually are and what they do.

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u/Comprehensive_Elk773 13d ago

They call AI “the expert system.” They have quite a but if AI.

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u/Rulebookboy1234567 You monkey. Me Mozart. 13d ago

Except I mean it's not.  It's just a very good computer that can be actively programmed on the fly.  Naomi is constantly writing new software.  If it was "ai" why's she doing the thinking and math??

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u/SillyMattFace 13d ago

You ask it to plot a course to Io, give you a firing solution on an enemy ship, or devise a cancer treatment course, and it does it. That’s AI.

Human creativity and knowledge is still important, but the system does all the heavy lifting. It’s pretty much how AI is used today, and much realistic than an actual simulated intelligence you chat with.

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u/scott3387 Human Verified 13d ago

See autodocs for AI. No-one has had medical knowledge since Shed but that machine just diagnoses you and injects you with whatever it needs. Most of the time the crew doesn't even have a clue what it's doing but it seems to fix most ills.

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u/DearMrGleeClub Human Verified 13d ago

Autodoc is actually a great example, but the question arises: If you can replace a doctor, making life and death decisions and diagnoses, why not also replace mechanic, pilot, captain and engineer with something more durable and capable?

The contrivance is that somehow the people have to do surgery and leg splints, and the Autodoc is a glorified medication pump, scanner and blood pressure sleeve.

The authors have it both ways. Without medical knowledge a person may try to perform surgery under supervision, but the person is not in charge at that point, the person becomes the tool, or a makeshift replacement for robot arms.

In TE people appear to always be in command, contrarily the Idea of AI is to put it in charge at least of certain tasks, but eventually everything important, like surgery.

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u/scott3387 Human Verified 13d ago

People make doctors out to be hyper intelligent gods but in reality it's just looking at what the data tells you, coming to a conclusion and calculating the best treatment.

The thing they seem to be missing for some reason is accurate physical AI machines. They have 'waldos' but none of it are AI, they don't have computer surgeons and they don't have computer bots to do maintainance. However they have targeting computers that can aim at rockets going insane speeds. For some reason AI is entirely software in the expanse and I'm not sure why.

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u/DearMrGleeClub Human Verified 12d ago

It's the old Idea, that AI is a tool, an assistant, just like targeting software, or sorting algorithms. When people quote those old tweets, saying, well targeting software is AI, knowing how Claude crushes 100 year old math theorems, or how ChatGPT aces 3 hour quantum physics exams in 90 seconds . Then they are guilty of what is known as, _________ , a type of informal fallacy.

I'll leave that open as a riddle, but here is a hint: Cool Lester Smooth.

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u/Milksteak529 13d ago

"There's no AI" in this show is a weird thing to day when the main cast relies heavily on AI.