In Halo 4, within the “Requiem” mission there’s an audio clip/ file from Dr Halsey saying that Cortana was far to advanced to be able to deteriorate, in addition to someone turning off this process. This got me questioning on how Cortana was able to develop rampancy, as Cortana explained to Chief that it happened to all AI’s that were in service for around 7 years, but believed she was able to live to 8 because she was made from living brain tissue/cells from Dr Halsey making her slightly more special. The only reason I can think of is that Cortana developed rampancy through self-refection during her 4 year time stuck on “Forward Unto Dawn”, which allowed her to question her existence, her role as part of humanity and how she views herself (i.e. being a machine or a human) through developing a human-like consciousness.
Well I would imagine that the wealth of data she downloaded from Installation 04 as well as her little chat with the Gravemind helped speed things up.
Pretty sure the clips around the crash site were more explaining why she lasted as long as she did. The 7 year limit is more aproximation build on the normal flow of information for an AI.
Even back in First Strike he was having problems due to all the data she’d assimilated from 04.
Halsey’s statement probably didn’t include how much Forerunner information she had and her time of solitary on the Dawn. Those weren’t normal circumstances.
Rampancy is when an AI runs out of space for new pathways for information. So they go into a frenzy deleting old things without consideration for what they are, desperately trying to take in as much information as possible and quite literally thinking themselves to death or insanity.
Cortana had a ton of Forerunner data within her, and 4 years of isolation to process that. Even with her theoretical upgrades, it’s not surprising that she succumbed to rampancy.
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> Halsey’s statement probably didn’t include how much Forerunner information she had and her time of solitary on the Dawn. Those weren’t normal circumstances.
>
> Rampancy is when an AI runs out of space for new pathways for information. So they go into a frenzy deleting old things without consideration for what they are, desperately trying to take in as much information as possible and quite literally thinking themselves to death or insanity.
> Cortana had a ton of Forerunner data within her, and 4 years of isolation to process that. Even with her theoretical upgrades, it’s not surprising that she succumbed to rampancy.
Plus she was exposed to a gravemind, thats not Healthy even for an AI. there are even some indications that she would have fallen to the logic plague if chief hadn’t rescued her when he did.
Valid points however during her time of “isolation” surely she would of had the time to go over the information she knows and delete anything she felt was unnecessary
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> Valid points however during her time of “isolation” surely she would of had the time to go over the information she knows and delete anything she felt was unnecessary
That’s not quite how it works. AIs in Halo (especially smart AIs) function very much like a human brain. They’re not like a computer hard drive, they’re a dynamic system. You can’t simply delete stuff from them to “save space” or to make them last longer, the same way you can’t truly just erase things from a human mind in order to stave off something like dimentia or insanity.
Also just to clear something up for the OP, the audio log in ‘Halo 4’ does not say that “Cortana was far to advanced to be able to deteriorate”. Dr. Halsey is simply talking about typical AI lifespan and how Cortana’s unique creation allowed her to do some different things that extended that lifespan - not her ability to somehow circumvent rampancy (which she obviously still eventually suffered from).
The only thing that was “turned off” in Cortana was the ‘viral termination code’ Dr. Halsey had installed in her - this is a latent virus implanted into most smart AIs that can be activated right around the 7-year mark in their lifespan that can immediately destroy them to prevent any damage that could possibly be done to the system they inhabit when the AI starts to undergo rampancy. The next thing Halsey mentions is the “rogue element” that exists in Cortana’s coding and how that may allow her to exceed the usual 7-year lifespan - and here’s the thing, Cortana did just that. Not only was she effectively 8 years old in human years by ‘Halo 4’, it was noted in the novel ‘First Strike’ that the amount of Forerunner data she absorbed from the first Halo had already significantly shortened her operational lifespan. I believe it was mentioned to be somewhere in the ballpark of 3 years (though I’ll have to comb the book to find the exact passage). Combine that with being prodded by the Gravemind for a period of time, and that seems to roughly put Cortana at closer to 12-13 in “AI years”. So taking all that into consideration, plus the time she spent aboard the Dawn alone, the fact that she was still functional at all and retained most of her personality by 2557 is definitely impressive by AI standards. But in the end, as we all saw in ‘Halo 4’, time still caught up with her and her descent into rampancy was pretty much complete by the end of the game.
I’m not so sure about that quote simply meaning Cortana could only live 8 years as opposed to 7. Especially if she has somehow uploaded herself into slipspace/the Domain. Remember that two pages related to this are missing from Halsey’s journal.
We also know that AI can outlive 7 years when they function in remediated form. Loki/Mack split personalities of the same AI functioning in tandem and rotating out whenever one gets a bit loopy.
Ans Julianna from The Rubble, who was able to focus on her need to protect the humans under her care and thus stave of the more dangerous aspects of Rampancy. Probably helped that she wasn’t absorbing new information all that often, and she developed a slight god complex, but was otherwise functional years after she should have been put down. Halsey would likely know of these examples, yet still refers to Cortana as unique. Suggesting something more than the simple ability to live beyond the point most AI “die”
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> I’m not so sure about that quote simply meaning Cortana could only live 8 years as opposed to 7. Especially if she has somehow uploaded herself into slipspace/the Domain. Remember that two pages related to this are missing from Halsey’s journal.
> We also know that AI can outlive 7 years when they function in remediated form. Loki/Mack split personalities of the same AI functioning in tandem and rotating out whenever one gets a bit loopy.
> Ans Julianna from The Rubble, who was able to focus on her need to protect the humans under her care and thus stave of the more dangerous aspects of Rampancy. Probably helped that she wasn’t absorbing new information all that often, and she developed a slight god complex, but was otherwise functional years after she should have been put down. Halsey would likely know of these examples, yet still refers to Cortana as unique. Suggesting something more than the simple ability to live beyond the point most AI “die”
Dr. Halsey mentions in her journal about creating AIs in slipspace in order to give them infinite expansion capacity - but this research was still in it’s absolute infancy. And though we don’t know how far Halsey got with this method (the missing pages), in the end it’s not relevant to Cortana because we do know she was not created in this way. The audio log on Requiem does not mention this idea either. Also Cortana was already rampant by the events of ‘Halo 4’, and of course was destroyed along with the Mantle’s Approach when it was blown up by the nuke. All her data was being used to clog the ship’s systems, so there’s no way for her to have uploaded herself anywhere. Not to mention the Domain during ‘Halo 4’ is not accessible (Cortana herself mentions this when accessing terminals), hence why the Didact was still insane from being left to stew inside his Cryptum with no connection to the outside.
Loki/Mack, and Julianna are indeed examples of AIs that outlived the typical AI 7-year lifespan like Cortana did, but all under different circumstances and using different methods to control themselves when suffering from rampancy - and still none of them could beat it. We have no indication that Halsey knew about these other particular AI as well. Also of course she calls Cortana unique, because she was due to the particular nature of her creation. But even with that, as far back as the ‘The Fall of Reach’ she notes that Cortana will still eventually “die” from rampancy just like any other AI. The log in ‘Halo 4’ says nothing that changes this fact.
But with all this data/ information that could help the UNSC surely they would of found a way for AI’s to upload there data, which would help prevent rampancy to some extent
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> But with all this data/ information that could help the UNSC surely they would of found a way for AI’s to upload there data, which would help prevent rampancy to some extent
Nope. Again, smart AIs are like virtual brains - it’s not so simple as just offloading data. The flaw lies in the very nature of their construction. So just like when a person’s neurons start to break down from Alzheimers disease, the same thing happens to an AI’s processing matrix during rampancy. And though we’ve already seen a few AIs be able to gain a level of control over the symptoms, there is no cure or way to prevent the root cause. As Dr. Halsey theorized, creating AIs within some kind of slipspace housing might solve the problem, but we’ve yet to see or hear about any major breakthroughs being successful in this area of study.
So why would someone, like Dr Halsey, want to create an AI to help store information but yet they are unable to store very large amounts that could help improve humanity or to understand there origins
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> So why would someone, like Dr Halsey, want to create an AI to help store information but yet they are unable to store very large amounts that could help improve humanity or to understand there origins
AIs aren’t just data storage boxes. They have numerous tasks and abilities that go far beyond storing information, even though they can store a lot.
They can store massive amounts of information and perform tons of processes. It takes 7 years of full activity for an AI to hit that rampancy time, and they can do a lot of stuff in that time.
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> So why would someone, like Dr Halsey, want to create an AI to help store information but yet they are unable to store very large amounts that could help improve humanity or to understand there origins
AIs can store incredibly vast amounts of information, and can process that information at a speed humans can’t even begin to fathom. But for human-made AIs this comes at a price, in that they essentially burn themselves out very quickly. It’s simply an inherent limitation of AIs in the Halo Universe that’s been a part of the story since the franchise was built.
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> So why would someone, like Dr Halsey, want to create an AI to help store information but yet they are unable to store very large amounts that could help improve humanity or to understand there origins
I doubt she assumed Operation: RED FLAG would take 7 years to complete.
She didn’t wear socks inside and walked on cold tiles. At least, that’s what my mother told me.
But if Halsey had noticed this AI trait, surely she would of tried to prevent in order to help prolong Cortana’s life due to her donating her living brain cells, which would consequently result in Cortana still being alive within the franchise
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> But if Halsey had noticed this AI trait, surely she would of tried to prevent in order to help prolong Cortana’s life due to her donating her living brain cells, which would consequently result in Cortana still being alive within the franchise
Halsey couldn’t have prevented rampancy from setting in - no human scientist knows how to. And as for what Cortana said in ‘Halo 4’ about somehow being repaired using a scan of Halsey’s brain to “reconfigure her neural net”, this is a process that’s never been tried before and we have no idea if it would’ve worked - but even in the off chance it did, it’s still a bandaid solution to a much bigger problem and wouldn’t have really solved anything in the long run as it doesn’t address the root cause of rampany. But in the end it doesn’t really matter anyway, as Cortana decided to sacrifice herself to save the Chief and was subsequently destroyed.
Although if they did reach Halsey in time and reconfigured her neural map, she would of still suffered from rampancy making the journey pointless. However with the help from Halsey and the Librarian (by giving the forerunner keys) they could of used the composer to either make a place for AI’s to upload data or to bring back Cortana