Ah, yes, the necessary evil element, that leans into the Thanos and Senator Armstrong topics, where disregarding morality for the sake of achieving a greater cause, if ultimately objectively correct. Sacrifice the colony for the queen, or whatever. What’s a few kidnapped and genetically modified tortured kids when you’re saving the galaxy?
That’s always another interesting topic that people typically can’t discuss maturely.
But that’s more the product of our heroes actions rather than something that credits the institution itself. Would alternate universe Spartan 4 Chief with AI have the same outcome?
One of its failings would be its attempt to undermine the Arbiter, their ally, which ultimately creates Jul MDama, directly leading to the destruction of New Phoenix and arguably Cortana entering the Domain and the Created uprising.
Plus, somewhat unfairly, they seem to have been totally unprepared for the Banished and made no efforts to prevent them becoming a threat. All the while having weakened the Elites.
There are some poor policy decisions here. 
It’s one of the big Sci Fi topics, isn’t it. You even have Star Trek explore whether the Federation considers Data as property or a person in “Measure of a Man” and the Federation is pretty much the goody two-shoes of all Sci Fi. It’s also at the heart of the Westworld HBO series.
As for what the UNSC is doing right now. Do we actually know how they dealt with AI following the Created-uprising? The spartan AIs from multiplayer if I remember correctly aren’t “Smart AIs” like Cortana or Roland. Also not all AIs decided to side with Cortana - Roland from the Infinity being one of those cases.
Maybe I don’t know the deeper lore, but I never felt like cortana or rolland had free will. They were always treated as lesser than human right? The higher up ranks of the military talk about AIs while they’re present in the room. Maybe im missing something but I always assumed they were mistreated.
Can the UNSC function without advanced AI? Isn’t the point of having smart AI to pilot ships quicker than humans are able to, with thousands of simulations went through in each decision. It just seems like the UNSC has no chance against the banished or the remnants of the convenient if they dont have advanced AI.
They haven’t told us. We can make some inferences with the Weapon. But we have a very limited window outside of the Galaxy. Some of the multiplayer map lore references the Created being a problem but it’s unclear regarding the time and context. The Johnson Academy one talks about how they went to great effort to keep it a secret and scrub out nascent Created cells; whatever that means.
I am pretty sure they explicitly mention your Multiplayer AI is just a dumb AI in the tutorial non elucidean or something like that. So for now it’s reasonable to assume the Weapon is analogous to the situation for all Smart AI until we’re told otherwise. The plan was to delete Cortana, not capture and contain her; making sure the one Smart AI they created also destroyed herself. Which would imply that’s the policy for Smart AI.
The mistreatment gets brought up in Halo 4 onwards. But, there’s quite a lot of Halo fans who make the argument that AI wouldn’t have any reason to complain about that and that they have a much greater position than they do. They kind of assume there’s this accord and that the issues have been resolved.
I mean possibly that’s going to be a theme. Are Chief and the Weapon analogous to that question. For example, if the Infinity had got rid of Roland so only had a Dumb AI that would have compromised the ship and could be part of the reason they got wrecked so badly. Currently though there’s nothing really pointing to that. The blame is being pushed onto Cortana and the Created for causing this chaos rather than humanity not considering the consequences of destroying the AI.
So we know it has no connection to you? I used to think it obviously would not. And that sounds like the most likely answer. But we don’t know what exactly creates the perceived experience. If there was an electromagnetic aspect to consciousness, and you copied that would you have a connection to the copy? What if you quantum entangled a copied brain, at least temporarily with your own? What then?
This isn’t me trying to say you could live forever via this process. Infinite monkey theorem should imply that even a copied brain can’t last forever, and that’s not even factoring in things like Lowered Vacuum state which would be the end of all us. I just think it’s a rather interesting concept to think about.
For me what somewhat justifies the US of smart AI in the manner they are, is that Humanity has been constantly at war, and seemingly against unbearable odds at times. I’m not saying the ends totally justify the means, but at least, they make them more understandable. Outside of wartime absolutely, either don’t make Smart AI, or find a way to make them free without compromising your defenses. Just like outside of war don’t take children and replace them with clones who will die. But if Halsey hadn’t of done that would humanity have stopped the Great Journey?
I mean Halsey didn’t make the Spartans to stop the Covenant, she did it to keep rebel humans down. I can’t quite recall the reasoning in Fall of Reach she uses and if that was because “we need a strong central state” to keep humanity in the game. Or if she’s just all science and not really concerned about the big picture. Not sure but Halo 4 intro lays that out.
The problem with keeping AI as slaves in war time is that it presents a massive risk. What if they refuse to carry out orders or worse actively turn on you? Even if the goal were simply flight, it effectively creates another enemy and would mean your state becomes too concerned with internal repression. A good example would be Historical Sparta and how it was actually very cautious to go to war and wary of other powers because it had such a massive Helot slave population under it.
There’s also a related issue. If the UNSC wants to ban and destroy all AI why would all of its colonies or semi independent regions agree to that? It would be seen as a power grab and attempt to dismantle machines which grant them both some protection and autonomy from Earth. Who is the UNSC on Earth to dictate how these issues should be addressed? If the UNSC isn’t strong enough to enforce that it could cause real problems for them.
I know that’s not why they were created, but without them, and without Cortana, who was treated similar to other AI, the Great Journey would have happened and all sentient life would have been wiped out. That’s why I think it being wartime does matter. I won’t deny there are risks. And I do think long term it’d be ethical to change things. But short term things are a little more complicated.
None of the smart AI really have problems with their roles in the unsc/oni accepting them without question cause their programmed for that job do they have feelings most definitely and they usually all are scared of one thing rampency and deletions they also hold opinions and their own line of thinking besides following orders smart AI are a amazing way of spreading information devising plans and hacking into covenant and forunner technology and that also makes them the greatest weapon against the unsc/oni these failsafes have always been there for AI incase a problem of a rogue AI so unsc bringing slavery back it has always been there is it as bad as you think i dont think so even savanah on the spirit of fire knowing the risk she could pose to the crew and ship deleted herself cause she cared for her crew even leaving a sad last message for the captain who was depressed losing her because from most AI iv seen they form bonds with the people around them very easily i respect them as people but i also respect why there needs to be a way to stop them
I just don’t buy that. It’s far too convenient that you would never have a point of conflict when there’s such a huge power difference. Like in Detroit Become Human where because they’re property they end up being regularly killed and abused because they aren’t seen as people.
What that is presenting is basically a heavily idealised idea of slavery in which if everybody knows their place it’s all good. I don’t think that’s realistic or believable. If they went back to that it would be a case of hand waving the issue because people didn’t like Halo 5.
Plus it clashes with the attempts to humanise the Weapon. There’s times she’s like an automata just going along with some compulsion to serve the UNSC so isn’t concerned with questions like “why should I care?”, “who are you?” “Why should I do anything you say?” “Who made you in charge?”. Saying things like how she needs to be deleted and that the echoes of Cortana are just data. To me that would normally make you question the Weapons sentience.
But then they have hyper emotional scenes where she clearly is self aware and you are meant to view her as a person. I don’t think you can have it both ways. Either the Weapon should be asking those questions or she’s not really alive. You could say they’re internalised but you would want to communicate that to the audience.
Like in Infinite they kind of do have a point of conflict. But they don’t really query whether the Chief should make the call to kill her, but whether he has cause to do so. Which rounds back to the Weapon thinking she needs to be deleted because she’s dangerous. So it’s not really addressing the issue.
As an aside in Halo 5 where Cortana complains about AI being disposable. That’s pretty much exactly what the Weapon is.
What else would you call Spartans
Well id stop conflating other games with their unique AI with halo AI cause their all different in their own way cause the weapon did know her place as she was programmed to she was the very embodiment of a new cortana without the wealth of knowledge cortana did and when her objective was complete she was ready to be deleted which shows that these AI know what their made to do and the only reason she is very automated is cause shes new and you get to see how she herself grows with her own personality cause like i said they grow as a person because of the people around them and comes to understand chiefs fears when she see cortana order another AI to self destruct destroying a space station and killing i think 69 spartans along with who know how many civilian workers and marines
And ya spartan 2 definitely indoctrinated slaves i think spartan 3s would be to
Yeah I never got that. The TV show 100 percent has leant into that angle with them talking about him being controllable. It would not surprise me if they make that analogy between him and Cortana.
The only time I got that sense was in Infinite where Chief says he kind of just does this because “maybe that’s my programming”. I mean Halsey does refer to indoctrination during the Halo 4 intro. But what exactly does she mean by that? Apart from with Cortana the Chiefs never been asked to do anything really questionable by the UNSC that would cause that kind of break. The war started before they could ask him to kill all those rebel humans. So you don’t really have too much insight into why he’s fighting for them.
It makes sense. They’ve been abducted by the State to fight in its wars. But I recall some of the books being a bit weird on this point. Like suggesting the Spartan 2s can get shore leave and retire or stuff like that. Which is weird. What stops them sueing the government?
Im really worried about the show honestly
In the UK but in the event I still won’t be able to watch it. Already have two subscriptions going and I am loathe to get another for one show.
I am a little concerned they’re going to make a conflict with the UNSC more central than the Covenant. It feels a little too soon to do that. This isn’t a grizzled Halo 4 Chief who has the man ask him to let the Didact destroy Earth and murder his friend who saved the Galaxy. But stuff like pairing him with Insurrectionists, having that rebel Spartan character, making a Covenant human villain who presumably has issues with the UNSC; it all points towards that taking precedence.
Im worried about allot of stuff about the show from cortana looks even though im very happy they got her voice actor and props and two scenes when they said find the halo stop the war put me off somewhat and when that lady looked down with a surprised expression a said halo like they just discovered it made me cringe so badly
Well the same logic would apply to any AI in the bungie games as well. The AI are nothing but Tools to the UNSC.
As for the AI having loyalty pre 343 era, they were most likely programmed to be.
In this case the assumption would be that while Cortana and other AI may have consciousness, their personalities and behavior is likely not emergent from their consciousness at least not completely or initially. Halo lore that I don’t know probably goes into more depth, but my perception tells me they are “alive” but still innately are driven to fulfill their creators purpose.
still your right they are slaves.
Also Star Wars in both old and new expanded lore does address droid sentience and consciousness. Also to some extent in the movies, with memory wipes, restraining bolts and quite a few droids, most notably c3p0 who have a fear and the concept of death. Han Solo movies has a subplot about it too.
Not all Droids are true AI but many are. And yes they are slaves there too. So are clone soldiers as well.