Simulating the A.I. Menace

A.C.: After Collapse is a tabletop role playing game (TTRPG) featuring post-apocalyptic themes.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is presented as one of many threats to future human civilization because it has the potential to "go rogue" and become our worst nightmare.  As we developed this game, years before we wrote our first novel based upon that big backstory, we had to decide how we would model or simulate artificial intelligence.

We began that process with a single underlying premise.  Because we humans are the creators of AI, they the machine intelligence should have something in common with us.  After some experiments, we determined that AI should have its own described attributes and game mechanics that are like (i.e., similar to) those used by humanoid Characters and NPCs during game play.  For the most part, this "architecture" follows a straight-forward blueprint.

We can save the discussion of physicality for another blog post.  The most important element by far is the mental capacity of AI.  How smart is it, really?  How much does it really know--or care--about
"right" and "wrong," as we think of the terms.  Search the internet and you will find a lot of debate about the future potential of these things.  All we've tried to do in A.C.: After Collapse is to give you the tools to make your own game-specific determinations.

Flesh-and-blood Characters and NPCs have and benefit from the meta attribute of Reason (REA).  REA is a composite score that has many uses during routine game play.  Based on their age, humanoid Characters roll a number of d6 to determine what their Creativity attribute is (#d6 = CRE).  They also do the same thing to determine what their Empathy score is (#d6 = EMP).  Creativity for humans plus empathy for humans divided by two yields their Reason score (CRE + EMP = REA).

Depending on a wide variety of factors, machine intellect can be governed by age--if that's how you prefer to think of it.  Otherwise, it or they can be nothing more than the end result of the programming they were given when they were built.  For the purpose of game design and the mechanics of play, we have assigned AIs their own Program Reason scores.  As assigned by the referee, AI Characters and NPCs can roll or be assigned a number of d6 to determine what their Program Creativity attribute is (#d6 = CRE-p).  They also do the same thing to determine what their Program Empathy score is (#d6 = EMP-p).  Creativity for humans plus empathy for humans divided by two yields their Program Reason score (CREA/2 =REA-p).

At its most basic, any artificial intelligence is going to be a collection or a community of programs.  Call them apps or software, that collection of electronic instructions will come in many forms.  Some of it would be capable of learning, accruing life experience, etc.  Referees decide when and where the post-Collapse heroes and heroines encounter "lesser" forms of AI, such as home electronics that might have an opinion, even though it would for the most part be incapable of acting on it.

For our purposes, the most advanced forms of AI are ideal for the post-apocalyptic game setting--becasue--they would have a greater sense of their own wonts and needs.  Such desires might not bear any resemblance to human wants, needs, or even greed.  This does make it easy enough for machines to stand in for "Good Guys" and their more nefarious "Bad Guys."  Anyone bold enough to explore uniquely AI agendas would be capable of doing so, if they dared.

All of this and much more is discussed in detail within the pages of the supplemental source book Gadgets, Devices, and Computers.  You can find this product online through Amazon and/or DriveThru RPG.