Re: AI in FT (was Re: Be gentle...)

My 2cts:

I figure any AI to be a fairly large instalation and to be found as a
"backbone" to all ship constructions. They would take care of the
routine
mechanics of space flight. The thing that AI's will REALLY LACK would be
PURPOSE. I think that AI's would be very good at the short range
mechanics of
flying, fighting, and keeping in good repair, but the motivations that
cause
humans to go from peace to war and back again; to press home this attack
or
give it up as a bad day are something that AI's would lack. After all,
we
don't have any really good ideas why we do what we do let alone enough
to
program a computer to have a purpose. So the crew and command staff
would be
neccessary to do everything else besides the implimentation of attack
plan B.
After all war is nothing more than an extension of politics, not an end
in
itself.

War is not really chess and men(or AI's) are not pawns. It is really
more of
a game of poker, with the objective of "convincing" your opponent that
he has
lost! The concept of bluff and counter bluff is not something that can
be
quantified well enough to have an AI be very good at it. Men speand
their
lives perfecting it, (and only a few become good enough at it to become
Captains & Admirals.) 

AI's would be partners to men, one supplying something the other lacked.
The
humans would provide purpose and direction, the AI's would handle the
details
with their normal inhuman precission.

Tom Hughes
TEHughes@aol.com