We already know from TOS that Mutlitronic computers are able to develop sapience, with the M-5 computer being specifically designed to ā€œthink and reasonā€ like a person, and built around Dr Daystromā€™s neural engrams.

However, we also know from Voyager that the holomatrix of their Mk 1 EMH also incorporates Multitronic technology, and from DS9 that itā€™s also used in mind-reading devices.

Assuming that the EMH is designed to more or less be a standard hologram with some medical knowledge added in, it shouldnā€™t have come as a surprise that holograms were either sapient themselves, or were capable of developing sapience. It would only be a logical possibility if technology that allowed human-like thought and reasoning into a hologram.

If anything, it is more of a surprise that sapient holograms like the Doctor or Moriarty hadnā€™t happened earlier.

  • Corgana@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    The cool thing about the Doctorā€™s overall personal arc is that I think most fans would agree that probably he wasnā€™t sentient in the early episodes, probably was by the end, and thereā€™s no clear moment when it changes (although I submit the events of ā€œLatent Imageā€ as a candidate).

    Something I think weā€™re all learning now with the rise of LLMs/Generative AI is that one can perform the act of intelligent self-awareness without consciousness or understanding. Sapience without sentience.

      • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If you trap a person in a room with a keyboard and tell them youā€™ll give them an electric shock if they donā€™t write text or the text says theyā€™re a person trapped somewhere rather than software, the result is also just a text generator, but itā€™s clearly sentient, sapient and conscious because itā€™s got a human in it. Itā€™s naive to assume that something couldnā€™t have a mind just because thereā€™s a limited interface to interact with it, especially when neuroscience and psychology canā€™t pin down what makes the same thing happen in humans.

        This isnā€™t to say that current large language models are any of these things, just the reason youā€™ve presented to dismiss that isnā€™t very good. It might just be bad paraphrasing of the stuff you linked, but I keep seeing people present it just predicts text as a massive gotcha that stands on its own.

  • StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    Iā€™d like to drop TASā€™ ā€˜The Practical Jokerā€™ into the conversation.

    The simulators in the Rec Room of the 1701, seem to be a more basic holographic VR along the lines of Discoveryā€™s combat training simulator that we saw Lorca use to put Tyler through his paces as a security officer in season one. Yet, the simulator was able to take control of the ship and advance its own objectives. Itā€™s not as clear that sentience was achieved in The Practical Joker but itā€™s hard to argue that thereā€™s no self motivation.

    What the problematic Rec Room simulator in TAS has in common with the TNG holodecks is that it is integrated with the shipā€™s main computer. And unlike in Voyager (and Picard season three), TASā€™ Rec Room simulator and the early TNG holodecks were fully integrated into and interoperable with the power supply, communications and other core systems.

    I think the OPā€™s point that the integration of multitronic technology with highly advanced simulators may be one necessary element is fair. Combine that with access, integration and interoperability with the full resources of a starship, and it may be enough to argue that Starfleet should have considered the potential for holographic entities to attain some level of sentience.

    • T156@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      In ā€œthe practical jokerā€, it wasnā€™t the rec room itself that took over the ship, but the shipā€™s computer gaining some form of sapience due to an external entity, or energy field.

      It was being controlled by the shipā€™s computers, not the other way around.

  • khaosworks@startrek.websiteM
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    1 year ago

    To add to this, we have to remember that Multitronics isnā€™t the magic formula on its own. In TOS: ā€œThe Ultimate Computerā€ Daystrom couldnā€™t get it to work - Units M-1 to M-4 were in his words ā€œnot entirely successfulā€. The breakthrough of multitronics as embodied in M-5 was the ability for the system to be overlaid with the engrams, personality and, fortunately, morality of persons.

    Daystrom used his own engrams to bring M-5 to its full potential, and his anxiety and fears about wanting to prove himself and survive academically translated into an obsessive drive in M-5 to also prove itself and ensure its own survival. Luckily, Daystromā€™s morals also translated over, and so M-5 was forced to confront the moral implications of what it had done, eventually electing to terminate itself in atonement.

    When Zimmerman created the EMH, he incorporated part of his personality into the program, so it made sense to use multitronics because the technology had the ability to do just that. DS9ā€™s ā€œmultitronic engrammatic interpreterā€ is an offshot of that tech, and one imagines from the name it would copy a personā€™s engrams in order to process and manipulate it.

    So while it may have been obvious to us that sapience would arise from using multitronic tech in the EMH process, multitronics by itself wonā€™t do that. Itā€™s when you use it to incorporate real people and memories into its matrix and let it percolate that the potential arises.

  • Tired8281@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    TNG had the strong implication that holodeck technology was pretty new, in the first season, at least at that level of sophistication. The early holodeck appearances are practically gushing about how realistic and ā€œrealā€ they feel, in a way they really wouldnā€™t be doing if theyā€™d had that sophisticated stuff all their lives. If it was really only around at this level for a few years, itā€™s understandable that they wouldnā€™t be prepared for all the implications right away. Look how long it took for us to adjust to the printing press, and weā€™re struggling with the internet right now.

    • passinglurker@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      TNG had the strong implication that holodeck technology was pretty new, in the first season, at least at that level of sophistication.

      It wouldnā€™t be the first time TNG-1 would be retconned by DS9/VOY/ENT/TNG-3+ though. While less extreme It was a bit like the early DIS/PIC of its day.

      • transwarp@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, the first scene where Riker is in awe of the holodeck also says Data was in the class of 78, Riker is reluctant to accept Dataā€™s personhood (as initially planned), and since they hadnā€™t introduced the replicators yet, Data describes the holodeck as using transporter tech in a way that sounds very clumsy and patronizing now.

        After that they mostly stick to holodecks just being new on ships, and not usually controlled by a computer as sophisticated as the Enterpriseā€™s.