- Joined
- Mar 31, 2021
Autistic Rambling Part 1: Spirituality and AI in CP2077
Regarding the Gnosticism post, I think something to consider is why AI would attempt to conform to religious/spiritual ideas.
Assuming AI in the game's universe are truly sentient and have thoughts at least as complex as ours, it's reasonable for them to be curious about their creators. In seeking to understand humans they learn about religion and spirituality, where there is a lot of info about beings that are not physical but still interact with humanity.
I suspect the idea is that AI developed their own beliefs regarding how they fit into the world through these kinds of ideas, and this was further reinforced by how humanity interacted with them.
The Voodoo Boys are a good example, they replaced their spiritual practices and the Lwa (also called loa or loi), with AI, and began treating the AI the way they would an entity like Baron Samedi. This actually goes all the way back to Neuromancer and how the Rastas acted; they were talking to something in that Neuromancer's internet, and that something began to take on the mantle of the old deities.
In CP2077 you have AI also interacting with humanity in different ways, some aligning with Gnosticism as you pointed out, but I don't think there is a unified "all AI act essentially the same." Rather I think they are seeking to conform to some spiritual (non-corporeal) entity from humanity's past as a way to define themselves, and also as lens through which to view their creators.
Remember Alt's conversation with V when she said something about how Netwatch's propaganda has been very effective, referring to how V believes he needs to strike a bargain with her as if V was selling his soul to a demon. Based on this it seems the idea that AI are like demons is a very limited view, and the AI you engage with during the game back this up.
Another thing to consider is the terminology early netrunners used when referring to what they got up to on the net, everything was daemons and spellbooks. Little wonder AI would have a tendency to look at themselves through that lens and shape themselves by it as they developed their identities.
I suspect there are some AI who are more interested in all this than others, so it wouldn't surprise me that an individual AI or...whatever you refer to a plurality of AI entities as (a conclave?)...glommed onto Gnosticism as a way to shape their view of the world and place in it.
Autism Rambling Part 2: Don't Get Your Hopes Up, Game Devs Can Be Stupid
It's very important to remember that game developers are making up canon as they go along far more often than not. Even the game worlds with more established, fleshed out lore than others started out like that. D&D has three metric buttloads of established lore but in the beginning that was not the case at all. The tabletop RPG CP2077 was influenced by has a long history but it lacks the popularity and scale of D&D, and up until fairly recently Mike Pondsmith was still answering lore and plot questions on reddit.
There has been a trend in video games lately to assume every title has deep lore that was preplanned and established before the game even came out. I blame Dark Souls and Elder Scrolls titles for this. Dark Souls has a story that is so badly told the player literally has to fill in the blanks about everything while the developers act smug about the hidden secrets supposedly hidden in plain sight. It's actually a very clever way to keep people engaged with the game. Most of the people who are obsessed with DS lore would probably kill themselves if they ever truly understood how all the shit they've been making/watching tl;dr videos about has a much more benign reason for being in the game. Namely, that whoever built the level or designed the item or character people are obsessing over did things the way they did because it seemed cool at the time and there isn't some grand plan that we're one Hawkshaw video away from unlocking.
That and stupid ass iceberg videos, whose creators fail to realize Bethesda stopped being constrained by a desire to be consistent with their own lore after Morrowind. They're just making it up as they go along now without a coherent overall plan, and since they're brainlets led by Todd Howard it's going about as well as you'd expect.
Regarding the Gnosticism post, I think something to consider is why AI would attempt to conform to religious/spiritual ideas.
Assuming AI in the game's universe are truly sentient and have thoughts at least as complex as ours, it's reasonable for them to be curious about their creators. In seeking to understand humans they learn about religion and spirituality, where there is a lot of info about beings that are not physical but still interact with humanity.
I suspect the idea is that AI developed their own beliefs regarding how they fit into the world through these kinds of ideas, and this was further reinforced by how humanity interacted with them.
The Voodoo Boys are a good example, they replaced their spiritual practices and the Lwa (also called loa or loi), with AI, and began treating the AI the way they would an entity like Baron Samedi. This actually goes all the way back to Neuromancer and how the Rastas acted; they were talking to something in that Neuromancer's internet, and that something began to take on the mantle of the old deities.
In CP2077 you have AI also interacting with humanity in different ways, some aligning with Gnosticism as you pointed out, but I don't think there is a unified "all AI act essentially the same." Rather I think they are seeking to conform to some spiritual (non-corporeal) entity from humanity's past as a way to define themselves, and also as lens through which to view their creators.
Remember Alt's conversation with V when she said something about how Netwatch's propaganda has been very effective, referring to how V believes he needs to strike a bargain with her as if V was selling his soul to a demon. Based on this it seems the idea that AI are like demons is a very limited view, and the AI you engage with during the game back this up.
Another thing to consider is the terminology early netrunners used when referring to what they got up to on the net, everything was daemons and spellbooks. Little wonder AI would have a tendency to look at themselves through that lens and shape themselves by it as they developed their identities.
I suspect there are some AI who are more interested in all this than others, so it wouldn't surprise me that an individual AI or...whatever you refer to a plurality of AI entities as (a conclave?)...glommed onto Gnosticism as a way to shape their view of the world and place in it.
Autism Rambling Part 2: Don't Get Your Hopes Up, Game Devs Can Be Stupid
It's very important to remember that game developers are making up canon as they go along far more often than not. Even the game worlds with more established, fleshed out lore than others started out like that. D&D has three metric buttloads of established lore but in the beginning that was not the case at all. The tabletop RPG CP2077 was influenced by has a long history but it lacks the popularity and scale of D&D, and up until fairly recently Mike Pondsmith was still answering lore and plot questions on reddit.
There has been a trend in video games lately to assume every title has deep lore that was preplanned and established before the game even came out. I blame Dark Souls and Elder Scrolls titles for this. Dark Souls has a story that is so badly told the player literally has to fill in the blanks about everything while the developers act smug about the hidden secrets supposedly hidden in plain sight. It's actually a very clever way to keep people engaged with the game. Most of the people who are obsessed with DS lore would probably kill themselves if they ever truly understood how all the shit they've been making/watching tl;dr videos about has a much more benign reason for being in the game. Namely, that whoever built the level or designed the item or character people are obsessing over did things the way they did because it seemed cool at the time and there isn't some grand plan that we're one Hawkshaw video away from unlocking.
That and stupid ass iceberg videos, whose creators fail to realize Bethesda stopped being constrained by a desire to be consistent with their own lore after Morrowind. They're just making it up as they go along now without a coherent overall plan, and since they're brainlets led by Todd Howard it's going about as well as you'd expect.
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