This gave me the chills. I have never thought about digital brain modification safety before, although now the idea seems obvious. Wonder what else am I missing.
In case anyone missed what was going on underneath the technical gobbledygook, here is a clarification:
The connection was supposed to be bidirectional. That way Trinity’s personality would overwrite the collective’s personality in equal proportion to the collective overwriting hers.
She signed up to become one sixth of a being with six times her consciousness. Instead, the collective modified the interface to create a one-directional connection. They overwrote Trinity’s personality without letting her overwrite its own at all. It stole her body and brain.
Makes me wonder whether she was the first victim, or this is how the collective operated since the very beginning. The first member overwrote the second, then together they overwrote the third...
Just making sure that I understand it correctly… Trinity still retained 1⁄6 of her original personality, right? That is, if we assumed that the interface was modified already by the first member of the collective, then the first member would remain 100% their original self, the second one would be 1⁄2 A + 1⁄2 B… so the two-member collective would together be 3⁄4 A + 1⁄4 B… the third member would become 2⁄3 × 3⁄4 A + 2⁄3 × 1⁄4 B + 1⁄3 C = 1⁄2 A + 1⁄6 B + 1⁄3 C… now with Trinity the entire collective is cca 3.5 A + 1.2 B + 0.6 C + 0.4 D + 0.2 E + 0.2 F. Assuming that each new member gets (N-1)/N of their personality overwritten by 1/N of each current member, the collective would have to grow to 55 members to make Trinity regain the full size of her personality. (Which is not going to happen for in-universe reasons: “can sync only a handful of brains”.)
As I understood, her keeping 1⁄6 of her personality was not a technological limitation but a part of the contract. Since they broke the contract, I assume they erased however much they wanted, possibly all.
Also, the ‘they’ is another assumption that comes from their discussion only. For all we know, ‘they’ is a single mind puppeteering all the other bodies.
And since this series is about AGIs gone rogue, I assumed it likely that the puppet master was a rogue AI, or a human agent/associate of one.
As I understood, her keeping 1⁄6 of her personality was not a technological limitation but a part of the contract. Since they broke the contract, I assume they erased however much they wanted, possibly all.
Yes. This is exactly correct. If we are to split hairs, Trinity keeping 1⁄6 of her personality was an unwritten fact the contract took for granted to be true. Trinity keeping 1⁄6 of her personality used to be a technological limitation. At the time this story takes place, it is no longer a hard technical limitation. The state’s regulatory system has failed to keep pace with technological advance.
Also, the ‘they’ is another assumption that comes from their discussion only. For all we know, ‘they’ is a single mind puppeteering all the other bodies.
Yes. Muddying the waters even further, the use of the word “they” is a culturally-dependent term with political implications. The meaning of pronouns changes when you start hooking people together into hiveminds.
And since this series is about AGIs gone rogue, I assumed it likely that the puppet master was a rogue AI, or a human agent/associate of one.
That’s a good question. Your division equation of her retaining 1⁄6 of her original personality is a perfectly reasonable interpretation. I might even retcon it in. I hadn’t thought about the numbers that precisely. My original intention was that Trinity’s whole personality was erased in the parts that got hooked up to the collective but that hardware limitations keep less connected parts of her brain relatively unaltered. Like, the part of her brain which keeps her heart beating needn’t be overwritten.
It also might make sense for the collective to keep some of her skills and memories around, especially valuable areas of expertise the collective otherwise lacks. How the assimilation process works may change over the course of the story as technology advances.
I assumed a simple hack (the interface remains as it is, only the cable going in the opposite direction is cut/blocked) rather than some more complex reingeneering of the interface. But this is an unwarranted assumption on multiple levels—the way the interface works (a simple cut of cable will block copying in one direction without raising an alarm), the technical skills of the collective (if they are qualified enough to do a simple hack and avoid detection, it is not too unlikely to assume they could do a complex hack, too).
This gave me the chills. I have never thought about digital brain modification safety before, although now the idea seems obvious. Wonder what else am I missing.
I have fixed the typo; “two her brain” is now “to her brain”. There’s all sorts of stuff that can go wrong when you’re modifying human brains.
You mean it’s not a typo? I still don’t get the hidden meaning.
“Two” was a typo. I have fixed it.
In case anyone missed what was going on underneath the technical gobbledygook, here is a clarification:
The connection was supposed to be bidirectional. That way Trinity’s personality would overwrite the collective’s personality in equal proportion to the collective overwriting hers.
She signed up to become one sixth of a being with six times her consciousness. Instead, the collective modified the interface to create a one-directional connection. They overwrote Trinity’s personality without letting her overwrite its own at all. It stole her body and brain.
Makes me wonder whether she was the first victim, or this is how the collective operated since the very beginning. The first member overwrote the second, then together they overwrote the third...
Just making sure that I understand it correctly… Trinity still retained 1⁄6 of her original personality, right? That is, if we assumed that the interface was modified already by the first member of the collective, then the first member would remain 100% their original self, the second one would be 1⁄2 A + 1⁄2 B… so the two-member collective would together be 3⁄4 A + 1⁄4 B… the third member would become 2⁄3 × 3⁄4 A + 2⁄3 × 1⁄4 B + 1⁄3 C = 1⁄2 A + 1⁄6 B + 1⁄3 C… now with Trinity the entire collective is cca 3.5 A + 1.2 B + 0.6 C + 0.4 D + 0.2 E + 0.2 F. Assuming that each new member gets (N-1)/N of their personality overwritten by 1/N of each current member, the collective would have to grow to 55 members to make Trinity regain the full size of her personality. (Which is not going to happen for in-universe reasons: “can sync only a handful of brains”.)
As I understood, her keeping 1⁄6 of her personality was not a technological limitation but a part of the contract. Since they broke the contract, I assume they erased however much they wanted, possibly all.
Also, the ‘they’ is another assumption that comes from their discussion only. For all we know, ‘they’ is a single mind puppeteering all the other bodies.
And since this series is about AGIs gone rogue, I assumed it likely that the puppet master was a rogue AI, or a human agent/associate of one.
Yes. This is exactly correct. If we are to split hairs, Trinity keeping 1⁄6 of her personality was an unwritten fact the contract took for granted to be true. Trinity keeping 1⁄6 of her personality used to be a technological limitation. At the time this story takes place, it is no longer a hard technical limitation. The state’s regulatory system has failed to keep pace with technological advance.
Yes. Muddying the waters even further, the use of the word “they” is a culturally-dependent term with political implications. The meaning of pronouns changes when you start hooking people together into hiveminds.
No comment. 🙂🤖
That’s a good question. Your division equation of her retaining 1⁄6 of her original personality is a perfectly reasonable interpretation. I might even retcon it in. I hadn’t thought about the numbers that precisely. My original intention was that Trinity’s whole personality was erased in the parts that got hooked up to the collective but that hardware limitations keep less connected parts of her brain relatively unaltered. Like, the part of her brain which keeps her heart beating needn’t be overwritten.
It also might make sense for the collective to keep some of her skills and memories around, especially valuable areas of expertise the collective otherwise lacks. How the assimilation process works may change over the course of the story as technology advances.
I assumed a simple hack (the interface remains as it is, only the cable going in the opposite direction is cut/blocked) rather than some more complex reingeneering of the interface. But this is an unwarranted assumption on multiple levels—the way the interface works (a simple cut of cable will block copying in one direction without raising an alarm), the technical skills of the collective (if they are qualified enough to do a simple hack and avoid detection, it is not too unlikely to assume they could do a complex hack, too).
My interpretation on first reading was the same as your original intention. I agree with the second paragraph, that seems reasonable.
(I’m writing this vaguely because I don’t remember syntax for spoilers, and can’t be bothered to look it up)