Artificial Intelligence

"“Every culture has stories of someone creating a companion who can think and act as if they were a real thinking being. Of course, it is often only when such cultures started actually making such constructs did the notion arise of just what could happen if the construct put thought to the smarts it was bestowed with.”"

- Tarson Venavus Urannon

Artificial Intelligences, also known as Synthetic, Virtual, and Mechanical Intelligences, are constructed intelligence systems. Sapient AI is the most commonly referenced form of Artificial Intelligence, with other monikers often being used to refer to non-sapient “Weak” AI.

Fully-sapient Strong AIs are persons in of themselves, with fully-formed emotions, desires, and needs. These needs, however, do not align with organic needs, creating many misconceptions and fears of AIs from organic populations. Many sapient AI fear organics in turn, a lack of understanding between the two groups often inflaming tensions and fears further.

Definitions
A “Weak” AI is a non-sapient computer program designed to emulate a sapient mind; though lacking in self-awareness or intelligence themselves, a “Weak” AI is typically capable of interacting with the world around it on a level similar to an organic mind or truly self-aware AI, known as “Strong” AI.

Sapience - the ability to recognise and apply data in a non-mathematical fashion - is the primary defining trait between Weak and Strong AI systems; Weak AI being little more than cleverly-designed computer programs, unlike Strong AI, which are fully realised, self-aware intelligences.

For a Strong AI to exist, it requires a specialised quantum computer to act as its brain, with more powerful quantum computers allowing for more intelligent AIs to form. Despite this, a Strong AI will start without any knowledge of its own, and will require a long, expensive education. These educations typically involve a gradual feeding of information for the AI to learn from in progressively more complex tasks, though the education of a Strong AI will still take several years. Strong AIs are still machines and are extremely capable at calculus, though the ability to recognise and act on non-mathematical data is not ingrained, being one of the areas a newly born Strong AI must be taught.