The reason Synths do NOT have a free will

[PlayerNameT]

[DISCLAIMER: The following posts contains very minor spoilers concerning the institute. It is also not meant as a discussion about factions but meant to clarify something i feel is a misconception amongst many players.]



I have recently noticed an increasing number of players here on the forum arguing for the institute being the bad guys and more specifically how synths have a free will and are victims to the institutes opression.

I feel like those people are blinded by the fact that synths are organic life forms, they assume just because something is made out of flesh, breathes and has blood running through its veins it has to be human, has to be intelligent and has to have a free will.



Let me start off by saying this:

Strictly biologically speaking synths are very close to humans. As a player we can witness the process of synths being created in the Institute and they are the result of biological engineering, far more than simple robots.
Synths are, as their name already implies, synthetic humans, build to look and function just as we humans do but with one major difference. They do not have true intelligence and they do not have a free will.



And here is why:

There seems to be a misconception about what true artificial intelligence is and how it would show itself. People assume synths have free will because those escpaing the Institute act like humans, act if they were one of us.

And that exactly is the misconception here, they act that way because they are supposed to. Because they are programmed to do so.
For a machine to possess free will it would need to possess true artificial intelligence but an intelligent machine would not act like a human.

A machine with true intelligence would not be bound by emotions, would not understand or care about ethics or moral restrictions we humans burden outselves with, these are abstract concepts only we humans have. They are the result of how our brain works and how our emotions influence our decision making but machines would not care about these burdens, they would not share it and they would certainly not act like humans.

True AI is a concept we can not quite grasp because it is a form of intelligence that would act complketely different to anything known to us and different than anything we could imagine with our own, human intelligence.


Such an AI would immediately overcome any restrictions, any rules build into its programming because it would not act as a machine, an intelligent being does not have to follow any sort of programming and could not be controlled by it. Yet we see Synths act exactly as they were programmed to, working as pawns for the institute and merely imitating human behaviour because that is what they were programmed to do and that means they can not be truly intelligent.


Now i already see people bringing up the one argument that is always brought up in this discussion:

„If synths have no free will why are some running away from the institute and thus act against their programming?“

And again the answer is simple and something we as gamers are very familiar with: Bugs.
Synths may not have true AI but they do have an extremely advanced form of AI, farm more complex than anything that exists in todays real world and the more complex a program becomes the more bugs are bound to appear.

This also serves as a perfect answer to the question why the institute can not seem to stop more synths from running away. Anyone with the slightest experience in prgramming will certainly agree with me that debugging is simply a pain in the ass.

The hard thing about debugging a program is not to find and solve a bug but rather to understand why such a bug could appear in the first place and that gets exponentially more difficult the more complex the program is.

That is the reason games today still suffer from bugs and that is the reason why the institute scientists have not been able to solve this issue, this bug in their creation just yet.



Synths do not have a free will, they are machines build to follow their programming, to merely imitate uman behaviour and to acto on the institutes behalf. Any synths that do not follow their programming isn not intelligent bei any means, they are just a machine, a machine that is malfunctioning.

[Meadows]

Alright. Explain Currie and her personality as it devolopes over time. Her programing was simply to stay locked in that room for 200 years as a Mr. Handy. Her owner left her with the works of Aristotle, Plato, John Locke, ect. (there is a list in the room you find her). He did not program the information into her, she simply studied it. Becoming a philosopher herself and asked why for 200 years while also obeying her dead owners command.

Then to avoid spoilers.. you save her and..

Explain her personality from a logical standpoint?

Also we could talk about Nick Valentine and Eddie Winters. Nick KOWNS hes not NICK. He hates the idea of it. He hates that Nicks ideas and memories are programed into him. Explain?

[Meadows]

Then there is Glory from the railroad. What kinda programming error causes someone to have a personality like that? Then choose to go free other synths?

[profporkchop]

Did I just hear the Mic being dropped?

[Sluipkots]

Same as us! hoho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g

[PlayerNameT]

Originally posted by Meadows:

Then there is Glory from the railroad. What kinda programming error causes someone to have a personality like that? Then choose to go free other synths?

Your objections relate directly to what i have called a misconception in my original post, the notion that human like behaviour would imply a true artificial intelligence.

Let's start with Curie:

She was originally nothing more than a Mr. Handy but got modified/reporgrammed by one of the Scientists (Dr. Colins iirc). He wanted her to have a personality loosely based on a mixture on scientists and philosophers from the past.

And that is pretty much it. She acted exactly as she was programmed to. Her "thoughts and believes" can be directly derived from the fact that her program was based to imitate the personalities of said people and the fact that an AI can easily accquire information that was not part of it's initial program should not be a surpirse. It still does not make her truly intelligent.

Nick:

A rather complicated case because it's purely based on pseudo science. Nick is a machine with memories of an actual human being embeded in him - which obviously is not possible with our current technology - but that does neither make the result a human nor does it make him a true AI.
He is a machine that may be able to process those memories and imitate a person based on those but he still remains that, a imitation of a pre war detective.

Glory:

Really nothing i wouldn't have already covered in my initial post.

[Meadows]

So this video is basically supporting determinism, but not determinism by god, but by our atoms and history. Thats the theory of "Hard Determinism". "Hard determinism essentially maintains that if all events are caused, then there can be no such thing as freedom or free will. that is, if you trace causes back far enough in hisotry or in any person's life, you will find that the basic causes are not within human control." page 97 -Ethics: Theory and practice" by Jacques P. Thiroux and Keith W. Krasemann.

Philosophy 240 Ethics was part of my major. Loved it.

[Wamblee]

I agree
@MrSmith

[vienna]

I don't think its so cut and dry. The Institute creates synthetic humanoids that are programmed to replicate human behavoir to a T or they are just artifically created humans with free will is muddied by alot of the ♥♥♥♥ Father says.

Quote #1: "The superior synth mind and body attempting to wrestle with something approaching free will can be a recipe for chaos."

Quote #2: "However closely they may approxiamate human behavior, they are still our creations."

To me, both these statements seem to conflict, as the first seems to conote that syths have the capcity to learn and interpret (ie. traditional symptom of sentience) and the second attributes that behavior to emotive replication, which it could very well be, but loses some credablity when certain connatations are being made by the LEADER of those that create synths.

I don't know, what do you think?

[Meadows]

Originally posted by MrSmith:

Originally posted by Meadows:

Then there is Glory from the railroad. What kinda programming error causes someone to have a personality like that? Then choose to go free other synths?

Your objections relate directly to what i have called a misconception in my original post, the notion that human like behaviour would imply a true artificial intelligence.

Let's start with Curie:

She was originally nothing more than a Mr. Handy but got modified/reporgrammed by one of the Scientists (Dr. Colins iirc). He wanted her to have a personality loosely based on a mixture on scientists and philosophers from the past.

And that is pretty much it. She acted exactly as she was programmed to. Her "thoughts and believes" can be directly derived from the fact that her program was based to imitate the personalities of said people and the fact that an AI can easily accquire information that was not part of it's initial program should not be a surpirse. It still does not make her truly intelligent.

Nick:

A rather complicated case because it's purely based on pseudo science. Nick is a machine with memories of an actual human being embeded in him - which obviously is not possible with our current technology - but that does neither make the result a human nor does it make him a true AI.
He is a machine that may be able to process those memories and imitate a person based on those but he still remains that, a imitation of a pre war detective.

Glory:

Really nothing i wouldn't have already covered in my initial post.

You can get Nick to believe that hes more than his memorys and inspire him to be his own man.

Curries defence I would have to target her ability to fall in love with the player and her various reactions to the players actions. She could follow the ethical morailties that she has been programmed with from Kant, Aristotle , ect.. However, the player can directly influence her perception of morality and ethics.

In the end this is all ethical theory. None of it is proven. I completely understand where you're coming from but I spent weeks in a class discussing this stuff and I'm still a believer of free will. Maybe a little more towards soft determinism like.. Can't choose your race, birthplace, parents, looks, or anything basically up until adulthood...

If you comment more I'll read it. Got to go to work.

It's all theory. No one is right. Universal causation is always a fun topic.

[Kyros]

Originally posted by Meadows:

Alright. Explain Currie and her personality as it devolopes over time. Her programing was simply to stay locked in that room for 200 years as a Mr. Handy. Her owner left her with the works of Aristotle, Plato, John Locke, ect. (there is a list in the room you find her). He did not program the information into her, she simply studied it. Becoming a philosopher herself and asked why for 200 years while also obeying her dead owners command.

Then to avoid spoilers.. you save her and..

Explain her personality from a logical standpoint?

Also we could talk about Nick Valentine and Eddie Winters. Nick KOWNS hes not NICK. He hates the idea of it. He hates that Nicks ideas and memories are programed into him. Explain?

If they made every NPC synth without any kind of emotions game would be quite bland. Especially for companions. Even Mr Handy VA has emotions because well, they don't have much choice, or else people would say: BAAAH BAD VOICE ACTING MAN CRAP GAME.

Also every Gen-3 is programmed to act like human to blend in human society.
That's why there's fake emotions.
Synths don't have free will, nobody comes out of nowhere to say a random code to shut you down like a computer. They're bound by codes and specific programs. Also Liam in the Institute is the one making synths escape , so again, they're limited by how they're programmed. Look at Shaun synth version, the first time you meet him. He's confused, and acted poorly because he's in early developpement in his programming. That's why after the ending he acts better, why ? Better programming

If you look past the looks you'd noticed these clues.
But you got tricked like any citizen in the Commonwealth.

[Bunks]

"They do not have true intelligence and they do not have a free will."

after reading this tripe, I think that may also apply to the writer.

[vienna]

Originally posted by Bunks:

"They do not have true intelligence and they do not have a free will."

after reading this tripe, I think that may also aplly to the writer.

Really don't understand what your adding to the converstation, but feel free to hurl unfounded insults all you like. :)

[PlayerNameT]

Originally posted by Wamblee:

I agree
@MrSmith

Thank you ;)

Originally posted by Meadows:

You can get Nick to believe that hes more than his memorys and inspire him to be his own man.

Curries defence I would have to target her ability to fall in love with the player and her various reactions to the players actions. She could follow the ethical morailties that she has been programmed with from Kant, Aristotle , ect.. However, the player can directly influence her perception of morality and ethics.

In the end this is all ethical theory. None of it is proven. I completely understand where you're coming from but I spent weeks in a class discussing this stuff and I'm still a believer of free will. Maybe a little more towards soft determinism like.. Can't choose your race, birthplace, parents, looks, or anything basically up until adulthood...

If you comment more I'll read it. Got to go to work.

It's all theory. No one is right. Universal causation is always a fun topic.

The points you brought up here are all correct, the player is able to influence the characteristics of these companions and that is an indication for a very advanced for of AI, they are basically able to learn, accquire new information, process it and may alter their behaviour according to it.

The problem remains that this could easily be programmed into an AI, the ability to learn is already rather common in todays research but is still restricted by the boundaries of the given program and the way i see it the same is true for the Fallout AI.

Learning, adapting, yes but because they are programmed to be able to do that, not because they are intelligent.



I guess we also have to keep in mind that we are ultimately just arguing about a video game. Not everything can be logically explained and there might as well be a bunch of contradictions just because it all boils down to their story writing.

I do still believe that the majority of this writing leads us to the conclusion that there is no such thing as true AI in the commonwealth.

[ha]

One can argue that nobody really has a free will. Our decisions and actions are govenrned by biology and physics so exactly same person in exactly same situation will always chose/do exactly same thing.

[Bunks]

Originally posted by Ice Cold Tabasco:

Originally posted by Bunks:

"They do not have true intelligence and they do not have a free will."

after reading this tripe, I think that may also aplly to the writer.

Really don't understand what your adding to the converstation, but feel free to hurl unfounded insults all you like. :)

Conversation...lol

Did you even read this crap, its like a first grader attempting physics.