in bfb, objects come in many different forms and shapes. today, we will be looking at a specific set of objects: tv, robot flower, remote, and roboty.
what these specific objects have in common is that theyâre mechanical minds, but it doesnt just stop there.
when i hear the phrase âmechanical mindsâ, connotations like technology, robotics, and ai, start to come up. the last one in particular interests me. are the mechanical minds some form of advanced artificial intelligence?
This is what golfball had to say about mechanical minds when choosing her team members in bfb1. what shes implying here is that mechanical minds are smarter than non-mechanical objects, but is this true? and if so, how exactly?
well, to answer all these questions, we first need to know what makes a mechanical mind a mechanical mind
1. structure
the structure of a mechanical mind relates to machinery, whether this be as an electronic appliance or as robotic materials(e.g. metal, led lights, etc).
in some cases, this can be beneficial, as roboty was able to survive being hit by a jawbreaker
2. compute
mechanical minds are shown to be able to make computations
theyre able to take input data (âturn purple!â), process them(set screen to purple), and give off an output (display purple). this is a trait that is common in computers.
with this ability, they can also make calculations
in bfb6, tv was able to calculate and display the votes of who was to be eliminated in the team beep. what he did here is a task that i think would be very difficult for non-mechanically minded objects (as well as humans) to achieve.
the fact that he computed (or at the very least, estimated) the votes to such exact values, plus his history of calculating votes in bfdia, shows that he must have been using an algorithm or some sophisticated neural network that heâs perfected with time.
3. connect to the internet..?
remember abntt in bfb7? as they were stuck on the moon, they werenât able to directly compete in the competition, so they did it indirectly, by controlling remote through robot flower.
ethics aside, this shows us that mechanical minds are capable of sending data to other mechanical minds
you can kind of imagine it as an internet connection between networks. below is a visualisation i made of how such a topology would look like:
tennis and basket ball send inputs to robot flower, who converts it to signals that the ship can send across to remote via the place robot flower(from now on, iâll just refer to it as the internet) went to.
on a side note: perhaps the internet seems to be quite unknown to the mechanical minds? judging by how robot flower seems to be a bit confused upon entering the place.
this however, may not apply to remote. she defended herself by trying to send a bomb over to her hackers, which, quickly took a turn once rf closed the connection. at first this might seem like no big deal, but the fact that shes even able to send a bomb (and in a short amount of time, too) over shows that she has some knowledge/experience of the internet, and more possibly, herself, and how she works.
on one other side note about the internet. in the episode, you can see white star grid-like points moving in constant directions, moving pass a central area. could that be travelling data unrelated to robot flower and remote? and if so, would it mean the bfb universe isnât as quiet as we expect it to be?
4. sentience
mechanical minds are, without a doubt, sentient.
they can make sense of the world from their unique point of view, and experience the world
from the perspective of a designer or automator, this would be good, as the mechanicals dont have to act on simple if statements, but instead, make their own logical choices(whether by neural networks or whatever).
however, with the ability to make decisions and experience things, comes the ability to feel emotions, and these emotions can have an effect on decision making, which can cause mechanical minds to make irrational decisions.
for example, the situations remote and robot flower went through in the screenshot above. i spoke about this last post with remote, where she had a choice of going against her teams morals by killing, or lose the challenge and have her body hacked. robot flower was also in a difficult dilemma, where she had to choose between killing everyone on the moon, or going against gbâs earlier instruction by closing the connection (may i add that its a bit ironic how remotes the one who sends a bomb instead of following her teams passive morals while rf valued the safety of her friends over the challenge).
in both instances, these two minds have demonstrated that they are not only capable of feeling emotions like fear and pressure, but that theyre also able to think for themselves. they can deviate from their original instructions and make a choice based on their own individual experience.
sentience is not a feature that differentiates mechanicals from non mechanicals. they can have this regardless, however, for such a thing to be possible in mechanical minds means that theyre a very very advanced form of machinery. if you hooked these machine minds up to a turing test, theyâd pass it with ease
the answer
now, to actually answer the question. are mechanical minds smarter?
well, in terms of computation, being able to calculate things faster than anyone else can come in handy.
in terms of internet access, it can be seen as a huge advantage. what abntt did in bfb7 may have failed, but it was really smart and creative. im surprised they havent used this technique more
there isnt much to say about structure, except that it helps make the mechanical minds capable of computation and internet access
in terms of sentience, thats where im not so sure.
on one hand, you can make your own logical choices and do what you think is best, but on the other hand, your emotions can make you do irrational things? so i guess it cancels out..
overview
but in general, i think there arent that many perks to being mechanical. the closer mechanical minds come to emulating non-mechanic behaviour, the less of a difference there is between the two.
however, despite this seeming non-difference, we still get objects forming dichotomies and opinions about them.
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