So... I find it interesting that NoA is described as unchanging, with its way of thinking set in stone from the moment it boots up.
But... it's also capable of becoming delusional (if it can come up with a delusion that is useful to the mission). Becoming anything is a change. Becoming delusional is a change to how one thinks. If NoA can become delusional, then the idea than it cannot change how it thinks is wrong. And the statement that NoA can become delusional comes from the Quaker, who is the AI expert among the pioneers, so I’m inclined to believe her when it comes to how NoA works.
But actually, the phrasing of how this information is presented is important, I think. Because it seems like some parts of NoA’s ‘mind’ are locked down more strictly than others.
The PDA entry for the Noetic Advisor Node says that “the Noetic Advisor cannot learn or alter its existing values or imperatives.”
Quaker says that NoA “has no fixed model of reality”
NoA’s purpose and priorities are set in stone, and it has some restrictions in what it’s allowed to do, but outside of that, it can think relatively freely, as long as it can find a way to make any new developments in its thoughts and priorities relevant to its main mission.
And that sort of recontextualizes this bit as NoA… basically admitting that it knows this and has already found a workaround.
If NoA wants anything else besides its main purpose, it has to justify that want in terms of how it would support its main purpose. But the possibility of NoA wanting something else isn’t entirely dismissed. NoA already knows a loophole.
And I think we’ve already seen NoA make use of this loophole in order to “want something else”
A special request that NoA “can’t call personal” but “could really increment” NoA’s “value function”
It is a personal request. But NoA can’t call it that. NoA had to express it “in terms of how it supported the colonists of Sleep Bay 3,” just like it mentioned it would have to if it ever wanted something it wasn’t built to want.
This means NoA isn’t just a glorified Alexa that some brainiac decided to put in charge of making a bunch of indentured servants functionally immortal until their debt is repaid. NoA can, in fact, change. Perhaps have a character arc of some kind. And I’m excited to see where that goes.
