Theory: Fabrials as Awakened Constructs [Discuss]

[listerfeend]

I'm still pretty new to making posts here, so I think this is the right place to talk about this, but if it's not, please let me know!

So, I'm not sure how best to describe this, but I'll give it a go. I suspect that, due to the mechanical nature of fabrials, it should be possible to create what would best be described as "Awakened" (in the same way that other things throughout the cosmere have been called Awakened without needing specifically to be Awakened by a Nalthian using Breaths) constructs, similar to 

Yumi Spoiler

Spoiler

The Father Machine in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

My thoughts on this are essentially: It's possible for them to create sensors or switches that can be activated physically, or likely through some good timing and shielding of specific fabrials within the device, which can react to the outside world. This provides the starting point for any and all computation. An Awakened object can be seen, in my opinion, as any artificially intelligent construct designed to complete a task or instructions.

One major portion of RoW was the pushing forward of fabrial tech and knowledge, understanding more about how it works, how to guide fabrials to do what is needed, how the different metals interact with the spren inside the gemstones, hints that it should be possible to create fabrials without imprisoning helpless spren... It's my theory that by MB era 4, we'll see constructs like 

Secret Projects Spoiler (TSM, Yumi)

Spoiler

The awakened metal mind AI's that run some of the ships, or possibly even machines like the Father Machine (without the shroud and such, but something similar, probably geared towards war)

 Thoughts?

[CtrlAltDepressed]

I argued that there is a distinction between a system using an awakened object and an awakened object. 

 

For instance (Secret Projects spoilers):

Spoiler

The Scadrians have awakened metalminds on their spaceships. I would say that is a spaceship with an awakened metalmind, not an awakened ship. 

 

Or the board in Tress, it has awakened circuits (memory?) but that doesnt mean that the entire board is awakened.

 

I think fabrials are something different. I think they have the potential to be awakened, but that is not really what fabrials are. They are action / reaction rather than responding to a Command. 

 

Stormlight spoilers:

Spoiler

A spren is alive separate from being used in a fabrial, therefore fabrials are inherently not awakened.

 

[J. Magi she/her]

I like this idea!

I think the decision making/ commands factor of awakened things would work well as a parallel to code in modern robots/computers. It's possible that using Awakening in partnership with the developing technology of fabrials could allow for something similar. With the fabrial working as the wiring and motherboard of the system, and the commands as the code.

I just really want a magic robot guy!! it would be so cool!!

 

[listerfeend]

16 hours ago, justice magician said:

I just really want a magic robot guy!! it would be so cool!!

Agreed! We have a couple of examples of that ALMOST coming to be, I'm sure at some point we will get something along those lines! 

But, I'd like to clarify, I suspect that a machine made purely with fabrials, no Nalthian's required, could potentially become something one would consider Awakened, just by way of the Fabrials being created. We know that they are discovering that Intent matters when trying to trap a spren, or split one...they are getting close to understanding the Realmatics in a way that I feel will lead to Artifabrians essentially creating a "new" magic system, and I further suspect we haven't even begun to see the upper limits of what is possible.

At the end of the day, Fabrials are really just Investiture with an Intent trapped in a physical item. To me that sounds a lot like something you could Awaken with

[Xiahida]

What if you awaken something that could push cages around makes a fabrial working differently (ex: Pushing or Pulling ones like pistons in an engine) Stormlight powered car!

[UndiagnosedCrazyBoy]

On 1/22/2024 at 2:44 PM, justice magician said:

I think the decision making/ commands factor of awakened things would work well as a parallel to code in modern robots/computers.

From what I know of robotics, creating certain gates Eg: AND gates NOR gates OR gates those things I can see being done with fabrials,but i do not know about decision making.

 

[J. Magi she/her]

15 minutes ago, UndiagnosedCrazyBoy said:

From what I know of robotics, creating certain gates Eg: AND gates NOR gates OR gates those things I can see being done with fabrials,but i do not know about decision making.

 

I do have a little experience in robotics as well, though not with anything advanced.

The idea was to use the awakening Commands as the code and serve as the decision making for the fabrial. The fabrial part of the device would parallel your wiring and breadboard/motherboard. Say you wanted to make a simple automated switch. The fabrial would include the mechanism of the switch, using stormlight gemstones that move when activated. The awakening Commands would allow the machine to 'decide' when the switch is open/ closed. 

If I Command the fabrial to switch when someone walks past it, then the investiture will recognize the person walking past and cause the fabrial to activate. The fabiral would then complete it's purpose (ex. turning on a light, opening a door). The Commands would simply give the mechanism another level of autonomy. Like with this example, it switches itself, instead of someone having to walk over and switch it on manually. This example is pretty simple but I feel like smart people could find a way to apply it to more complicated mechanisms. 

As for awakening the fabrial, I don't see any reason why you couldn't. Navani has described many of her devices to made of wood, which is a natural material that works with awakening. The real question is, could you awaken gems that come from gemhearts? Because the gemheart is formed inside a creature would it be considered a natural material? 

As stated above though, an advanced fabrial that is already being pumped full of stormlight could become awakened on it's own. I do think that using awakening first instead might allow for more planning and finetuning on the engineers end of things.

Edited January 24 by justice magician

[UndiagnosedCrazyBoy]

Ah ok! Thanks for clarifying!

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Xiahida said:

What if you awaken something that could push cages around makes a fabrial working differently (ex: Pushing or Pulling ones like pistons in an engine) Stormlight powered car!

33 minutes ago, justice magician said:

The idea was to use the awakening Commands as the code and serve as the decision making for the fabrial. The fabrial part of the device would parallel your wiring and breadboard/motherboard. Say you wanted to make a simple automated switch. The fabrial would include the mechanism of the switch, using stormlight gemstones that move when activated. The awakening Commands would allow the machine to 'decide' when the switch is open/ closed. 

If I Command the fabrial to switch when someone walks past it, then the investiture will recognize the person walking past and cause the fabrial to activate. The fabiral would then complete it's purpose (ex. turning on a light, opening a door). The Commands would simply give the mechanism another level of autonomy. Like with this example, it switches itself, instead of someone having to walk over and switch it on manually. This example is pretty simple but I feel like smart people could find a way to apply it to more complicated mechanisms. 

That should totally work.

33 minutes ago, justice magician said:

As for awakening the fabrial, I don't see any reason why you couldn't. Navani has described many of her devices to made of wood, which is a natural material that works with awakening. The real question is, could you awaken gems that come from gemhearts? Because the gemheart is formed inside a creature would it be considered a natural material? 

Good point on gemstones. Yes, I think they would act more or less like bones, at least those natural ones. They used to be alive, Awakening them should be cheap.

But it's not wood or gemstones that you want to Awaken, it's the wiring plus the gemstone that you need to Awaken and Awakening metal requires the 9th Heightening - 20000 Breaths. That's a lot to make something that will only switch on and off, and it would cost hundreds or thousands of Breaths. A very expensive mechanism. 

It would be far cheaper to make a wiring out of wood, then soulcast it into metal and then Awaken it - just like with soulcasted bodies, the cost would drop dramatically and it's possible the 9th Heightening wouldn't be needed anymore, because this metal was alive unlike natural metal. 

Spoiler

Questioner

So the lighteyes that get Soulcast into stone, can they be Awakened?

Brandon Sanderson

*pause* So… Yes, but their soul is gone. When they get Soulcast into stone it is only the corpse, so yes they could.

Questioner

Would it be a lifeless or a-- Would it be like Awakening something inorganic or would them once being alive help?

Brandon Sanderson

The fact that they were once alive will help. There's a Spiritual Connection that still exists on the Spiritual Realm and that is going to help. But you're not going to get the person back. The fact that it is the exact form of a person is going to be really helpful. It would be a lot easier to Awaken that than it would be to Awaken other stone.

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

 

However it's not the material that would be problematic to Awaken, it's the spren inhabiting the gemstone that would probably interfere with Awakening. Awakening Fabrials that are physical manifestations of spren, like Soulcasters, is out of question for the same reason Awakening Shardblades is practically impossible - they would be already considered as Awakened. Awakening a modern Fabrial with spren inside of it would be hard, because investiture resist investiture and spren would resist being Awakened with the Fabrail. Awakening an empty Fabrial would be fairly easy, but then there is no spren in it, no functionality to provide so the Awakening might simply not work at all even after trapping a spren inside (depending on Commands), if a spren could even be trapped inside an Awakened gemstone (because investiture resist investiture). The easiest thing to do would be to Awaken the wiring alone, and because Fabrial is turned on/off by moving wires closer or further away from spren, this kind of Awakening would work and provide needed functionality without making it hard to Awaken or hard to make a Fabrial work at all. 

But yes, overall Awakening Fabrials should be possible and provide more functionality to them.

Spoiler

Questioner

So is it possible to Awaken a Shardblade? That's the question-- that's my question for you.

Brandon Sanderson

Um... With the magic system of Awakening, you mean?

Questioner

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

So, all forms of Investiture strongly resist other forms of Investiture.

Questioner

Makes sense.

Brandon Sanderson

*brief interruption* Nightblood is essentially an Awakened... Trying to do that.

Questioner

'Cause he shows up in Words of Radiance, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. So, it-- let's just say it'd be very, very hard. Because it's like saying, "Can-- I want to turn on a lightbulb that's been turned on." Yes, you can... maybe... I don't know what that even means. It's already Invested. It's already Awakened.

Calamity release party (Feb. 16, 2016)

 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

16 minutes ago, alder24 said:

It would be far cheaper to make a wiring out of wood, then soulcast it into metal and then Awaken it - just like with soulcasted bodies, the cost would drop dramatically and it's possible the 9th Heightening wouldn't be needed anymore, because this metal was alive unlike natural metal. 

So would you classify that machine as Awakened, or a machine with Awakened parts? (part fabrial, part awakened wires)

 

On that note, at what point is something considered awakened? The definition on coppermind is "using Investiture and Commands to grant objects sentience, regardless of the source of Investiture used, though Breath is still one of the main methods used." but that doesnt really nail down when something is Awakened. For instance, if someone poured stormlight into a machine on Roshar (with no Breath involved at all) and it responded to vocal commands, is that machine now awakened? What if the commands are typed in and the machine responds to them how our computers do - action / reaction. What I mean by that is, when you type a key, the computer isnt deciding wether to put the character in or not, by pressing the key you are causing electricity to flow in specific paths that results in a character on a screen. Would that still be awakened? 

 

This action / reaction is how fabrials work. ROW Spoilers:

Spoiler

The gravitation spren isnt deciding to lift the airship. That is a natural reaction that happens when you arrange the spren in a certain way. So, no matter how complex, I dont think any fabrial mechanism can be considered awakened. I would include the oathgates / soulcasters in that as well. The oathgates make decisions on who can and cannot go through, but the spren that control them are alive separately from being part of the oathgate. Same for the soulcaster and 'simple' fabrials. 

 

To me Awakening needs the object to make decisions. So the wires in this example would be awakened, but the entire machine is NOT, due to what ive described above. Perhaps this classification is unnecessary. 

Edited January 24 by CtrlAltDepressed

[listerfeend]

7 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

To me Awakening needs the object to make decisions. So the wires in this example would be awakened, but the entire machine is NOT, due to what ive described above. Perhaps this classification is unnecessary. 

I think this distinction is overall unnecessary. If the the wiring in the thing is necessary for the thing to function, and it doesn't function without the wiring, then it's not the same thing without it. So, even if it's only the wiring, the entire machine is still "Awakened" in my opinion, because it doesn't operate or do anything without that integral component. Like...if I pulled the CPU out of my computer, it's not really a computer anymore..

However... the idea of one of the Phantoms also utilizing some fabrials weaponry sounds like a pretty epic weapon...

1 hour ago, UndiagnosedCrazyBoy said:

From what I know of robotics, creating certain gates Eg: AND gates NOR gates OR gates those things I can see being done with fabrials,but i do not know about decision making.

I'm fairly confident that if you can make AND NOR OR XOR gates, you can create some decision making. 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

6 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

I'm fairly confident that if you can make AND NOR OR XOR gates, you can create some decision making. 

That isnt really decision making. That is action / reaction. Results based on conditions arent decisions being made, they are results of actions taken. There isnt a middle man sentience that is deciding wether its AND / NOR / etc it just IS an AND / NOR / etc gate. 

Edited January 24 by CtrlAltDepressed

[listerfeend]

39 minutes ago, alder24 said:

3 hours ago, Xiahida said:

What if you awaken something that could push cages around makes a fabrial working differently (ex: Pushing or Pulling ones like pistons in an engine) Stormlight powered car!

1 hour ago, justice magician said:

The idea was to use the awakening Commands as the code and serve as the decision making for the fabrial. The fabrial part of the device would parallel your wiring and breadboard/motherboard. Say you wanted to make a simple automated switch. The fabrial would include the mechanism of the switch, using stormlight gemstones that move when activated. The awakening Commands would allow the machine to 'decide' when the switch is open/ closed. 

If I Command the fabrial to switch when someone walks past it, then the investiture will recognize the person walking past and cause the fabrial to activate. The fabiral would then complete it's purpose (ex. turning on a light, opening a door). The Commands would simply give the mechanism another level of autonomy. Like with this example, it switches itself, instead of someone having to walk over and switch it on manually. This example is pretty simple but I feel like smart people could find a way to apply it to more complicated mechanisms. 

That should totally work.

1 hour ago, justice magician said:

As for awakening the fabrial, I don't see any reason why you couldn't. Navani has described many of her devices to made of wood, which is a natural material that works with awakening. The real question is, could you awaken gems that come from gemhearts? Because the gemheart is formed inside a creature would it be considered a natural material? 

Good point on gemstones. Yes, I think they would act more or less like bones, at least those natural ones. They used to be alive, Awakening them should be cheap.

But it's not wood or gemstones that you want to Awaken, it's the wiring plus the gemstone that you need to Awaken and Awakening metal requires the 9th Heightening - 20000 Breaths. That's a lot to make something that will only switch on and off, and it would cost hundreds or thousands of Breaths. A very expensive mechanism. 

It would be far cheaper to make a wiring out of wood, then soulcast it into metal and then Awaken it - just like with soulcasted bodies, the cost would drop dramatically and it's possible the 9th Heightening wouldn't be needed anymore, because this metal was alive unlike natural metal. 

All of this is definitely possible, at least from what I can tell, but sidesteps my original thought processes. I'm trying to gauge if the art of fabrials, by itself, could be used to create something that would be considered Awakened. I still suspect the answer is "Yes", but I'm not sure exactly what it would take to get from the heating and painreal fabrials we've seen, to something that can perform tasks autonomously. There is a lot that is not known about the creation of

Yumi
 

Spoiler

the Father Machine

But that magic system was very similar in a lot of ways to fabrials, at least what we saw of it

 

Spoiler

Specifically, the spirits that Yumi interacted with would turn themselves into objects that would do similar things to fabrials: repelling, cooling, etc... 

It should be relatively "easy" to make something like a computer with stormlight and fabrials, and if they can make a computer, that's only a few steps away from something that would be considered Awakened by the likes of Khriss

[alder24]

39 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

So would you classify that machine as Awakened, or a machine with Awakened parts? (part fabrial, part awakened wires)

A Fabrial with Awakened wiring. You don't need the entire thing to be Awakened, the Awakened part would act like a mind and react in a proper way to specific situations. Tress spoilers:

Spoiler

Just like Ford's tablet isn't Awakened but contains Awakened circuits.

 

39 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

On that note, at what point is something considered awakened? The definition on coppermind is "using Investiture and Commands to grant objects sentience, regardless of the source of Investiture used, though Breath is still one of the main methods used." but that doesnt really nail down when something is Awakened. For instance, if someone poured stormlight into a machine on Roshar (with no Breath involved at all) and it responded to vocal commands, is that machine now awakened? What if the commands are typed in and the machine responds to them how our computers do - action / reaction. What I mean by that is, when you type a key, the computer isnt deciding wether to put the character in or not, by pressing the key you are causing electricity to flow in specific paths that results in a character on a screen. Would that still be awakened? 

In my opinion it's Commands and investiture granting non-living objects sapience and bringing them closer to life that makes Awakening Awakening. You can do that without Breaths and doing this with proper Commands and visualization etc and it still would count as Awakening. Just pushing Stormlight into a thing isn't enough, you would need to do what is done in Awakening to make it work. 

The Coppermind description is based on this WoB, Yumi spoilers:

Spoiler

Argent

Staying with Yumi, since we're asking the big questions here. I want to talk about the big machine, the father machine.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There are some really interesting what feel like intentional parallels between it and Nightblood.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There's smoke involved, there's eating of souls, there's a whole bunch of things. So what I do want to ask is: one, was the father machine Awakened using Breaths, using Nalthian Awakening? Or are you using Awakening as Lightweaving or Bondsmithing which is an overarching system in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths Awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer.

Argent

Interesting! Very interesting! That's what I was hoping you would answer. Because Awakening is such a cool term for Awakening an object, right!

One notable difference between the father machine and Nightblood other than them using different magic systems to be Awakened is that the Machine was able to somehow draw people's souls at a distance, which seems EXTREMELY broken to me.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I had to let... This is going to be a pretty special circumstance for this book. But yes. It is pretty broken. You wouldn't want this to be... this could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Don't expect this to be very commonly used in the Cosmere.

Argent

Was that a side effect of the magic system that was used to Awaken the machine, or was there something else going on?

Brandon Sanderson

This is a side effect of what Virtuosity did and the bit of Virtuosity in all the people allowing the Machine to have enough of a plausible Connection to them to draw upon them.

Argent

Ok. Interesting. I will think about this while I pass the ball back to Matt.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. This is me pushing just a little bit hard on the boundaries of what is possible. It is possible, but it it is pushing further than I normally would on the bounds of what that can do.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)

 

39 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

To me Awakening needs the object to make decisions. So the wires in this example would be awakened, but the entire machine is NOT, due to what ive described above. Perhaps this classification is unnecessary. 

Not every Awakening makes decisions. Most don't, Warbreaker spoilers:

Spoiler

Awakened objects just act. If you Command a rope to pull you up, it doesn't make any decision, it just pulls you up. If you Awake a rope to catch things, it will start constricting whatever it touches - there is no decision making in type 3 entities, only responding to certain stimuli if you include that in your Command/visualization. An Awakened rope with Command to "catch when thrown" makes no decision, it just responds to being thrown as per Command. A cloak Awakened to "Protect" also doesn't do any decision making, it just responds to dangers around you because that's what its visualization was. Those objects aren't sentient, they don't make decisions, they just act on their Command, reacting to their surroundings in a pre-established way. 

 

13 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

That isnt really decision making. That is action / reaction. Results based on conditions arent decisions being made, they are results of actions taken. There isnt a middle man sentience that is deciding wether its AND / NOR / etc it just IS an AND / NOR / etc gate. 

That's precisely it. Type 3 entities are just like that, they simply react, no decision is being made. 

 

Personally I would classify Awakened objects as a specific type of Fabrials. In general Fabrials are/will be just " all magic-based, mechanical devices":

Spoiler

FirstSelector

So, do you have a name, like an in-world name for a large magical construction, like the things that picks Elantrians?

Brandon Sanderson

That was why I invented the term "fabrial." It will become widespread eventually, as the term for meaning, kind of, magic-type devices in the cosmere. That's not what you call it right now, but you can start calling them all fabrials.

FirstSelector

But what about something that isn't, like-- I always imagined that Aona left, like, a device, a magical device running--

Brandon Sanderson

I will have to RAFO that.

Oathbringer San Francisco signing (Nov. 15, 2017)

 

 

10 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

I'm trying to gauge if the art of fabrials, by itself, could be used to create something that would be considered Awakened. I still suspect the answer is "Yes", but I'm not sure exactly what it would take to get from the heating and painreal fabrials we've seen, to something that can perform tasks autonomously

Urithiru is one giant Fabrial, it's a sapient spren but it's still a fabrial performing tasks automatically. So yes, you can do it. If you find a way to combine multiple fabrials at once, like Alertfabrials with Painrial, you can activate a Painrial when someone is close to it. I think you can do that without Awakening, but you can Awaken using Stormlight, but this is hard:

Spoiler

Ilkhan2016

Breath and Stormlight are both forms of Investiture. AFAIK you can power any of the magic systems from any form of Investiture. Zahel is on Roshar, I believe, primarily due to how easy Investiture (Stormlight) is to come across.

AFAIK the form of Investiture doesn't change anything about the abilities. For example, Szeth was sucked out of Stormlight when he drew Nightblood; and Azure used Stormlight to Awaken in Shadesmar.

/u/mistborn is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

A lot of this depends on the Investiture and the magic in question. Azure was legit using Breaths, for example--ones she'd brought with her. But Szeth was able to feed Stormlight to Nightblood, much as Vasher uses Stormlight to keep himself alive.

To Awaken with Stormlight, the easiest thing to do would be to first change Stormlight into Breaths--something that Azure doesn't know how to do. (Admittedly, Hoid doesn't either, so it's not like it's a simple thing to achieve.) You could also theoretically use some magical (or mechanical) means to power your Awakening with a different form of Investiture.

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

Celestial_Blu3

How many Breaths does [Azure] have by her final appearance in OB?

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid.

General Reddit 2019 (April 25, 2019)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

In the Stormlight Archive series, we have not yet seen Vasher or Vivenna Awakening.

Brandon Sanderson

You have seen Vivenna Awaken stuff, technically. She is Awakening part of her... what's she doing, she's got her cloak out and stuff. You see <very> glimpses of it in the [third] book, so you technically have seen her. You've also seen Hoid Awakening in the epilogue. So yes, you can Awaken on Roshar, it's just been really subtle so far.

Questioner

So, does the Investiture just feed off of the...

Brandon Sanderson

You can make a Returned feed off of Stormlight very easily. You can't use Stormlight to power Awakening very easily, but if you still have those Breaths, you can use them and reclaim them.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

Edited January 24 by alder24

[listerfeend]

12 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

That isnt really decision making. That is action / reaction. Results based on conditions arent decisions being made, they are results of actions taken. There isnt a middle man sentience that is deciding wether its AND / NOR / etc it just IS an AND / NOR / etc gate. 

Logic gates like that are still very important for modern day computers. And we definitely have methods in text to transfer stormlight from one gem to another to simulate binary logic... I'm not suggesting that they'd be able to make a multi threaded processor or anything here, but, computation and decision making is certainly within the realm of possibility, IMO. 

 

 

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Not every Awakening makes decisions. Most don't, Warbreaker spoilers:

  Hide contents

Awakened objects just act. If you Command a rope to pull you up, it doesn't make any decision, it just pulls you up. If you Awake a rope to catch things, it will start constricting whatever it touches - there is no decision making in type 3 entities, only responding to certain stimuli if you include that in your Command/visualization. An Awakened rope with Command to "catch when thrown" makes no decision, it just responds to being thrown as per Command. A cloak Awakened to "Protect" also doesn't do any decision making, it just responds to dangers around you because that's what its visualization was. Those objects aren't sentient, they don't make decisions, they just act on their Command, reacting to their surroundings in a pre-established way. 

 

18 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

That isnt really decision making. That is action / reaction. Results based on conditions arent decisions being made, they are results of actions taken. There isnt a middle man sentience that is deciding wether its AND / NOR / etc it just IS an AND / NOR / etc gate. 

That's precisely it. Type 3 entities are just like that, they simply react, no decision is being made. 

 

Personally I would classify Awakened objects as a specific type of Fabrials. In general Fabrials are/will be just " all magic-based, mechanical devices":

This...Pretty much all of this. I agree with your Awakened objects are a specific type of Fabrial...that makes a lot of sense to me. Or maybe it's the other way, Fabrials are their own classification of Awakened object. Since Brandon has said that Fabrial as a term is going to proliferate and come to mean "magical construct thing", I suppose it's probably not going to go in the direction of "Awakened object" like I was thinking. But, I still foresee a future of Light powered computers and AI.