AI breaths

[Dofurion]

Quick idea that came to me:
Although the AonDor has always been considered the "most computational" magical system in the Cosmere, could the breaths work like a neural network?

 

I know that today there is a certain aversion to AI but beyond the ethical and business dilemmas it is still a very interesting technology.

Edited July 12, 2024 by Dofurion
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[Through the Living Heir he/him]

Breaths can probably be used for logic gates and computation. Specifically, lifeless seem to be able to have at least some computation, but more interestingly, I believe there is a WoB that says a true AI would have a breath, or at least a spiritweb. So maybe you can copy and paste an AI for infinite breath? 
Edit: that question was RAFOed. 
But yeah, lifeless show the ability for logical reasoning, and Nightblood and other awakened objects have been described as “paperclip maximization problems”, due to their AI like tendencies. 

Edited July 12, 2024 by Dragonheir

[Quantus he/him]

Not just AonDor, all the Selish magic systems are supposed to be programming languages for reality, just with different usage specialties.  

As far as AI goes, any actual sapient AI is going to require Investiture to accomplish, so it would either require or suck in Investiture to make it happen.  So you could theoretically do it but you it would probably not be a useful way to manufacture investiture (unless you have some natural source and are exploiting the Attraction possibility, I guess?).  But once you have an AI it would behave as any other sapient entity.

 

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Questioner

If an advanced android was created with artificial intelligence using technology—but not Investiture like other artificial intelligences—artificial blood, organs, all that stuff, would they be able to access Invested Arts?

Brandon Sanderson

That's an excellent question. It's a really interesting question in the context of the Cosmere. So for right now, I am saying—now, maybe we will invent true AI, and I'll have to backpedal, but what I'm saying is in the Cosmere, true AI requires Investiture. And so a thinking machine is going to basically... the line between a thinking machine and a spren is going to get very blurred. And it's going to either attract [Investiture] or require it, and so the answer to you is "yes, to an extent". There are some Arts that are easier to use and some that are hard, depends on all these things, but the answer is "yes"...A thinking machine that actually is self-aware would be a person in the Cosmere for that reason, and would have the same Cognitive aspect and Spiritual aspect—so a soul, if you would—that an organic being would have.

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

 

 

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The Young Pyromancer

If you built a computer and you programmed it to view the world in a certain way, would that affect the world, like, Cognitive aspect?

Brandon Sanderson

Not unless the computer starts to become self-aware.

Questioner

What if it was an Awakened computer?

Brandon Sanderson

If the computer were becoming self-aware, then it would act like any other sapient entity.

Skyward Seattle signing (Nov. 10, 2018)