[gurps] Failing autopilots and RVO

[Zan Lynx]

Anthony Jackson wrote:

> The other factor here is that computers are only predictable if you've 
> had considerable experience with them. It's not like you're going to be 
> publishing the source code for your autopilots, nor is it like you won't 
> be updating the logic of your autopilots as people work out ways of 
> beating them. Incidentally, this applies to humans as well, you do need 
> to update your tactics manuals every so often.

Yes, with regard to human tactics training, that is very true.  That is 
why US army and air forces would train against special training groups 
that used the Soviet Union's tactics manuals, for example.

But humans can reach beyond their training when they need to, or 
sometimes they make a mistake which later turns out to have really been 
the right thing to do.  That's less likely for a computer running a program.

I am thinking that a computer which rewrites its own programs based on 
experience or predictions of opponents future actions is no longer just 
running a program; at that point it is at least an LAI (in my opinion). 
  And that is a whole new thing than a Skill 17 piloting program.

-- 
Zan Lynx
zlynx at acm.org

"Knowledge is Power.  Power Corrupts.  Study Hard.  Be Evil."