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LPI Void Bot - alphadog - 05-19-2010
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Introduction
When I joined the Liberty Police, I was in my last year of my masters in Artificial Intelligence at Manhattan University of Technology. I joined them quite recently, so I still am in my last year. I was always fascinated by electronics that learned by themselves. I was not able to go to university at the age that normal people would, because of my fathers job. When he retired, I took my chance and started right away.
Chapter one; Forty-two
A few days ago, after 3 days of solid bug-hunting in Sunbucks, I got it. I was working on an autonomous robot for quite some time, but my program just would not listen to any of my commands. Only when I got really mad and started shouting in the microphone, the program started doing something. That evening, I figured it out.
I took a dive into the program logs and found out that the speech-to-text interface (that takes care of the text needed for the text-to-command interface) recognized the volume of someones voice and added an extra parameter for different categories of volume. That parameter was a symbol at the end of each interpreted sentence. It was a "|" for whisper, a " " for normal talk, and a "!" for shouting.
It turned out that the program only responded to a command with the !'s. Because the program was so complex, and had written a significant amount of code by itself, I had no idea why this was. The only thing I could do was adjust the microphones sensitivity to get a ! behind all commands, or type the commands in the terminal directly, with the !
After a few hours of tweaking, the results turned out quite nicely. The program responded pretty well to all commands, and the speech-to-text put a ! after all commands spoken in a normal way. The only downside to the microphone sensitivity adjustment tweak was that a new symbol was created for shouting, namely, the "#". So if you were to get mad at it, you had to remain calm for the program to respond.
After that big issue fixed, it was time to connect it to the proper hardware. I found an old rusty Civilian Shuttle in a corner of Fort Bush. The owner never came to collect it after it was used for contraband, so the impound directer was okay with me using it for my little experiment. It was basic, but enough to start with. I hooked the flash drive with the AI program up in the shuttles computer, and pressed ON.
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Nothing happened.
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Still nothing.
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But then... a light stared flickering! I had no idea what that meant, so I started looking for a manual. After a few hours of looking, I found a good one in the other corner of Fort Bush, under a pile of half rotten Christmas donuts.
Light #42: Function: Error indication (...) blinking for 42 minutes could indicate that there is some Sunbucks in the exhaust.
And indeed, the exhaust was filled with Sunbucks, or at least, it used to be Sunbucks. After cleaning out the exhaust, the ship started moving, shaking, making weird noises and every single light it had blinked 42 times. I entered the ship, and headed for the main console. When I saw what was on there, I almost got a skull fracture of the jump I made in the tiny vessel.
Code:
Smith@Void.Bot# waiting for inputIT WORKED. HELL YES, IT WORKED.
LPI Void Bot - alphadog - 05-19-2010
Chapter two; The great loss
After some great test runs I discovered some "minor" bugs. The command interface needs some polishing. Commands are not very well recognized and executed. His scanner and targeting systems are rubbish, but that is because of the age I think.
He only engaged someone twice. And me. But his defense mechanisms work pretty well. Whenever his shields are down, he aborts. At least weapons work good... There was a targeting computer overload, so he could not hit anything. Fortunately. Oh yeah, when I sent him down to LPI HQ... He tried to destroy it. LPI HQ shot an EMP, which again triggered his defense systems and he shut down
But then tragedy strikes. While I was l looking for him on Manhattan. Void Bot got out and started looking for me. After several failures, he gave up and waited. But then, all of a sudden, an outcast gunship appeared. There was a lot of gunfire, and before his slow processor noticed, Void Bot was shredded into millions of pieces.
Void Bot. My dear Void Bot. Gone, blown up...
Luckily, a researcher who was present the whole time, saw everything and managed to get the data core out of the wreckage. He was quite impressed with my work, so he decided to give my a "small" donation. I am going to use that money to get Void Bot a proper new shiny ship, better scanners, engines and targeting systems. Void Bot will live again!
LPI Void Bot - alphadog - 06-23-2010
Chapter Three; The Upgrade
With the generous donation and a lot of free time, I rebuilded Void Bot. I got him some proper sensors, so that target identification would be a lot smoother and less error-sensitive. These new sensors also gave Void the possibility to identify and scan targets from a much bigger range, and therefore increasing his chances of survival quite significantly. There was some money left, so I got the ship some better thrusters as well. This meant that he could intercept vessels alot faster, or... flee a lot faster.
I received a lot of messages about Void Bot declaring targets hostile very fast. He was programmed to engage hostile targets, since that is one of the purposes of Void Bot. Al tough it was a nice idea, Void Bot has very limited weapon capabilities. That is why I build in a very extensive probability routine into his program. This way Void Bot could calculate his chances of survival, before he decided if engagement was the right way to proceed. He is still quite optimistic, but he won't start firing because he thinks you are hostile without some proper reasoning. To be even more helpfull, anyone can ask Void Bot for a probability calculation. Any input with the word "chance" in it will trigger a calculation. Use it wisely.
The next area of improvement is human interaction. Void was already capable of some semi-regular conversations, but that was because he just responds with long sentences. Just to impress his conversation partner I guess.... This had to be changed, so I did some research. I placed some bugs in Sunbucks, and let Void Bot analyse regular conversations between people. Im very curious what this adds to his social skills, but expect him to be a better conversation partner in the future.
I had a lot of spare time lately, so there is even more. Accent recognition! I had some complaints about Void not understanding several English accents. I placed some hidden bugs in the homes of the complainers, so that should be improved over time. If you are lucky, he might even talk back in the same accent!
That was about it. I hope Void Bot can be of better service from now on.
LPI Void Bot - alphadog - 07-26-2010
Chapter Four; The Promotion
My Void Bot has been running regular patrols up till now, and running pretty smooth considering my limited resources. He is a very valuable asset to the LPI, both as a patrol unit, and for doing the dirty jobs. He was getting more automated every day, so my auto-adapt routines were working perfectly. Ofcourse this was a good thing, but it also meant that I spend less and less time together with Void hunting bugs and adding features. He was so close to perfect, that I was workin on a final firmware version.
But that all changed...
A few days ago, I was contacted by the LSF. Not just someone from the LSF, no I was contacted by the Director of the Liberty Security Force High Command... Wow... Being the LSF and all, he could not reveal much details about his request. He needed my help with something, and he needed Void.Bot.
I was ofcourse not able to make such a decision on my own. After a long and emotional conversation with Void, we both agreed. Lets do this.