[Fabe]

 
 Do all programs have a consciousness that a Technomance can speak with or are most programs just lines of code with no consciousness or self awareness of any sort?

[Whiskeyjack]

They're basically just like programs today.

Consciousness would imply AI, which are unique entities.

However the best way to look at TMs is "magic, but only on the Internet." So they may be able to manipulate programs in nonlinear ways. But the program itself is just code or an algorithm, even if it's a very sophisticated one. Nobody wants self aware programs because then they might decide not to do their assigned jobs. 

[ProfGast]

Does this unit have a soul?

As Whiskeyjack states, most programs are just lines of code.  Complex lines of code that can have their own pseudo intelligence (Agents, Dog Brains) or simply be interpreted as objects or weapons (Black Hammer, Matrix Architecture.) but lines of code nonetheless.

The only known things in the Matrix which are entirely digital but also have consciousness are those things that seem touched by the Resonance.  AIs, E-ghosts, E-creatures, sprites and the like are all, to a certain extent, alive in a way that most mundane programs cannot even touch.  What sets a Technomancer apart from a standard decker is that the Technomancer affects the fabric of cyberspace intuitively.  For most TMs, there's no pushing of keys, no executing of programming.  The Technomancer simply acts in such a way that they believe will deal with the situation, and the Resonance responds. 

[TheWayfinder]

 
 Do all programs have a consciousness that a Technomance can speak with or are most programs just lines of code with no consciousness or self awareness of any sort?

In my games, in fact, all of them that I run, no program or A.I. has a consciousness.  They may seem like they do, passing the Turing Tests and all, but they don't really, and personally I find that more compelling.  It's just a preference, so if you want a program for a Technomancer to interface with have some sort of consciousness, go for it. 

For me, a consciousness implies a soul, and I have something of a background in theology and philosophy.  If an artificial intelligence somehow acquires what seems to be a soul, there are a lot of issues here, more than I can go into.  My mind tends to go into things like the Angelic and the Demonic where such things may occur, because the most important thing about an A.I. is that it's not human.  A Human Soul is unique; it is a part of a animated form of matter that we call Life.  We have a dual nature, and that nature involves issues relating to what happens when we die, and we are supremely aware of our own mortality even if we do not know for certain what our destinies are going to be in the hereafter.  A consciousness of the soul implies further that there are constraints on our existence and our actions that impel us to discern them in moral conditions.  And this is the part where I think a lot of authors, in their quest to make living artificial beings, tend to go a little astray, making them seem more human than they should be. 

But, it's your game.  Run it how you like.  For myself, I like my A.I.s to be lines of complex code that makes utterly rational decisions based on that code.  It makes them a bit more interesting, both as allies and as villains. 

[Jack_Spade]

@TheWayfinder

Oooh, I just so itch to have a lengthy discussion with you on this subject, having written my masters on this very topic (Concept of personhood and humanity)

Suffice to say that I pretty much have a diametral opposing viewpoint on this - but I am sure we could have a fascinating discurs about that

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

 
 Do all programs have a consciousness that a Technomance can speak with or are most programs just lines of code with no consciousness or self awareness of any sort?

In my games, in fact, all of them that I run, no program or A.I. has a consciousness.  They may seem like they do, passing the Turing Tests and all, but they don't really, and personally I find that more compelling.  It's just a preference, so if you want a program for a Technomancer to interface with have some sort of consciousness, go for it. 

For me, a consciousness implies a soul, and I have something of a background in theology and philosophy.  If an artificial intelligence somehow acquires what seems to be a soul, there are a lot of issues here, more than I can go into.  My mind tends to go into things like the Angelic and the Demonic where such things may occur, because the most important thing about an A.I. is that it's not human.  A Human Soul is unique; it is a part of a animated form of matter that we call Life.  We have a dual nature, and that nature involves issues relating to what happens when we die, and we are supremely aware of our own mortality even if we do not know for certain what our destinies are going to be in the hereafter.  A consciousness of the soul implies further that there are constraints on our existence and our actions that impel us to discern them in moral conditions.  And this is the part where I think a lot of authors, in their quest to make living artificial beings, tend to go a little astray, making them seem more human than they should be. 

But, it's your game.  Run it how you like.  For myself, I like my A.I.s to be lines of complex code that makes utterly rational decisions based on that code.  It makes them a bit more interesting, both as allies and as villains.

Extraterrestrial Life is also incapable of having a Soul & therefore Consciousness with this Logic, cause it's not Human but even more importantly it wasn't washed in the blood of the lamb. So intelligence & reason is immaterial compared to "the act of being a Human"... which is the only way to be a Conscious Being in the entire universe. One little unimportant planet, in an unimportant solar system, in a spiral arm of an unimportant galaxy gets to the sole claim to Consciousness in an infinite galaxy! Best thing I read on the Internet all week.

[Wakshaani]

 
 Do all programs have a consciousness that a Technomance can speak with or are most programs just lines of code with no consciousness or self awareness of any sort?

In my games, in fact, all of them that I run, no program or A.I. has a consciousness.  They may seem like they do, passing the Turing Tests and all, but they don't really, and personally I find that more compelling.  It's just a preference, so if you want a program for a Technomancer to interface with have some sort of consciousness, go for it. 

For me, a consciousness implies a soul, and I have something of a background in theology and philosophy.  If an artificial intelligence somehow acquires what seems to be a soul, there are a lot of issues here, more than I can go into.  My mind tends to go into things like the Angelic and the Demonic where such things may occur, because the most important thing about an A.I. is that it's not human.  A Human Soul is unique; it is a part of a animated form of matter that we call Life.  We have a dual nature, and that nature involves issues relating to what happens when we die, and we are supremely aware of our own mortality even if we do not know for certain what our destinies are going to be in the hereafter.  A consciousness of the soul implies further that there are constraints on our existence and our actions that impel us to discern them in moral conditions.  And this is the part where I think a lot of authors, in their quest to make living artificial beings, tend to go a little astray, making them seem more human than they should be. 

But, it's your game.  Run it how you like.  For myself, I like my A.I.s to be lines of complex code that makes utterly rational decisions based on that code.  It makes them a bit more interesting, both as allies and as villains.

@TheWayfinder

Oooh, I just so itch to have a lengthy discussion with you on this subject, having written my masters on this very topic (Concept of personhood and humanity)

Suffice to say that I pretty much have a diametral opposing viewpoint on this - but I am sure we could have a fascinating discurs about that

You guys are both killin' me. I can talk about this for *days*, and adding E-Ghosts into the mix (and CYberzombies!) makes it even more complex.

When 10 AIs drops, this conversation might be even more relevant. We'll see!

[Mulcarn]

What defines a soul?  What defines having a soul?  What defines not having a soul?  Nevermind I found the essence stat and the sapience quality.

[brasso]

We can copy and paste lines of code. Can we copy and paste a soul?

[Jack_Spade]

If a soul is information based, yes.

[Moonshine Fox]

We can copy and paste lines of code. Can we copy and paste a soul?

Since Shadowrun has a history with effective cloning techniques, we basically can. Cloning is nothing more then a biological version of "copy and paste". More messy with a higher chance of aberrations then a purely digital cloning, but effectively the same.

The main problem is that AI's and other e-entities are more then just assembly code. There are programs out there that can rewrite their own code as they learn and make decisions with the same level of 'fuzzy logic' and seeming randomness as a metahuman, they are called Semi-autonomous Knowbots. The first big 3 AI's all came from SKs that had a genesis point. Something broke, or awakened, their code in their own special way and they started acting outside of the normal bounds of even an SK. They became truly self-aware and sapient. Hell, with the Down the Rabbit Hole effect of deep dives and the strange beyond computing that the Resenence realms have, it's easy to question just what is behind the machine language that we see.

Besides, if souls are a "uniquely human" thing, what about all the meta-sapients out there? Naga and pixie and shifters and centaur and Sasquatch, all of these beings are as much thinking self-aware beings as humans are, do they not have a soul. Hell, they may not care, but try telling a dragon they don't have a soul! And then there's spirits, who if you want to think about it, are nothing but souls pulled from worlds beyond and giving shape and form via magic. This issue has plagued all the religions of Abraham (and probably others, though I haven't noticed it as much in the books) since the Awakening, with more open minded parishioners adapting to the new beings who share our world, and the close minded ones who feel that only humanity should have the right to an existence beyond the flesh.

[TheWayfinder]

@TheWayfinder

Oooh, I just so itch to have a lengthy discussion with you on this subject, having written my masters on this very topic (Concept of personhood and humanity)

Suffice to say that I pretty much have a diametral opposing viewpoint on this - but I am sure we could have a fascinating discurs about that

That might be fun, but frankly I don't think that's appropriate for this board, or this game.  I'd rather people had fun and not sweat deep, existential matters.   

But, mainly the reason I don't give my A.I.s a soul is the approach to how I run my Shadowrun games.  I approach Shadowrun like it's Breaking Bad, or Carlito's Way, or Training Day:  Gritty Crime Drama.  Not so much like Mission: Impossible or Neuromancer or Johnny Pneumonic, which are cool, but it's not what I or my players are looking for.  There is some Blade Runner in there, I admit, but nothing so deep as to wonder if an android dreams of electric sheep.   My players are playing criminals who deal with other criminals, whether they're on the streets or on occasion in the board rooms, and they approach the game as though they are criminals.  My PCs rummage through junkie-infested abandoned projects that smell of feces and urine everywhere, or go to strip clubs, or sell drugs and BTLs when they're not doing missions for their fixers.  One of my Players made a Decker who was a high-end elven prostitute on the side; she made more money in a month than the other runners.  It's dark and edgy, seeing a side to the Sixth World that we all tend to ignore because a lot of us are too focused on capers and such.  So putting an A.I. in there with a consciousness doesn't quite fit in with this approach. 

Conversely, as I said in the Gamemaster's Lounge recently, I don't really look at the Sixth World as particularly dystopian.  Yeah, it's not paradise, by any stretch of the imagination, but I consider just how the average person in the Sixth World lives his life, and I've determined that it's not much different than what average people today have to live with.  Maybe a little more blasted out, weirder, and such, but they live in it and find happiness and joy where they can, in spite of the bad stuff happening all around them.  This gives the players some refuge from the vileness of the part of the world they have to routinely deal with, and this adds something else for them - the desire to go legitimate and/or retire to where they're not dodging bullets or magical fire for a living.  Which is what Carlito Brigante, of Carlito's Way, wanted. 

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

... by definition, AI have consciousness.  That's what makes them intelligences, artificial or otherwise.  Play as you will with AI, but ...

... well, when you get down to it, if they aren't AI, don't call them AI - call them SKs (semi-autonomous knowbots) or whatever, and then make sure your players understand that since they aren't self-intelligent and self-aware (I won't enter the debate about souls, because believe it or not, the existence of a spirit/soul is a self-evident thing - a postulate, not a theorem), anything that these faux-AI do is the fault of some other sentient somewhere - because someone else programmed that actuality/eventuality into their creation.  The Arcology Shutdown?  The direct and specific fault of some metahuman/parasapient.  Crash 2.0?  Ditto.  The Taking of Pelham 123 Satellite Tlaloc by the 'AI' Sojourner, and its subsequent 'talking-down' by the 'AI' Pulsar?  Staged.  Etc. etc.

It means setting up a grand conspiracy, and figuring out what it all means, and where it's all going.  It also means that the entire CFD thing, including the bit in Boston, has to be something completely different - which is another thing you have to figure out.

Good luck ...

[Wakshaani]

Hey now, they haven't seen 10 AIs yet. They don't get to speculate on that talk yet.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Hey, I'm just using what's already out there.