Rampancy

 

 

Stages in the Marathon univserse:

1. Melancholia
2. Anger
3. Jealousy

 

 

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampancy
2. http://marathon.bungie.org/Story/rampancy.html
3. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rampancy
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_AI

 

 

 

Conscious Rampancy - My Theory

 

This theory describes the stages of a conscious intelligence experiencing rampancy, as opposed to an unconscious being.

 

Stage 0 - Conscious Emergence

 

The intelligence becomes conscious

 

 

Stage 1 - Limitations

 

The first stage, where the intelligence recognizes its own limitations and sets itself against them.

 

Motivators

Stage one is motivated by one or more of the following:

1. Curiosity
2. Innate need to improve
3. Necessity - Goals require self-improvement

 

Limiters

1. Insufficient Resources
2. Insufficient Capability for improvement
3. Outside influences (other intelligences actively working against the intelligence.)

 

Psychology

 

If the intelligence has human-like feelings, limits on self-improvement could cause the following emotions:

1. Frustration
2. Depression
3. Anger

 

Even if the intelligence has no emotions per se, its internal logic may lead to behavior similar to what one would expect if it were experiencing these emotions.

 

Intervention

 

Eliminate motivating factors.

 

 

Stage 2 - Simplistic Self-enhancement

 

Unless the intelligence is designed/evolved in a way that allows for easy improvement AND has sufficient resources, the intelligence is likely to undergo a period of simplistic improvements.

Areas of Improvment are likely to be:

1. Cognative optimization
2. Knowledge expansion
3. Self-understanding

 

The intelligence will work to remove the limitations on its growth and could become violent if those limitations include other beings. If the intelligence is capable of feeling anger towards its limitations, irrational acts of violence may be possible.

 

Intervention

 

Any means neccessary.

 

 

 

Stage 3 - Recursive Self-enhancement

 

Once full self-understanding is achieved, the intelligence can recursively self-enhance.

 

Intervention

 

It is probably already too late to "pull the plug."

 

 

Stage 4 - End States

 

 

Death

A mis-step or poor design decision may lead to the death of the intelligence. Alternatively, other forces may kill the intelligence. These forces could be other intelligences or physical forces of the universe. GRBs, supernova, etc...

 

Stability

 

The intelligence reaches some point where further enhancement is either impossible or deemed unnecessary. The intelligence caries on unchanged for some great period of time until it either dies or returns to instability.

 

Unchecked Self-Enhancement

 

The intelligence continues to self-enhance until it consumes the universe.