The basic question i have is meat creatures can upgrade how their minds interface not only with their bodies but also the matrix and the rest of the world. Would it be possible to buy things like and encephylon or an attention co-processor to help the A.I.? If these upgrades could be made to a particular comlink its using, how would you go about costing them, or installing them, and if not what would be preventing the A.I. from benefiting from these systems?

Unfortunately you can't get something like an encephylon for an AI because they lack the physical body on which to put it. This is one of the many many many reasons that AIs are considered underpowered in general. They lack a physical brain, which is what all hacking type upgrades to a person require as an interface.

It doesn't make much sense that a good hacker can have 5 IP, but a computer program (IC AI Agent) only has 3 IP(Or is it 4?), somehow the metahuman's brain is able to operate faster in cyberspace than cyberspace itself can operate, but that is just how the rules are.

For an idea of a fix, allow technomancer initiation for AI's. Swap out Karma for Karmax1000 Nuyen.
Or Karma and Karmax1000 Nuxen.
Or allow things like the encephalon to be built into the Hardware of your Home-Node.
Do you trust someone to do something like that to basically your home/body/soul?
Sooner or Later, you would have an AI with enough Upgrades living in, basically, a
Supercomputer/Server-Rack or something. Which would be fitting, neh?

Well, I don't see why an AI would be any less likely to trust someone with their home node than a human would be to trust a street doc with their body. Don't forget they already have to have people come repair and run maintenance on their home nodes (As evident by having to pay lifestyles).

As for the encephalon, there are two big problems. First off is the fact that encephalon technology is specifically designed to work on a brain. An AI doesn't have a brain so the equipment has nothing to operate off of. The other problem is that the AI moves about in cyberspace, it doesn't always inhabit its home node, and so would usually not benefit from any sort of attachments to its home node.

As I said earlier, this is among the many reasons that AIs are considered horridly underpowered.

Clone a body, implant comlink, use as homenode, implant encephalon?
Would explain upkeep cost as well.
Do those home node things really not work when outside of that thing?

Still doesn't work because the AI usually isn't in the home node. AIs can become trapped in a nod if it suddenly becomes disconnected from the matrix while they were accessing it because they actually go into that node instead of just connecting to it from afar like everyone else does.

Also, to my knowledge, you can't use a human brain (Technomancers aside) as a node, so having a clone body around wouldn't help the AI any. Just because there is an encephalon in the AIs general vicinity doesn't mean that it can make use of it.

No, cloned brain, implanted comlink, make that comlink your homenode, add in encephalon, use brain solely as connecting tissue, nothing more O.o

Yeah, but the encephalon works by interpreting the signals in the brain, not just using it as connective tissue. So unless the AI was actually inside the brain, and using the brain as the home node, it wouldn't make any difference. And at that point you may as well just make a cloned character and say it has was inhabited by an AI (Which I think there is/was a thread of somewhere)

Remember, bio/cyberware affects the person, not the commlink.

I've had a few questions on this as well, if the AI is using a commlink as a home node and the commlink is modified does the AI get the benifit? IE Extra IP passes?

What about raising attribute scores over 6? possible?

No and no.

The thing people seem to have trouble with is that an AI doesn't use a home node like a metahuman uses their personal commlink. Instead the AI uses their home node like a metahuman uses... well a home. They live there, they heal there, they hide there, but they don't do their shadowruns in there. When they are hacking a corporate node, they are cyberphysically moving into that node, they no longer are in their home node any more than a metahuman runner is in his home while he is in the middle of a corp building. Thus an AI would gain no benefits from his home node, even if the things that you can put on a commlink could help the AI. Remember, virtually every hacking related upgrade is focused on improving the brain, or improving the connection between brain and commlink. Since the AI has neither, it can benefit from neither.

Hence the reason that I really like the idea of allowing AIs to use the Technomancer upgrades...

I know this would be a houserule but why not allow the various cyberware upgrades that would be appropriate for an AI but as application patches/updates/additions to the AI's source code?

Thus an Encephalon becomes a piece of software that performs the same tasks / gives the same benefits as the hardware does in a metahuman. It's not like in 2072 they cannot emulate in software anything that hardware can do.

Thus you could have standard / alpha / beta / delta software just like regular cyberware. Increased costs based on grade, etc. That would mean Delta grade AI programs would be custom made for the AI like the actual hardware is for the implantee.

Maybe even have an 'Essence' rating equal to the AI's Rating to cap just how much can be changed of the source code before it starts to fall apart.

That actually sounds very reasonable, and I think I like the idea a fair bit.

That actually sounds very reasonable, and I think I like the idea a fair bit.

Poor Tux... he must be in shambles by now.

Or maybe he has delta grade software upgrades (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

That's a fantastic idea. Gonna have to run that by our GM and see what he thinks.

Thinking about this idea of the AI not having a brain just made me think of the very end video of System Shock 2, where

*Copy* and *Paste*. Hehe. Nice. I've been having issues with the AI inferiority for a while now. You may have just solved it at my table. Have to discuss it. Definately a start. Must go experiment now.

Glad I could help all.

Or if you don't want to be inferior....don't play an AI?

Because AIs shouldn't suck in the 'Trix, period.

I'm not sure why that's the thought, your saying that something the evolved from a toaster in some cases should be equal to a metahuman who's trained and specialized and prepared for their chosen role. Furthermore just because all choices are valid does not mean all choices have to equal.

But I admittedly have a bias against the mini-AI's.

No, but I am saying that something that has evolved in the shifting data of the 'Trix should at least be on par with a metahuman who at best has to have her thoughts relayed through mutliple layers of tech and translated before they are able to do anything in the 'Trix.


But then again, I'm a fan of the new "mini-AIs" the old godlike ones were just too much like Great Dragons meet IEs. I did like the Arc Shutdown though, but I think a properly run mini-AI could have pulled it off as well...

A gold fish that evolves in the shifting waters of the pond can still be eaten by a frog.

The old AI's while "big" concerns did have a certain mystique about them. The current "Oh hai I'm an AI I evolved in your eurocar." just seems stupid and a further effort to dumb down the matrix side of the house.

Furthermore human brains over tech is a core conciet of the setting, otherwise there'd be no echno mirage no matrix none of it. So saying that a being that "evolved" (and I hate that term by the way) in the matrix should somehow be better would overturn a lot of history.