I have a character whose ultimate goal is to download an AI into his biological node and to merge with it ala JC Denton.

Im a little curious as to what the ingame result of that might actually be. What do you think?

well, it would go something like this:

the technomancer attempts to download an AI into his biological node. unfortunately, the biological node has no storage, so the AI either ends up deleted, or still in the same place it was to begin with.

i realise that really isn't what you're looking for, but it's the way things are. if you want to discuss what would happen if you invented some kind of crazy house rule, well, that's hard to say without knowing the house rule. ultimately, even if there was some kind of storage, i don't think shadowrun's level of tech really deals with downloading programs into wetware (yet, although deus pulled it off, and there are indications of corp research into the tech in corporate guide) although the reverse is possible (but not properly understood).

now, since i rather suspect my answer was completely unsatisfying for you, i'll make a suggestion that you go over to the eclipse phase boards and ask them... this sort of question seems like it would be right up their alley.

The In-Game Result would either not work, or cause a very crowded head.

There's a reason that, typically, there's only one person per brain. Remember, the exceptions to that rule are insane.

Because the premise is a house rule, the result is equally up to you.

That's debatable. Is the person who does math in your head the same one who writes poetry? Is self identity even more than an lllusion? These are serious issues for neuroscience.

Besides, if there were two people in a brain who knew about each other as separate entities, and who both had access to the outside world via means other than the body (matrix access), it probably wouldn't be that big a deal. On the other hand, can two AI's share the same home node? Because if they can't, its unlikely an NI (natural intellegence, in this case the technomancer) and an AI can do the same thing.

But yeah, this really sounds like the realm of SR fanfic, not game rules.

I wasnt thinking of just downloading an AI into the character's head like a program. His goal is to actually merge the AI with his own mind, creating one single entity in his head.

I don't even remember what exactly happened to JC. That is how the game ended, and the second one picked up by combining the (three?) endings from the first game as I recall. You meet JC at some point, but I don't recall him looking special or in any real way being special (You know, besides the stuff from before he merged). So yeah, even the game in which it happens really doesn't tell you what happens as I recall.

As others have stated, purely by the rules it wouldn't do anything. There is no mechanic for it, TMs don't have storage space to keep any part of the AI, and their bionodes aren't some simple programs, and don't even operate on the same level as programs, so would be unlikely to be able to merge with an AI.

Perhaps for the best ideas you could look at GitS, as the Major mind melds with a self aware AI. It doesn't really seem to do a ton to her, though she is able to easily control two bodies, and can almost control a third, but that might just be because she is awesome as opposed to anything to do with the AI.

Really the effects would likely be far more RP than mechanical. The character would have a different view of things, likely become a bit more distant as he or she gains a more detached view of the world. I'm sure it could count as a trial for submerging, or if your GM is feeling generous it might give some other slight bonuses. It might make multitasking easier, so maybe you could get the multiprocessing echo for free, maybe improve some mental stats as the code makes you think a bit faster... *shrug* but like I said, TMs operate on a level that is entirely different than normal code. They can interact with it, and their CFs are called the same thing as the programs they mimic for the sake of simplicity, but they are like comparing apples and the death star. Sure, they're both kinda roundish, but that's about it.

Last I checked, "Multiple Personality Syndrome" was considered an Insanity.

Let me double-check. Oh, right, sorry, it's shrinks talking to suggestable people. I buy that.

Thing is, with an AI "In House", it would be MPS in a very real sense.

I just hope the two get along.

Yeah, but a TM can't download a 5 letter text file into their head, nevermind a program, and nevermind an AI.

This disorder is theoretically linked with the interaction of overwhelming stress, traumatic antecedents,[22] insufficient childhood nurturing, and an innate ability to dissociate memories or experiences from consciousness.[2] A high percentage of patients report child abuse.[23][24] People diagnosed with DID often report that they have experienced severe physical and sexual abuse, especially during their childhood.[25] Several psychiatric rating scales of DID sufferers suggested that DID is strongly related to childhood trauma rather than to an underlying electrophysiological dysfunction.[26]

Others believe that the symptoms of DID are created iatrogenically by therapists using certain treatment techniques with suggestible patients,[27][28][24][29] but this idea is not universally accepted.[23][30][31][32][33][34] Skeptics have observed that a small number of therapists are responsible for diagnosing the majority of individuals with DID; that patients do not report sexual abuse or manifest alters until after treatment has begun; and the alternative explanation of the "alters" being rule-governed social roles rather than separate personalities.[29]
So basically it is not even clear if Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder) even exists in the way we imagine. A person might think he merged with an AI and then think it caused him to get dissociative identity disorder but it would all be in his head but not they way he thinks.

Schizophrenia is another one where people are talking to something/ hearing voices but that it caused by specific brain damage caused by a number or sources. But it causes a laps in the ability for a person to distinguish reality from fantasy.

So basically it is unlikely truly merging with an AI would inflict either of these conditions, at least in the way they normally happen.

Does it really matter how someone got to be crazy, so long as they're crazy? You know, on a non medical/psychologist level?

Bah, you just need a shoehorn and a lot of lube.

...

Oh, wait, I'm thinking of Bubba the Love Troll.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm going to Hell.

I could see how a person would merge with an AI in real life (well sorta real life). It would take a lot of time as the AI slowly rewires part of the brain by sending information down certain pathways over and over again. Like the two mirror each other for months on end. Each feeling the same things, as if one's limbs were the others, and knowing what the other feels, and thinks, and thinking like thoughts, until the two are much the same and the memories of one blend with the memories of the other like two half forgotten memories each on different days.

Mechanically it would be like learning a lot of knowledge skills, and active skills over time. And the learning would probably have to be two way between you an the AI.

Well, what does he expect from such an endeavor ? Why does the concept appeal to him ?

I can more easily imagine a TM uploading his persona in such a way that he becomes an AI.

I don't really see it being possible to go from AI to Human. Then again, our brains record a crapload of information on everything that happens to us during our lifetimes.

Would be an interesting story though.

Game mechanic-wise, I'd look at making the TM need a number of submersion grades equal to the rating of the AI in order to make the test. The test would be Resonance + Submersion against a threshold equal to the rating of the AI.

Think of the mage initiation ordeal where you make a mental stat test against physical stats.

He also would probably need to first convert the AI into something more compatible with his bionode, probably a bit like a Skillsoft need to be emulated as a Complex Form before being used with the Biowire Echo.

I'm not sure many AI would be eager for the experiment, and forcibly inserting in your mind bits of something that hates you does not strike me as a good idea.

Obviously, this is a question scifi has long considered. It depends on what it *means* to 'merge', 'download', 'assimilate', whatever. I'm sure an AI with a PAB unit and a clone body could eventually put *something* in there that understood itself to be the same 'person' as the AI (or whatever else was desired). Human minds can also be converted into something like an AI program (e-ghost, whatever). There's no way to do these by RAW in SR4, but the fluff doesn't really preclude it, and it's very cyberpunk. Especially if you're not too picky about what 'person(ality)' means.

I think part of the reason JC was able to merge was also due to his extensive nanoaugmentation. In effect he was already 'more like a machine' which likely made the assimilation easier.

I was under the impression that Technomancers could run regular programs within their bionode and an AI is a single program, albeit a complex program but still a single program, much like an agent. Also, the AI's codebase doesn't count as running programs.

I do think that the AI would not consider the bionode a safe home, whatever happens to running programs in memory and then rebooting...

The Bionode counts as a commlink and commlinks have a persona limit of 1 but it uses Processor Limit so sure.

Wouldnt that mean that a Technomancer theoretically can give an AI full Admin Access to the commlink so that the persona in the biolink becomes the AI and for the duration the technomancer cannot use the biolink.

They cannot run regular programs on their bionodes. They have no storage space in their bionode for the program, and their brains are not commlinks, however much the rules might represent the two as similar. Their CFs are not programs, no matter how similar the results they produce are. The absolute closest a TM can get to running a program on their bionode is via emulation, in which a TM looks at a program (Autosoft) and threads a CF based on the information, but it is still a CF at that point and not a program, and operates on entirely different principles.

Edit:
No, non resonance entities cannot enter a bionode, regardless of access. Their programs simply cannot exist inside a bionode.

To gain the raw processing and logical power of an AI. He feels that if he is able to do this, he will be equipped to convince other Technomancers to do the same thing and he will lead them to use their power to lead the world, tempering raw logical processing power with humanity. He sees Technomancers as a sort of "chosen people" whose purpose is to lead humanity.

I think the AI gains a walking meat sack and the Techno gains a backseat...

Clipped my post and toally missed the point, which was that we have no freaking clue how the mind actually works, and a creditable amount of evidence that it is composed of disparate parts that work more like a committee, with the "individual" being akin to a corporation- it has an identity, but no actual substance other than the component parts agreeing it exists.

Anyhow, looking at what the OP suggests, I'd agree its a very bad idea. You are talking about mixing together (and perhaps discarding some of) the members of two "committees" that likely speak different languages. The results would be almost impossible to commit. If its something you CAN figure out how to do, you could probably also (and more safely) do it by merging parts of your own mind with the AI to produce a NEW AI (or perhaps an organic mind in a wimp body). It might be something some AI's already do between themselves...

You might want to look at Eclipse Phase- it has some good stuff on ego programing.



Oh gawd... yeah, well. With a motive like that, you're gonna be a big flashing "sucker HERE" sign for every disonance entity out there...

Wasn't there something in RC about AIs being able to merge parts of their programs to create an AI 'child'?

My AI character would be immensely interested.

Hey! This is a family board!

The Virtual Reality Stork drops off the little bunde of code joy!

One of the problems with living nodes is that only technomancers can hack them. Computer programs just don't know what they're looking at. So to get an AI in to a living node you'd have to turn it in to a technomancer first. Over all, it really just sounds like a bad idea...

Well, if we had to try and make this work, I'd have to say the Technomancer would have to first find a way to turn himself in to an e-ghost. This way the AI and the technomancer can have a way too merge. This should have the risk of the technomancer maybe never being able to get his body back. Also, run the risk of killing the technomancer, because they might have to simulate Crash 2.0. Heck, most technomancers were created from Crash 2.0, and Crash 2.0 was made from two Super AIs having a super Matrix war, so I don't know how easily it would be to simulate that, or if Crash 2.0 didn't kill or e-ghost the technomancer in the first place, why would it have a different effect the second time? Anyway...lets assume it somehow works or finds another way to make the technomancer an e-ghost...

Now that both the technomancer and AI are now both AIs, they should be able to do some kind of code swapping to make a new AI or merge in to a single AI, which should have the risk of having a personality getting swallowed up by the other or the risk that the codes simply can't work together killing both of them.

Lets assume, it does some how work, and the code merging doesn't kill them both, now another trick comes in to play of trying to hack back in the the living node. But if the technomancer's e-ghost code gets corrupted from the merging he may not be able to get back in to any living nodes. Thus making the technomancer just another AI on the Matrix. But if he does keep enough of himself he might be able to hack in to a living node, himself hopefully and set up shop there again, and maybe "rig" his own body.

Over all, it doesn't sound like a good idea. Too many maybes and a lot of ways to die. Also I don't know if there would be any mechanical advantage behind it...but maybe this technomancer is just crazy enough to want to do it anyway...

Of course at this point the TM has achieved the goal of 'gaining the processing power/etc of an AI' and so merging really isn't that important any more.

What crunch benefits does the technomancer expect to gain? If it's gamebreaking, the GM says no. Flatly. If it's not, the GM handwaves it, possibly with a test of some description to determine how much of a benefit you actually gain.

For getting the AI into the biological node..... .Maybe resonance trodes? It specifically says you can drag people into it with the power. Lay hand on whatever they happen to be in, maybe easier to accept if the AI is jumped into a drone or something, but basically the same thing as putting your hands on a harddrive hosting the node they are occupying.
Suck them right in.
Hmmm...that makes me think.....
If you have resonance trodes echo, could you use it while in the trix yourself? I know the rules say nothing about it, so personally I would say no, but it makes for an interesting thought. Sucking someone from the node they are in, into your Bio node? Well, peoples persona can be in more than one node at once, so I guess it wouldn't actually suck them in so much as make them be in that node as well....

Resonance trodes rely on physical contact with the person they are forcing onto the matrix, so they wouldn't be usable on an AI because you can't physically contact an AI, and AIs can't use trode, which, while not a stated requirement, I would imagine is a requirement.

So, this also means no grabbing people on the matrix and pulling them to your bionode, especially since the power never actually says that they go to your bionode in the first place (Simply that they are forced onto the matrix), that is just a general assumption on an Echo that has basically no rules.

Yeah, you're right, I let what everyone else said to color my memory of the echo, it only says drag them into hotsim VR, nothing about the Bio-node.

It was just the closest thing I could think to being able to accomish the attempt.

Very understandable.

It is however something that is disallowed by both rules and fluff. Rules don't allow for the AI reaching a person's Bionode, and provides no 'merging' rules, and fluff at several points makes it very clear that while a TM's complex form is similar to a program in results, it is entirely different in what it actually is.