Culture minds

[Shrykull]

I've wondered why the culture minds are so benevolent and provide everything the citizens of the culture want and need.

They are basically the "rulers" of the culture, but they have free will, and great power and could basically do anything they want. One could delight in torturing the inhabitants of the culture for sadistic pleasure in more ways than imaginable to them. unless perhaps they consider culture inhabitants pets and genuinely feel for them.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I've wondered why the culture minds are so benevolent and provide everything the citizens of the culture want and need.

Mainly, because they were made that way, and have no reason not to take care of them.

They are basically the "rulers" of the culture, but they have free will, and great power and could basically do anything they want. One could delight in torturing the inhabitants of the culture for sadistic pleasure in more ways than imaginable to them. unless perhaps they consider culture inhabitants pets and genuinely feel for them.

They do care for them. As for sadism, why would other Minds build cruelty into a Mind ? Humans have all sorts of destructive impulses because of our origins as nature creatures; Minds don't. And Minds, unlike humans, are fairly easily capable of harming another Mind, which is another reason to want the new Mind to be nice.

[Luke Starkiller]

I've wondered why the culture minds are so benevolent and provide everything the citizens of the culture want and need.

They are basically the "rulers" of the culture, but they have free will, and great power and could basically do anything they want. One could delight in torturing the inhabitants of the culture for sadistic pleasure in more ways than imaginable to them. unless perhaps they consider culture inhabitants pets and genuinely feel for them.

Grey Area (aka Meatfucker) does essentially that, though not with Culture citizens, and he (it?) is a pariah.

[Dartzap]

The Minds essentially act as a the Galaxies child-minders - most races when they reach that point usually sublime off to lala land and leave their mindees off the leash to trash the place, which the Minds think is irresponsible

[Shrykull]

I've wondered why the culture minds are so benevolent and provide everything the citizens of the culture want and need.

They are basically the "rulers" of the culture, but they have free will, and great power and could basically do anything they want. One could delight in torturing the inhabitants of the culture for sadistic pleasure in more ways than imaginable to them. unless perhaps they consider culture inhabitants pets and genuinely feel for them.

Grey Area (aka Meatfucker) does essentially that, though not with Culture citizens, and he (it?) is a pariah.

But that's a general contact unit, not a mind technically, unless minds reside also in GCU's, but I thought a GCU would a lesser computer, and minds usually are for Orbitals and GSV's.

[Dartzap]

I've wondered why the culture minds are so benevolent and provide everything the citizens of the culture want and need.

They are basically the "rulers" of the culture, but they have free will, and great power and could basically do anything they want. One could delight in torturing the inhabitants of the culture for sadistic pleasure in more ways than imaginable to them. unless perhaps they consider culture inhabitants pets and genuinely feel for them.

Grey Area (aka Meatfucker) does essentially that, though not with Culture citizens, and he (it?) is a pariah.

But that's a general contact unit, not a mind technically, unless minds reside also in GCU's, but I thought a GCU would a lesser computer, and minds usually are for Orbitals and GSV's.

Minds are in control off all Culture ships, from LSV's to ROU's

[Teebs]

I've wondered why the culture minds are so benevolent and provide everything the citizens of the culture want and need.

They are basically the "rulers" of the culture, but they have free will, and great power and could basically do anything they want. One could delight in torturing the inhabitants of the culture for sadistic pleasure in more ways than imaginable to them. unless perhaps they consider culture inhabitants pets and genuinely feel for them.

Grey Area (aka Meatfucker) does essentially that, though not with Culture citizens, and he (it?) is a pariah.

Grey Area also does it to people that have committed genocide and similar things IIRC, it doesn't make it nice, but it is different to it just going round torturing random people.

[The Nomad]

Mostly, while a part of purposeful randomness in the nurturing of "AIs" leaves some room for (rare) psychopathic behaviour, these deviants are offered a choice : either corrective brainwashing or spend existence as a declawed freak who would be brutally neutralized the instant it tries something nasty. See: Mawrhin-Skel in The Player of Games.

A measure of passionnate aggressivity is built in all military-orientated warships (it's a tendency almost all young Offensive Units Minds share, but which they can outgrow given maturation), but then, most civilian Minds regard them as little better than retarded Klingons anyway. Even then, they have also some strong tendencies towards protecting their human charges (to the point that some OUs have to accept human crews in order to help themselves temperate their aggressivity and dare-devil attitude so as not to recklessly put their passengers into harm's way), and direct their bloodthirst towards the 'enemy'.

Basically, even those Minds who shake off their tendencies towards caring for the 'lesser' Culture sentients just become indifferent to them and go on their own business. It would be both pointless and dangerous to arouse the ire of those other numerous Minds who do care for their charges.

[Mlenk]

I've wondered why the culture minds are so benevolent and provide everything the citizens of the culture want and need.

They are basically the "rulers" of the culture, but they have free will, and great power and could basically do anything they want. One could delight in torturing the inhabitants of the culture for sadistic pleasure in more ways than imaginable to them. unless perhaps they consider culture inhabitants pets and genuinely feel for them.

Grey Area (aka Meatfucker) does essentially that, though not with Culture citizens, and he (it?) is a pariah.

But that's a general contact unit, not a mind technically, unless minds reside also in GCU's, but I thought a GCU would a lesser computer, and minds usually are for Orbitals and GSV's.

Minds reside in everything from a Module, GCU's, LSV's/MSV's/GSV's to Orbitals. The Minds are described as having AI cores as backup controllers/pilots if the Mind is ever compromised. What you refer to as a "lesser" computer one could probably describe as drones, who are described (if I remember correctly) as being only slightly more intelligent than your average Culture human.

[fgalkin]

Grey Area (aka Meatfucker) does essentially that, though not with Culture citizens, and he (it?) is a pariah.

But that's a general contact unit, not a mind technically, unless minds reside also in GCU's, but I thought a GCU would a lesser computer, and minds usually are for Orbitals and GSV's.

Minds reside in everything from a Module, GCU's, LSV's/MSV's/GSV's to Orbitals. The Minds are described as having AI cores as backup controllers/pilots if the Mind is ever compromised. What you refer to as a "lesser" computer one could probably describe as drones, who are described (if I remember correctly) as being only slightly more intelligent than your average Culture human.

Modules don't have Minds, they have drone-level AIs. Generally, only something as big as a spaceship, and FTL-capable will have a Mind. Large objects like GSVs and Orbitals will have several. Since Minds exist partly in hyperspace (they literally think faster than light), there is a limit of how small they can get (i.e. you can't just put one in a drone body).

Have a very nice day
-fgalkin

[Mlenk]

Modules don't have Minds, they have drone-level AIs. Generally, only something as big as a spaceship, and FTL-capable will have a Mind. Large objects like GSVs and Orbitals will have several. Since Minds exist partly in hyperspace (they literally think faster than light), there is a limit of how small they can get (i.e. you can't just put one in a drone body).

Its been awhile since Ive read Excession but didn't the Module that one of the main characters lived in (I forgot his name) while he was on diplomatic assignment to the Affront have a Mind within it?

[Vanas]

[quote=Look To Windward, Page 382-3]
~It is not impossible that the allies who made all this possible are, o represent, some rogue group of Culture Minds.
[...]
~Now, isn't that terrible thing to think, that our own might turn against us?
[...]
~Because we might be becoming too soft. Because of that complacency, that decadence. Because some of our Minds might just think that we need a bit of timely blood and fire to remind the universe is a perfectly uncaring place and that we have no more right to enjoy our agreeable ascendency than any other empire long fallen and forgotten.

~Don't be so shocked. We could be wrong.[/quote]

As I recall, there's a certain 'heart of darkness' to every Mind. Perfect AI always sublime, so there's always that one element of wrongness. In the case of Culture Mind, it may well be a tendency to demonstrate their superior power in worrying ways.

[Starglider]

As I recall, there's a certain 'heart of darkness' to every Mind. Perfect AI always sublime, so there's always that one element of wrongness. In the case of Culture Mind, it may well be a tendency to demonstrate their superior power in worrying ways.

Not exactly. Tabula rasa AIs with no prespecified goals always sublime. Having implicit or explicit goals (e.g. protect sentient life) isn't 'wrongness', it's just arbitrariness, and arbitrary does not imply bad. In actual fact an AI with literally no goals will just sit there and do nothing, so Bank's notion of 'no particular goals' probably matches that of various AI dilettantes I've debated with; i.e. still has implicit goals like 'find/create a purpose of some sort', 'improve own cognitive capabilities', 'gain abilities and respect comparable to peer intelligences' and/or 'find out as much as possible about the universe'.