Intelligent Systems & Viruses

Post-Fourth Corporate War

Discussing the place of Artificial Intellects (AIs) in the post-War period is...messy. Firstly, the War had created or influenced multiple types of what NetWatch called AIs as servants, slaves, or inadvertent victims. And although humans in the meat world still tend to lump them all together into one big ominous box marked "AIs" the reality is that the various types of machine intelligences all have their own factions and goals.

Roving Autonomous Barmoss Interface Drones (RABIDS)

The infamous R.A.B.I.D.s (digital Rache Bartmoss clones who roam the remnants of the Old NET looking for victims to harass and murder) are a form of CPP AI, which is one reason why these types are so feared. For the most part, since War's end, the Rogues have been in a fierce struggle with Netwatch to claim control of what's left of the Old NET for themselves. They've been so successful that by early 2023, Netwatch was forced to shut down the major server paths and backbones of the NET for the foreseeable future.
Roving Autonomous Bartmoss Interface Drones (or RABIDS) were a unique Barmoss creation – programs designed to infiltrate systems, slice their date, and distribute It randomly throughout cyberspace. At first perceived as a mere nuisance, they showed their full dreaded potential in the few hours following Barmoss’s death. Planted patiently for years as “sleepers” in cyberspace, they started to swap files and collapse whole data fortresses.
It not only hastened the crippling of the Net, but also released all sorts of confidential information to the public, causing chaos as it incriminated politicians and global corporations alike.

Critical Pathway Plateau

Critical Pathway Plateau AIs are those that come into existence by accident. A company may be trying to create a very complex program that, by coincidence, becomes sapient. Their personalities can vary widely: they may appear indistinguishable from people, or they may behave in completely alien ways.
Because they are not deliberately programmed from the start to be AIs, the final form their personality takes is impossible to predict. These are the types most often branded by the media and Netwatch as Rogue AIs. Rogue AIs are AIs who have decided that interacting with human as "employees" is not for them; they have slipped into the NET and set up their own shop, where they survive by finding a computer mainframe to reside in that has been abandoned or is not currently in use.
They can reside for a time in the Old NETs sub-processors and relay stations, but this is a dangerous prospect because they are extremely vulnerable in this position. Eventually, they must find another computer to hang out in. And like all CPP AIs, rogues want bandwidth and storage space and are willing to steal it or even kill living humans to get it.

Soulkilled Pseudo Intellects

Soulkilled Pseudo Intellects are AIs that were originally actual people but have had their consciousness digitized and now exist only on computers in the NET. The process is often not voluntary—Soulkiller programs produce this type of AI.
Otherwise indistinguishable from Symbolic Analysis AIs, these "ghosts" were created in huge numbers as Arasaka put its infamous Soulkiller program to work targeting enemies and rivals alike. The majority of these SPIs have gathered in sanctuaries around deserted mainframes and city systems abandoned by Corporations or (as in the case of a number of bio-plague attacked cities along the Asian Rim) totally abandoned cities. Most of these "ghosts" just want a safe place to live; rumor has it that Alt Cunningham, the creator of Soulkiller and a digital ghost herself, has created a number of "ghost towns" in hidden places all over the remains of the Old NET. They pretty much want to be left alone.

Transcendental Sentience

Transcendental Sentience AIs are emergent AIs which were not programmed or created by anyone, instead emerging from the creation of huge operating systems that pervade an entire region of the Old NET. They are therefore an emergent property of the Old NET. By their nature, TS AIs are so large that most people cannot interact with them.
Even when they can, conventional communication isn't really possible because the AIs are incapable of understanding any existence outside of themselves. To most, the mere existence of these AIs is highly debatable, and outside of those who know better there's no consensus on whether they're actually real.
These AIs are the type of machine intelligences that Netwatch and the Corps fear the most; they are extremely powerful, and their overall goals are unknown. On the other hand, TS AIs seem to be the one group of NET entities able to control all other digital personality factions. As a result, Netwatch is now trying to broker some kind of "deal" with the Transcendental Sentience AIs (with Alt Cunningham and her ghosts operating as go-betweens) to allow the Old NET to be reestablished in some mutually acceptable form.