Robot Brains: The Limits of Purchased Skills

Artificial intelligence links two mostly unrelated parts of Gurps: Character points and Wealth. While skills can often justify wealth, and fancy tools can give a few mild bonuses or cancel enormous penalties, Artificial Intelligence almost demands that we stick a price tag on specific skill levels.  Without additional limits purchasing skill with money can warp a game very quickly. 

 

Fortunately, in most settings, such additional limits exist. Software doesn't just pop into being out of nowhere, and not all software works for all hardware or all operating systems, and installation of new software isn't instant and painless. 

 

Placing these sorts of limitations has a few welcome effects. They reduce the power of wealth and set a social baseline for what the players can expect. If most robots can only get riffle-14, but such robots are cheap, Players know what to prepare for, and establish their skill of 13 as workable but nothing special. These limits also make space for the exceptional. When the PC's run across a robot with riffle-16 instead of riffle-14, they will take note and at least wonder why this robot is special. It will let them know why they are considered elite, and what they need to accomplish to become elite in something else.

 

Tools are Not Skills

Minds are complex and finicky things, and we may not be able to download Calculus into the robot's equivalent of a brain. We can give it access to a tool that will spit out Calculus answers, but that's different. We can give 6th graders a link to wolfram alpha and they can use that to "solve" calculus equations, but they won't actually know calculus. Computer Intelligence may work much the same way, with ready access to tools, but needing to learn how to use the tools like any other intelligence.

Maybe an AI can only purchase skills with money when they are first created, as part of building their mind. This version of Artificial intelligence embraces skill as part of identity, and is probably the most "safe-tech" way to run buying skills with money. It is especially appropriate for brain emulations, the results of self-improving algorithms, and accidental super-minds.

Installation Time

If a digital mind can change skills freely, it effectively has modular ability slots, which cost more in character points because they're worth that much more. This might be an instantaneous process, but more likely requires some time to download and install the software, and during the installation the mind is unlikely to be functional. An extreme (but not entirely unlikely) extension of that suggestion is that digital minds can have skills added in an extensive process that requires a lot of down time and a little bit of risk, kind of like surgery. We can even justify a recovery period. 

Limited Capacity

Digital minds may be able to carry around huge skill libraries, but that doesn't mean they can use them all at the same time. Perhaps the limits of awareness prevent more than 10 skills being in the forefront at once, or maybe the time it takes to switch focus on tasks is equivalent to swapping out a modular ability.

Modular Abilities are expensive, and once points are on the table, players will want to justify buying just the exact amount of capacity they need.  Make sure to check the pricing of the modular abilities in GURPS: Powers, especially for the size of the library of abilities, and the amount of time it takes to switch between skills.

Setting the limit on the Digital Mind's modular ability pool is matter of GM judgement, based on what the AI is intended to do and the hardware it runs on. Looking at complexities is a start, but it probably shouldn't be the end of considerations. Most schemes for skill levels tie the software to complexity level, and each drop in complexity lets 10 times as many programs run... but is generally tied to only a +2 increase in skill levels.

Compatibility Issues

Digital Minds with different origins and different engineering will have different software skills available, at different levels, and probably from different suppliers. The bio-warfare expertise from an accidentally sapient supercomputer is unlikely to transfer smoothly into a computer emulating a human brain, or really any AI not based on a copy of itself. Even robot of similar types from rival manufacturers may not be able to run the same software. Perhaps Black Ice Inc robots can purchase software granting skill 18 in stealth, but only get artillery at skill 12, while models from the Iron Giant Corp can buy 18 in artillery but only 12 in stealth.

Just because a skill could be exist for a given combination of Tech Level and AI hardware, doesn't mean that it has to exist. If software above a certain skill level hasn't been researched yet, you can't buy it (though you could possibly invent it). In fact, its not unrealistic to charge double or more for cutting edge software that is currently the best in its class. And if a robot has cutting edge software in one area, it may not have access to it in another. AI's intended to fight wars, manage factories, or assist medicine are likely to have access to very different skill packages (though a story explaining why this AI is common in both translators and soldiers could be amusing)

Alternative Products

One significant limitation of wealth in general is that if one person can buy for it, someone else can buy it as well. Skills purchased off a shelf are not unique, and in the case of software, are fairly cheap to distribute widely. Once software is made, each additional copy is almost free. Other robots can buy that same skill set. Even more importantly, that software may not need to be integrated into a full AI. Perhaps an android can buy skill 16 in riffle, but the human may be able to buy a tripod aiming system that will shoot a riffle at skill 16 as well. Its bulkier, and required more setup, but the skill-16 when shooting is the same.

Skills bought with money are cheap in terms of character points, and they should feel cheap. If a player simply pulls something (anything) off a shelf after checking its price tag once or twice, it shouldn't feel special, and it shouldn't give any special bonuses. Things bought with money, like equipment, should feel like equipment.

Establish Limits

The take away from all of this is to establish limits on what can and can't happen in your setting. Taking just a second to think through the implications of purchasing skills can save you a lot of grief, and let your players know what they need to do to be awesome. Enjoy playing with AI, and don't start any apocalypses you don't mean to!