Robot Brains: Skills as Software

In our last post, we talked about limiting the ability of AI's to buy skills. Now that we've done that, we still need to know how much those skills will cost. There are two basic approaches: Buying skill levels, and buying skill points.

Buying skill Levels

When we use this option, programs perform the skills by themselves. We simply purchase the skill and install it into any artificial intelligence we want.

Easy Skills:	(Skill-1)/2  Complexity
Average Skills:	(Skill)/2 Complexity
Hard Skills:	(Skill+1)/2 Complexity
Very Hard Skills:	(Skill+2)/2 Complexity

 

Theses costs are based on the costs for AI by complexity. A dedicated AI using a skill program of average difficulty and equivalent complexity will have a skill level 2 higher than its IQ. That's the equivalent of spending 8 points on a skill, which is a fairly heavy skill investment, though not overwhelming. 

 

Having the skill level set to a specific complexity has the benefit of allowing people who aren't AI's to buy it. If I want a Smart Forensics Suite, I know how much complexity gets how much skill. This method makes it fairly difficult to get sky-high skill, but if the GM feels that it makes sense for a specific skill to be harder or easier to program, they should certainly make an exception. It could potentially allow a machine to run vast numbers of lower-complexity skill programs at once, so we may wish to limit a mind in some way, including by restricting the number of skill programs it can have access to.

Buying Skill Points

This method is the closest to the way that GURPS Robots wrote things in 3e (though there are some notable changes). Its rather flexible, and works directly with points. Each complexity gives a specific number of points

 

Complexity 1:	[1] point in the skill
Complexity 2:	[2] points in the skill
Complexity 3:	[4] points in the skill
Complexity 4:	[8] points in the skill
Complexity 5:	[12] points in the skill
Complexity 6:	[16] points in the skill
Complexity 7:	[20] points in the skill
Complexity 8:	[24] points in the skill
Complexity 9:	[28] points in the skill
Complexity 10:	[32] points in the skill
Complexity 11:	[36] points in the skill
Complexity 12:	[40] points in the skill
Complexity 13:	[44] points in the skill
Complexity X:	[(X-2)*4] points in the skill

Buying skill points has the advantage of letting the base stats of the host robot still matter, which is nice. It potentially allows for sky-high skill though, or incredible breadth (if we allow running 100 skill programs of low complexity all at once). It also scales skill levels faster than IQ scores. Its probably a good idea to check out limitations to AI to prevent skill levels from running away on us.

Complexity Vs. Cost

Complexity maps to Cost in Gurps: Ultra-tech, but that table comes with a caveat attached: its for specialized software, not mass market stuff. GM's may wish to think about if a skill program is especially common or in demand. Or conversely, if its more expensive than normal!

Buy Away!

These are the two models for buying skills for AI as software that I see suggested. Different people have different preferences. Remember the natural limits of AI skills, and have fun building your robots!