AI and the Human Body

[victoriaperine]

I'm currently writing a novel in which my main character was a victim of experimentation (cliche, I know) but has no memory of it. In the experimentation, technology was implanted in the character's body, allowing an AI algorithm to run off of the character and fuse it's psychological aspects with an actual human's. I'm not super knowledgeable in science such as this, and I'm sure doing this would be incredibly hard, if not impossible, to do. So for the sake of keeping the peace, let's just say all of this is possible in the world of my novel. My novel also takes place in the 3000s, so it's incredibly in the future as well.

However, I do want to keep this relatively realistic, so I would like some suggestions on what physical (or even psychological) effects something like this would cause in a human's body. There are metals and wires in the characters body and these things are fused with the character's brain with the intent to fuse both the character's and the AI's consciousnesses. Are there any obvious physical or psychological ramifications of something like this?

Remember all of this is possible in my book. Though if you really had an idea that would improve the method in which the AI is inside the character's brain, I would take that suggestion as well.

 

[berkeman]

but has no memory of it

It might be an interesting side plot/theme if they could have some faint fragments of memories that start to form clues that they were part of that experiment. For example, there could be some strange themes in dream snippets that the person starts to notice more. And if they realize there may be some clues in their dreams, they could use some of the techniques of Lucid Dreaming to try to take control of their dreams when they recognize those triggers in the dreams, and use that control to try to explore those hazy dream themes/memories more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream

There are metals and wires in the characters body and these things are fused with the character's brain with the intent to fuse both the character's and the AI's consciousnesses. Are there any obvious physical or psychological ramifications of something like this?

The materials used in implants are typically not ferrous so they do not interact with MRI magnetic fields (that is done on purpose). They likely would show up on X-rays whenever this person had occasion to get them (for injuries or illness diagnosis, for example). Of course, the folks who did the implants and were conducting the experiments would know this, and probably would take steps to hack into any X-ray machines that were imaging this person to hide the electronic implants.

The circuitry would be hardened against EM interference, but at some level of EM exposure (like near strong radio transmit antennas), the circuitry might start to degrade in performance and cause some noticeable effects for your character.

 

[DaveC426913]

In AD3000, AI will be two full orders of magnitude more mature than it is right now.

In my humble opinion as an avid science fiction reader I think the two concepts of
- an AD3000-era AI and
- a biologically-internal computer made of wires and metals
are going to be jarringly clashy in your story.

We already have computers-on-a-chip, and there are billions of fully-functional palm-sized computers now.
In a thousand years, a device meant to placed in the body will be the size of a pea and made of gels.

If I read a story about the far future with an AI-in-a-person and it wasn't virtually indistinguishable from a lump of collagen with a bit of bone, I'd question the author's imagination.

Computers are already becoming invisible and ubiquitous. They're in everything. Unless there is a plot-driven reason for the physical material of the AI to affect the person's body, I'd say it should be a complete non-issue.

 

[victoriaperine]

In AD3000, AI will be two full orders of magnitude more mature than it is right now.

In my humble opinion as an avid science fiction reader I think the two concepts of
- an AD3000-era AI and
- a biologically-internal computer made of wires and metals
are going to be jarringly clashy in your story.

We already have computers-on-a-chip, and there are billions of fully-functional palm-sized computers now.
In a thousand years, a device meant to placed in the body will be the size of a pea and made of gels.

If I read a story about the far future with an AI-in-a-person and it wasn't virtually indistinguishable from a lump of collagen with a bit of bone, I'd question the author's imagination.

Computers are already becoming invisible and ubiquitous. They're in everything. Unless there is a plot-driven reason for the physical material of the AI to affect the person's body, I'd say it should be a complete non-issue.

Yes, I do realize this. However, my story also includes a large technological regression (due to war, environmental issues, dystopian eras, and resource availability) before the events of my story, so actually the technology isn't as developed as we are now predicting it will be in that time. I'm glad you noticed this I forgot to make this clear. What I also forgot to make clear is that the "metal and wires" technology is very tiny and extremely experimental (not developed at all). So if it were developed more it would probably become close to what you're describing.

 

[DaveC426913]

Yes, I do realize this. However, my story also includes a large technological regression (due to war, environmental issues, dystopian eras, and resource availability) before the events of my story, so actually the technology isn't as developed as we are now predicting it will be in that time.

I see. That's significant.

The flavour of technology should then be emergent from whatever technology survived the regression. You might consider developing some back story there, to see what pops out (nuclear war? bio-weapons? Only macro-electrics survived, certain metals, etc.), even if most of it doesn't make it into the story.


But my question remains: why does it matter to the story? Unless the pitfalls of embedded-low-tech have a narrative function in your story, why include them? (Of course it's to flesh out the story, but any element of a story should be doing double- or even triple-duty. Make it mean something.)


Or turn the whole cause-effect on its head: in oder to make the pitfalls of embedded-low-tech serve the story, why not figure out what you want it to accomplish , and work backwards to decide what the tech needs to be?

 

[phinds]

Here's a start:
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=3196b51d5507521a&q=musk%27s+brain+chip&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjSqoKxz6qLAxXZv4kEHQM7CWwQBSgAegQIDBAB&biw=1022&bih=588&dpr=1.36

 

[Hornbein]

Heck, that far in the future they could have modified people so they are born that way.

 

[Rive]

"metal and wires" technology...

...has some really serious limitations when attempted to be used together with living tissue. Especially when those wires are 'implanted'.
Going this way feels kind of like a spaceship powered by a turbocharged steam engine (boiled on hand-fed coal). (Yep, I know what's that genre is called But at least, they are not about realism. )

I think you would be able to hide a lot more in a bunch of 'forgot what these were for' inherited biological interfaces from the lost golden ages.
Practically the same mumbo-jumbo, but with removing the familiarity of the tech you can spare a ton of frowns for the readers and you can also set yourself (more) free.

 

[Algr]

In AD3000, AI will be two full orders of magnitude more mature than it is right now.

Moore's law would have this happening in 16-24 years. Once we have the Singularity, (AI tools accelerating chip and software development.) anything is possible. So by the Year 3000, they could change you as easily as pixels on a screen:

_{(Not pictured, excess mass ejected as powder on the floor.)}

If the above ISN'T possible in your novel, you'd have to explain why not.

Having the nanites/fibers/whatever crawl into your brain would be easier than the above transformation, and probably more useful. It might work like an imaginary laptop. You'd just think about whatever you need, and would just "know", hands free, as if you had read it somewhere. That is the optimistic version. Alternately, it might connect to the pleasure centers of your brain and fill you with joy whenever you were obedient.

However, I do want to keep this relatively realistic, so I would like some suggestions on what physical (or even psychological) effects something like this would cause in a human's body. There are metals and wires in the characters body and these things are fused with the character's brain with the intent to fuse both the character's and the AI's consciousnesses. Are there any obvious physical or psychological ramifications of something like this?

I would guess that information content and interactivity would be what determines how difficult various things are:
- Altering someone's emotions would be easiest, although choosing when to do this would be more complicated.
- Next easiest would be making them see things that aren't there, or be unable to see things that are there. That would be done in the brain's recognition centers, not in the nerves entering the brain from senses.
- Physical changes would be harder, and require the most energy.
- Directly altering thoughts would be the hardest, as this would require intimate knowledge of how data in your specific brain is organized and processed.

 

[DaveC426913]

In AD3000, AI will be two full orders of magnitude more mature than it is right now.

Moore's law would have this happening in 16-24 years. Once we have the Singularity, (AI tools accelerating chip and software development.) anything is possible.

Indeed. My metric was a naive number, simply citing in terms of years: AI is only meaningfully 10 years old or so. AD3000 is a hundred times farther in the future than the birth of AI is in the past.

I did not mean to suggest that its sophistication would advance linearly over that time.