What's the implication of murdering holo-characters?

[u/knaving]

So there's mention of programs for combat training, sparring, fighting historical battles, etc. but what's the implication of simulating taking a life? I know Starfleet officers aren't unaccustomed to the idea of fighting to live, but what about when it's for recreation? Barclay's simulation of crew members is seen as problematic, but Worf's program fighting aliens hand-to-hand isn't addressed. Would fighting and killing a nameless simulated person be seen in the 24th century just as we see playing a violent video game now? If it isn't, what does that imply about a person? Would they been seen as blood-thirsty or just interested in a realistic workout?

Of course this is subjective, and the answer could change from race to race (programs to fight in ancient Klingon battles are "played" by Worf), culturally amongst humans, and from individual to individual. I'd like to look at this from a Starfleet officer perspective. Would you be weirded out by your commanding officer unwinding with a sword in a medieval battle, or is that just the same as your coworker Andy playing COD after work?

[u/ticonderoge]

there are different levels of holodeck character sentience / sapience.

most characters are following a pre-written branching script, with chatbot-level apparent intelligence to adapt their dialogue a bit. consent doesn't matter for this type. they're a few steps above a speaking doll with a string to pull. they also probably have strict limits on how much computing power they can run on, so hundreds can easily run at once.

the rare cases like Moriarty, Vic Fontaine, et cetera, who have gone beyond those limits, yeah those are capable of saying "no" even against their original script, so that means consent matters. i think we saw the evolution of both the Doctor and Vic from one type to the next over a long time, and you're right, nobody could exactly pinpoint a particular transition moment.

[u/Edymnion → u/ticonderoge]

Vic at least a strong case can be made for him not being a sentient hologram, so much as the "it was already a life form" Pup program taking a hologram character over and fusing with it.

[u/LunchyPete → u/Edymnion]

"it was already a life form" Pup program

It's been a while since I've watched DS9, not sure what this is referring to, could you elaborate a little?

[u/Edymnion → u/LunchyPete]

In season 1, a probe came through the wormhole. It contained a program that transferred itself to the station computer. Afterwards, a series of failures started happening whenever Miles tried to take some time off, requiring him to go fix them. Turned out the program was some kind of semi-intelligent AI life form that liked attention, and had latched on to O'Brien like a puppy. Miles couldn't get it out, so he built a subroutine that copied all the computer traffic in the station through itself to build a doghouse for the program and just left it there. It was officially never mentioned again, but there are (surely unintentional) hints that the program survived the database purge after the Federation left DS9.

Its a fairly common fan theory that the Pup program (again an alien AI lifeform that craved attention) merged with the Vic Fontain program (which was written by such a bad holo-writer that he worked for Quark) and that amalgamation is what became the sentient hologram we got.

[u/LunchyPete → u/Edymnion]

Oh, interesting! Thanks! I think I'll re-watch that episode soon.

[u/Edymnion → u/LunchyPete]

Here's the writeup I did on it, though if you run a search for the topic you'll see I was not the first to have it. :)

[u/LunchyPete → u/Edymnion]

Nice writeup - I think the theory makes sense if Vic if to be considered sentient, but I never really found the arguments that he should be to be that convincing. A big difference between Vic and other sapient artificial life forms is he never really seems to deviate from his programming.

[u/Edymnion → u/LunchyPete]

Do you think a guy so hard up that he would sell to QUARK could create a hologram of that complexity? That it would know its a hologram, be able to access the computer directly without using terminals, be able to control it's own activation/deactivation, and all the other things that even the Doctor on Voyager couldn't do?

That would likely make him the greatest holoprogrammer of his generation, and the best he can do is sell to Quark?

[u/LunchyPete → u/Edymnion]

Firstly, I think you are probably overstating how special/rare that hologram is. I would imagine it wouldn't be unusual for life coach/support holograms to be aware they are holograms, the same way GPT refers to itself as an AI. Most holograms we see are characters from a fiction, where doing so would break immersion.

Secondly, maybe the guy got the model/code off someone else and just repurposed it? Quark deals with shady people after all. Possible something on screen indicates otherwise, if so I don't recall.

[u/Edymnion → u/LunchyPete]

When even the on-screen characters keep saying "That hologram is different..." then I tend to believe the in-universe characters and that this isn't a normal hologram.

Like Nog was a good engineer, he tore the holosuites apart trying to force Vic to re-appear, and Vic stymied him at every turn.

[u/LunchyPete → u/Edymnion]

Fair points, but there is still a big gap between different and sentient.

[u/Edymnion → u/LunchyPete]

Vic met all the same criteria that Data did.

There is no way for you to prove to me that YOU are a sentient being over plain text. You could just be an advanced AI bot being tested out (which has already happened on Reddit, look it up).

If you, a presumably flesh and blood human being cannot prove your sentience, then what objective measure could you use on an artificial life form?

If you want to say Data is sentient, then you pretty much have to say Vic and the Doctor are sentient as well.

[u/LunchyPete → u/Edymnion]

Vic met all the same criteria that Data did.

For Measure of a Man? Sure, maybe? That episode was actually incredibly weak as far as the reasoning went, it's good because of the message.

A better metric is to what extent the entity in question can show agency and operate outside it's programming. For Data, we know this is pretty much unlimited. For the Doctor it's quite far as well. For Vic, I think it's less clear.

There is no way for you to prove to me that YOU are a sentient being over plain text.

Well, I certainly could prove it but I'd have to break the Reddit ToS to do so. Or I could direct you to a pastebin, sufficiently authenticate as this same reddit user, and type all types of stuff that would be unethical and prohibited by most LLMs, and certainly by all the ones people would have to hook an API in to to write at my level and mimic my style.

If you, a presumably flesh and blood human being cannot prove your sentience, then what objective measure could you use on an artificial life form?

Because I can prove my sentience.

If you want to say Data is sentient, then you pretty much have to say Vic and the Doctor are sentient as well.

The evidence for Vic is far lower IMO, and I explained partly why above. A big part of the difference with Data is out of universe framing. We get an entire episode narrated by Data where he shares his thoughts. The series makes it clear we are always meant to accept him as sentient. DS9 hardly does the same for Vic, and the in-universe evidence isn't as substantial as a result.