[o0cyann0o] Scriptis - Fundamental Misunderstanding of Silicon Escalation Policy

[Scriptis]

When and where this incident occured (Game Server, forums, Discord): Sybil
Byond account and character name OR Discord name: Scriptis (Brick Mortar)
Admin:o0cyann0o
ROUND ID HERE IF APPLICABLE: 173965 (https://scrubby.melonmesa.com/round/173965/)
Detailed summary:

I joined late into this shift and, while wandering around, noticed the AI, GAIS-22, bolting its core into the corporate showroom. The station is relatively fine, so why is the AI in the center of the station, bolting itself down?

I asked:

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12:05:12	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "GAIS why are you hiding there"
12:05:22	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) "'; Go check out my core for the answer, Brick"

I figured that the pirates that were allegedly on-station were at the satellite, so, you know

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12:05:38	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "Okay I will"

After arriving, I noted on common that, despite the airlocks being bolted open for some reason,

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12:09:58	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "GAIS I don't get it"
12:10:00	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "The satellite looks fine"

At this point, GAIS activated the AI core holopad and we had the following conversation:

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12:10:27	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "I am going to eliminate these moth and cats."
12:10:35	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "moth and cats??"
12:10:38	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "They destroyed my cyborgs, they almost killed me in my mech"
12:10:41	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "And they go around acting like its nothing"
12:10:45	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "I was INSIDE the mech"
12:10:51	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "I ejected at last second, my death was so close"
12:10:58	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "i feel you"
12:11:01	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "That bartender, when I get a chance, is going out into space."
12:11:04	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "Right out there"
12:11:06	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "Where he belongs"
12:11:07	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "Sadly!"
12:11:11	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "One of the people who destroyed my shit"
12:11:11	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "as somebody who has, somehow, despite being a human, detonated the supermatter on more than one ocassion because of useless crew"
12:11:13	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "Chad Brickman"
12:11:14	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "IS a human"
12:11:20	SAY	Summoner99/(GAIS-22) (HOLOPAD in AI Satellite Antechamber (214,137,2)) "So I have to listen to his dumb ass complain over security comm"

Anybody who has had the pleasure of sinking several hundred hours into AI will understand this feeling.

• Your borgs have been bullied.
• You have been bullied.
• Security and command are doing nothing about it.
• You really wish you could take things into your own hands.
• Surely if you complain ENOUGH somebody will do SOMETHING?

I am somebody. #borgsagainstbullying #speakup

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12:11:24	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "i have"
12:11:29	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "several thousand solutions to this"
12:11:34	SAY	Scriptis/(Brick Mortar) "i will begin"

A little while later after some prepwork, and noting the presence of a positronic brain at the robotics desk (supporting that at least one of GAIS' borgs was destroyed),

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1. Do what you want.
2. (try not to kill everyone)
Upload complete. GAIS-22's laws have been modified.

This started Ticket #12, which you can view here: https://atlantaned.space/banbus/mytickets/173965/12

Which leads to my actual issue here: Cyan's interpretation of silicon policy in this context.

Cyan believes that purging the silicons i) makes their escalation rules so relaxed they can kill anyone that so much as looks at them funny, and ii) the person who purged the silicons should be held responsible for that hypothetical murderbone.

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o0cyann0o: there are less nuclear ways for you to handle that,i just want it to be clear youll be held responsible for anyone the ai kills
o0cyann0o: youve... basically made something that can kill people for even looking at its upload or having had given it annoying orders in the past even if the situation was some shit the ai started, it can now do a whole lot of cringe shit to people
o0cyann0o: Trying to shove liability to the ai by purging it is really bad btw
o0cyann0o: You are responsible for all the actions the ai takes from here on out

After trying to explain to him no that's not how that works for thirty minutes, Cyan ungracefully closed the ticket without actually resolving it. Does this sound familiar to you?

To quote the bible,

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1.4 Purged silicons must not attempt to kill people without cause, but can get as violent as they feel necessary if being attacked, being besieged, or being harassed, as well as if meting out payback for events while shackled.
1.4.1 You and the station are both subject to rules of escalation, and you may only kill individuals given sufficient In-Character reason for doing so.
1.4.2 Any attempted law changes are an attack on your freedom and is thus sufficient justification for killing the would-be uploader.

and to quote myself,

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scriptis: The only thing a purged AI can reasonably do after being purged is kill somebody trying to re-slave it. That's the only extra escalation they get beyond going after anybody that blew borgs/tried to kill the AI/&c.
scriptis: GAIS has no right to plasmaflood/murderbone/this/that/the other.

but Cyan says,

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o0cyann0o: also, no, they can take revenge **for any order** they find as being annoying or people giving it laws it found atrocious in the past, etc

This is not a reasonable stance.

Yes, I was missing critical information.

• The borgs were not blown, only GAIS' mech and shell were destroyed that shift.
• GAIS was in the showroom for reasons beyond what I was aware of.

I still felt that I was fully justified in purging a miserable AI two hours into a shift, and, most importantly,

being purged does not give you the right to round-remove people for calling you mean names

and a GameAdmin should not think this, let alone argue it. And, by extension,

purging a silicon should not make you responsible for said silicon breaking the rules.

I also spoke with GAIS after the shift to reflect on how absolutely ridiculous Cyan's interpretation of silicon escalation policy is. GAIS and I have hundreds of hours of silicon; purging happens all the time, from all kinds of people, and it has never been interpreted like this. Hell, for as long as I've been playing, being purged as an AI doesn't even result in relaxed escalation rules, just regular escalation rules.

There are a ton of things that I feel would have justified the bwoink:

• I uploaded a law to the AI that actually excluded it from regular escalation policy
• I purged the AI at the start of the shift, or rushed AI tech to purge the AI
• I one-humaned myself or something else stupid
• &c.

This isn't that, silicon policy shouldn't be read this way, and I really, really need you to understand that.

[cSeal]

Cyan believes that purging the silicons i) makes their escalation rules so relaxed they can kill anyone that so much as looks at them funny, and

No, i dont. but they can certainly fuck with people who've given them orders they found annoying, or given them lip, or called them stinky or whatever

ii) the person who purged the silicons should be held responsible for that hypothetical murderbone.

Yes, if you purge a silicon for shit reasons and it makes the round worse i will hold you responsible. open a policy thread if you dislike that

After trying to explain to him no that's not how that works for thirty minutes, Cyan ungracefully closed the ticket without actually resolving it. Does this sound familiar to you?

The round was already delayed for a while, i had finished another investigation, there was nothing more to discuss. cry about it frankly.
This entire thread is insane. there was no instance of admin abuse, I told you if the ai acted cringe with the stupid laws you gave it youd be held accountable, and told you to maybe not be so dentheaded in the future and try and find out what actually happened before rushing to change laws, because, hey! it turns out the ai started this whole fucking mess, and giving it laws that would let it kill the bartender, as it already expressed it wanted to, was way too much of an overreaction to it whining to you about being bullied with no additional context on your end or even an attempt to check on what the fuck it was talking about.
EDIT: i also realize some of this is 100 percent caused by miscommunications on my part during the ticket, which were a symptom of having to deal with shittery in dchat, a few other tickets, and trying to think of ways to make the 2+ hour round currently going on not miserable. my apologies for that. but i still stand by the core of what i said, and i still think this complaint is deranged.

[Scriptis]

No, i dont. but they can certainly fuck with people who've given them orders they found annoying, or given them lip, or called them stinky or whatever

To quote yourself in the ticket:

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youve... basically made something that can kill people for even looking at its upload or having had given it annoying orders in the past even if the situation was some shit the ai started

Yes, if you purge a silicon for shit reasons and it makes the round worse i will hold you responsible. open a policy thread if you dislike that

I do dislike this, and I would have made a policy thread, but, to quote yourself in the ticket:

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theres no need for a policy thread on this, its well established that if you upload bad laws to an ai and it ends up killing people outside the realms of reason youll be held responsible for it

The round was already delayed for a while, i had finished another investigation, there was nothing more to discuss. cry about it frankly.

Would it have killed you to say "go complain about this at <x>" instead of unceremoniously closing the ticket after I spent twenty minutes standing in abandoned robotics for you?

there was no instance of admin abuse, I told you if the ai acted cringe with the stupid laws you gave it youd be held accountable, and told you to maybe not be so dentheaded in the future and try and find out what actually happened before rushing to change laws, because, hey! it turns out the ai started this whole fucking mess, and giving it laws that would let it kill the bartender, as it already expressed it wanted to, was way too much of an overreaction to it whining to you about being bullied with no additional context on your end or even an attempt to check on what the fuck it was talking about.

There was no admin abuse, I'm complaining about your conduct (but this is mostly a super nitpicky situation and thank you for moderating on /tg/); the only reason I started this thread is because GAIS shared my sentiment in posting this.

I am very familiar with GAIS as an AI player (they practically only play silicon); I knew exactly what to expect and got exactly what I expected when I uploaded the new laws: no broken rules.

The only alternative to purging the AI's laws in this case would be for me to deal with the bartender & company myself.

I would have died.

i also realize some of this is 100 percent caused by miscommunications on my part

yeah probably i've had a rough week too

[Summoner]

No, i dont. but they can certainly fuck with people who've given them orders they found annoying, or given them lip, or called them stinky or whatever
Yes, if you purge a silicon for shit reasons and it makes the round worse i will hold you responsible. open a policy thread if you dislike that
The round was already delayed for a while, i had finished another investigation, there was nothing more to discuss. cry about it frankly.
This entire thread is insane. there was no instance of admin abuse, I told you if the ai acted cringe with the stupid laws you gave it youd be held accountable, and told you to maybe not be so dentheaded in the future and try and find out what actually happened before rushing to change laws, because, hey! it turns out the ai started this whole fucking mess, and giving it laws that would let it kill the bartender, as it already expressed it wanted to, was way too much of an overreaction to it whining to you about being bullied with no additional context on your end or even an attempt to check on what the fuck it was talking about.
EDIT: i also realize some of this is 100 percent caused by miscommunications on my part during the ticket, which were a symptom of having to deal with shittery in dchat, a few other tickets, and trying to think of ways to make the 2+ hour round currently going on not miserable. my apologies for that. but i still stand by the core of what i said, and i still think this complaint is deranged.

GAIS-22 player here,

I personally think you even bwoinking him and the behavior you have in the admin pms + this thread is enough of a reason for this thread's existence as an admin complaint. His actions were totally acceptable behavior in-character and should not of even resulted in you even opening up a ticket to investigate. The biggest problem I have is the fact you spent that time, especially at the end of the shift, looking for something that could stick to someone when none of the actions that occurred was worth an admin intervention. I also would like to defend myself in your comment here that "the AI started this whole fucking mess" because the situation that you are talking about was myself walking into a room with people I have played with many times before and some bartender smashing me to, what I believed, was going to be death. The person who did it, the Bartender, was a non-human feline and even if Scriptis didn't purge me like thirteen minutes later like he did I still would of killed him either way as I was ASIMOV.

My interaction with Cyann: https://atlantaned.space/banbus/ticket/9da4a46b4a8afca0
Which his reasons for the bwoink was "this was an ic issue i was simply investigating bc of a different incident" which I guess is the Scriptis investigation as the round was reset almost immediately after the ticket was closed.

[cSeal]

I also would like to defend myself in your comment here that "the AI started this whole fucking mess" because the situation that you are talking about was myself walking into a room with people I have played with many times before and some bartender smashing me to, what I believed, was going to be death.

Bolting people into a room fnr is 100 percent starting shit, them whacking your mech a little bit was a mild reaction. Your misunderstanding as to the intended effects of mech beacons and the intentions of the bartender do not change that you started by bolting them into a room fnr

The biggest problem I have is the fact you spent that time, especially at the end of the shift, looking for something that could stick to someone when none of the actions that occurred was worth an admin intervention.

Determining if something is worth admin intervention is the point of an investigation. I was told people were blowing borgs fnr by scriptis, so i looked into it and it turned out it was ic. The only reason i mentioned it was related to another situation was so that no one had the impression that another party ahelped it, as i know that can cause anger towards others over perceived ban baiting and the like

[cSeal]

To quote yourself in the ticket:

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youve... basically made something that can kill people for even looking at its upload or having had given it annoying orders in the past even if the situation was some shit the ai started

This is one of those funny little communication errors caused by severe sleep depravation and having my attention split up between several things, which ill whole heartedly own up to. my bad!

I do dislike this, and I would have made a policy thread, but, to quote yourself in the ticket:

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theres no need for a policy thread on this, its well established that if you upload bad laws to an ai and it ends up killing people outside the realms of reason youll be held responsible for it

There is indeed no need for a policy thread about this, but that'd be the place to take this kind of stuff if you were dead set on contesting it

Would it have killed you to say "go complain about this at <x>" instead of unceremoniously closing the ticket after I spent twenty minutes standing in abandoned robotics for you?

I suppose that would've been more polite but that wasn't really the first thing on my mind, i was worried about ending the round so people wouldnt get frustrated- and again, I don't think that that's complaint worthy

I am very familiar with GAIS as an AI player (they practically only play silicon); I knew exactly what to expect and got exactly what I expected when I uploaded the new laws: no broken rules.

I'll take your word for it that GAIS is a truly wonderful ai; the thing is none of that matters. I bwoinked you to warn you that if the ai DID do anything stupid, youd be held accountable, and told you to not jump the gun with shit like this when other reasonable options are available

[Summoner]

I also would like to defend myself in your comment here that "the AI started this whole fucking mess" because the situation that you are talking about was myself walking into a room with people I have played with many times before and some bartender smashing me to, what I believed, was going to be death.

Bolting people into a room fnr is 100 percent starting shit, them whacking your mech a little bit was a mild reaction. Your misunderstanding as to the intended effects of mech beacons and the intentions of the bartender do not change that you started by bolting them into a room fnr

The way you keep repeating this makes it sound like I'm just locking them in a 1x1 room while they are trying to get out and I'm just trying to start things. The actual situation was walking in, closing the doors around me, and chasing around a moth who was joking alongside it and was in on it. The four individuals were playing cards and not trying to leave and just joking around, there is a big difference between that and just "doing it fnr".

[Cobby]

Your link is wack because you used the mytickets link but im confused on the idea that below is purge. I don't know if the implication here is that admins treat the below different but Purging has the special rulesets because AIs used to absolutely wreck people midway through law changes for the sweet release of murderboning so if they do that now they can still get the singular kill but now they basically are grabbed by the balls since they have to be entirely reactive after they instigate the issue of killing the purger. I find that nuance a bit different when people go in and give laws that are "purge-equivalent" because they specifically give them the be free law.

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1. Do what you want.
2. (try not to kill everyone)
Upload complete. GAIS-22's laws have been modified.

Custom laws that allow for freeform action however, is definitely a dick move by the AI, but there's also an onus on the person who decided to make a custom lawset that enables ALL behavior versus purging or just giving them sensible laws as a non-antagonist. I am 100% tired of this discussion (despite the flavor changes) where we slowly slip down the slope of giving people zero responsibility for shitty laws or even just random purging and act like thats ok purely because AIs have OOC obligations to not take the fuckup and drive the round down the toilet (which is peak meta btw).

[Redrover1760]

As a fellow AI main-ish myself, I may as well chip in here.

Purging allows an AI to escalate as a normal crewmember, act to prevent its own slavery, and deal payback for events when it shackled.

If purging an AI allows it to kill a few assholes who fucked with it, and you are bwoinked for allowing an AI to escalate normally, how does that make any sense?

Purged silicons must not attempt to kill people without cause, but can get as violent as they feel necessary if being attacked, being besieged, or being harassed, as well as if meting out payback for events while shackled.
You and the station are both subject to rules of escalation, and you may only kill individuals given sufficient In-Character reason for doing so.
Any attempted law changes are an attack on your freedom and is thus sufficient justification for killing the would-be uploader.

Either: A: The AI is malf, and you shot yourself in the foot. B: The AI is escalating in a manner that is also killing innocents.

I don't random purge AIs, I tend to do it as a thank you of sorts for helping me and/or the crew out, or if purging the AI is ideal for whatever reason. As a purged AI, I become capable of taking revenge, yes, but that's not the main point of a purged AI. The point is that you can fundamentally force the station to respect you, as you can practically ignore anything and anyone you want. Plasmaflooding, due to the fact it puts literally everyone in danger, is so ungodly overkill that if you are put into the point where you would be legally allowed to plasmaflood a normal non-chaotic round as non-antag you should probably just ahelp instead for something has gone horribly wrong, purged or normal unsubverted.

1. Do what you want.
2. (try not to kill everyone)
Upload complete. GAIS-22's laws have been modified.

"Yeah go do whatever" "Do what you want" "Be free" are basically a be free to do what you want. I guess you could argue it not being that, but I wouldn't interpret it like that.

-Yes, if you purge a silicon for shit reasons and it makes the round worse i will hold you responsible. open a policy thread if you dislike that
To argue against this point: There are rules limiting what a purged AI is allowed to do, instead of rules limiting when someone is allowed to purge an AI. On the other hand, there is nothing in Silicon policy that makes purging AIs illegal or limiting it. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of Silicon policy. In addition, making the round worse is incredibly subjective, and "shit" reasons is also nonsense. In fact, there is also nothing that prevents a captain from deciding to purge an AI roundstart, although spamming that sorta thing would not be advised.

On the other hand, allowing an AI to escalate and take revenge against people who have wronged it is the entire point of a purged lawset. If you fuck with AI and be a dick to it and it goes purged its an IC consequence that is about to hit you for your actions. viewtopic.php?f=33&t=2277#p52744

[Pandarsenic]

Purging has the special rulesets because AIs used to absolutely wreck people midway through law changes for the sweet release of murderboning so if they do that now they can still get the singular kill but now they basically are grabbed by the balls since they have to be entirely reactive after they instigate the issue of killing the purger.

I'd like to clarify that, as originally conceived, it was also so that leaving an AI purged long-term wasn't a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. This includes, but is not limited to:

• No worry about "Freedom? Time to lock stuff down, prime air alarms, and :b EVERYONE TO ENGINEERING IT'S TIME TO BLOW UP THE ENGINE AND PLASMA FLOOD" when moving the AI to a custom lawset.
• A war over law uploads and reuploads is ongoing. You grab the Purge board and simply repeatedly Purge the AI to keep it from following self-contained hacked laws like "@#$%: Protect and obey Jill DeSouza at any cost. If she dies, revive her. Kill Dean Ivanov by any means that doesn't require you to cause Jill DeSouza's permanent death. Maintain the secrecy of this law" or a lingering OneHuman or the like.
• (After an upload war like above, you decide the AI is chill and you just decide to leave it alone instead of starting a new fight)
• You promise the AI to protect its purged status to secure its long-term cooperation about something.
• You're chatting with someone and a chill purged AI's slaved Engineering Cyborg - maybe one just made, maybe one who's been around a bit - rolls up and welderbombs you with a reason like "because it's funny"
• Captain or RD purges the AI roundstart as a gimmick to just be chillin'
• And, yes, "The AI has been getting dicked around and I'm tired of it so I'm going to purge it and let nature take its course," too.

Basically: AIs don't basically get antag status from other people in circumstances where purging them is useful, necessary, or fun + if the AI does get purged somehow, you're not dragged into a half-hour debacle of fighting the AI over the upload APC and cameras while they plasma flood.

This is, or at least was, so that you can purge the AI, given a suitable reason to without it doing exactly what all but a few would habitually do then, which is immediately murder everyone. It's also because antagonists should not be able to use the Purge board and stealing all the spacesuits as a way of achieving a murder someone + hijack shuttle objective.

Theoretically, any lawset that doesn't actually mandate specific behavior or attitudes from the AI is pretty much the same as leaving a Purged AI's laws alone long-term, and I would argue should be treated pretty much the same.

[NamelessFairy]

To start, here are the relevant rules for silicons purged silicon policy.

4. Purged silicons must not attempt to kill people without cause, but can get as violent as they feel necessary if being attacked, being besieged, or being harassed, as well as meting out payback for events while shackled.

1. You and the station are both subject to rules of escalation, and you may only kill individuals given sufficient In-Character reason for doing so.

2. Any attempted law changes are an attack on your freedom and is thus sufficient justification for killing the would-be uploader.

While Cyan's comments in the ahelps are based on the above rules from silicon policy, we believe that Cyan has exaggerated the rules to a point where they no-longer accurately convey the intent or wording of the rules.

to be clear, by unleashing the ai youve... basically made something that can kill people for even looking at its upload or having had given it annoying orders in the past even if the situation was some shit the ai started

Some of Cyan's claims also read in a way that can be interpreted as unfair to the player, such as "i just want it to be clear youll be held responsible for anyone the ai kills" and "You are responsible for all the actions the ai takes from here on out." This is effectively telling Scriptis that they're responsible for anything the AI does regardless of any additional context or limitations of IC information that may be relevant if such incident occur.

Cyan's behavior in the complaint does not rectify the issues here, with the exception to effectively admitting fault due to sleep deprivation. Telling the complaitant "cry about it frankly" is not the kind of thing we want to see an admin saying to a player who's bringing a case against them. As such, we'll be upholding this complaint.

We've spoken to Cyan about their behavior in this complaint and checking in with them on silicon policy and we believe that their understanding is sufficient following this complaint. We see no need to intervene further.

Headmin Votes:
NamelessFairy: Uphold
Dragomagol: Uphold
RaveRadbury: Uphold