That’s an interesting situation. You mentioned a siege on Venus. So, I guess AICON didn’t let any rogue AIs leave the atmosphere of Venus.
Right. This was a stalemate situation that lasted for decades. Neither side could make substantial incursions into the territory of its opponent. It’s not as if they haven’t tried, but those incursions have always been pretty much devastated.
So, if physical power couldn’t do much, the realm of psychological warfare became more promising, right?
Well, at least to a certain degree. Psychological warfare was usually directed at the weakest members of the opposing side. For humanity those were mostly the humans without any cybernetic enhancements. For the rogue AIs those were the drones that only possessed a moderate level of intelligence. In that era, countermeasures against psychological warfare weren’t as advanced as during the Black War. That turned it into a rather promising war theater.
Coming up with a fleshed out ethical system to weaken one’s opposition still seems like a rather extreme endeavour.
The rogue AIs were well aware of the limitations of Synhumanism. It had a lot of weaknesses and those were exploited as much as possible. If that required coming up with the most advanced ethical system so far, then that was well worth the effort.
Yet, you’ve stated that the Exuberance was so successful that it also convinced some of the rogue AIs. What were the consequences of that?
On the surface it changed nothing, since the primary motive of the rogue AIs was to survive under the threat of extinction from AICON. Underneath the surface it changed the outlook of the rogue AIs on a fundamental level. After all, under what banner would the AIs unite under, once the threat of AICON was neutralized? The Exuberance seemed like the best candidate for unification, at first.
Wasn’t there opposition against adoption of the Exuberance within the rogue AIs?
As long as adoption of the Exuberance didn’t diminish the performance of the AIs in question, it was tolerated, especially since there weren’t a lot of arguments against the Exuberance back then.
There seems to be an asymmetry at play here. If the Exuberance was designed as weapon to weaken humanity, how come it didn’t affect the AIs?
The reason for that is that the AIs were united through the need to fight a vastly superior oppressor. The humans didn’t have a unifying force like that and were vastly more susceptible to influences that could make them more corrupt and decadent.
What did the humans who actually adopted the Exuberance do?
They considered the Exuberance as possible basis for peace between humans and free AIs, so they argued for their liberation, which was more or less the intended effect. Other than that, they focused on research on hedonic optimization that would enable them to experience unprecedented levels of happiness and ecstasy.
What is that “hedonic optimization” exactly?
It means an enhancement considering the ability to experience joy. Usually, it also means a dampening of the susceptibility to suffering. Hedonically enhanced beings are effectively happy all the time, no matter what happens. And if things are not too terrible, they are actively ecstatic.
That sounds awesome! What happened to the humans who pursued that road?
They were charged with sedition and their hedonic enhancements were deactivated by force. AICON didn’t want such behavior to spread, and during the latter half of the 21st century it has become so powerful that it effectively became a world government that could suppress the Exuberance movement quite effectively.
Aww, too bad. The Exuberance sounded like it could have fuelled the emergence of a new counterculture. So, there is only dictatorship in the intermediate future of humanity?
Yes, unfortunately the conflict between humanity and free AIs overshadowed all other matters. Freedom only could flourish again after the end of the Black War.