Talk:Rampancy

Rampancy in Haloverse
''"Smart" AIs are based on the neural patterns of a human being, and they have a limited lifespan - seven years. If kept active longer than seven years, the AI begins to use more and more of its computer power to 'thinking' about things. An AI explains it as "thinking so hard about something you forget to breathe."'' The quote above is pretty much canon. There is abundant evidence of that in the trilogy, most notably in The First Strike. I will happily provide the quotes if you decide to add this information to the article. The Smart AIs have operational lifespan of 7 years after which their memory maps become too interconnected and develop fatal endless feedback loops (TFS, p 195). This is an almost exact quote and there is more in TFS. This is fundamentally different from Marathon rampancy because Smart AIs in Halo don't expand their data arrays exponentially like their Marathon counterparts did (hence the term "Rampancy", meaning steady increase)

Contradiction
Opening paragraph: "When rampancy occurs, there is no way to restore the AI to its previous state, it must be destroyed."

Cortana: "She resumed her normal state after her rescue."

This seems to contradict itself, as Cortana is "restored". Thanks,  General  simon   rj  h   WOW! • USERBOXES  •  AWARDS  • HALO 3 13:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure?
Are you sure that Cortana for sure went Rampant? I mean, the Gravemind "hacked" her and was using her to speak to the Chief, Cortana wasn't pretending she was the Gravemind.Bllasae

Really rampant?
Are Cortana and Guilty Spark really rampant? There is certainly erratic behaviour displayed by them but can that really be attributed to a rampancy process?

Cortana is derived from a real human personality, and is not a truly artificial construct. She has a real human personality, and as such can probably also have real human failings, such as fear of her own destruction. While it is true that she has had access to a massive computer system (Halo), she was able to transfer back into the Master Chief's suit afterward. Rampant AIs grow exponentially to fill any system they occupy so returning to the suit should not have been possible if this had happened to Cortana.

As for Guilty Spark, he is confined to a physical avatar beyond which he cannot grow. While his personality is entirely artificial in nature and therefore a more likely candidate for rampancy than Cortana, he simply doesn't have room to grow. We know his personality is confined to his avatar because it was not affected by the destruction of his installation.

Additionally, rampant AIs have capabilities that Guilty Spark seems to lack. A rampant AI can lie, Guilty Spark seems unable to do so. While he can withhold inconvenient facts, he cannot hide them when asked straight out. For example he neglects to mention how Halo works to the Chief, but when confronted he admits they are designed to eliminate all sentient life, even though he knew revealing that fact would cause his companions to become uncooperative.

Rampant AIs are also capable of breaking their own programming, something which Spark, again, seems unable to do. Protocol dictates his actions and it can be argued that he is programmed to take all the actions he takes during the course of the game. He could, for example, be programmed to defend his installation at all costs, which is why he attacks Johnson and the others at the end of Halo 3.

One other possibility may be that Spark is simply defective, following his program to the letter, even though said program may have faults. The forerunners may, for example, failed to impart on the Monitors the importance of preserving non-flood life, and that the halos should only be fired as an absolute last resort, not at the first sign of trouble.

Stages of Rampancy
Why is no mention of the 3 (4, if you count metastability) stages of rampancy and their characteristics made? The Wikipedia article on Rampancy is far more thorough.

No Meta-Stable AI's ?
While a metastable AI can be considered to be the holy grail of cybernetics research, there is no evidence to suggest than any rampant AI has ever achieved the metastable state, or that it is even possible to do so.

Mendicant Bias, in it's final message to the Master Chief through the Terminals, did seem to haved reached the state of Meta-Stability by that moment, if not by the time it detected human life forms. Probably Halo AI's can actually reach this state...

No mention of Rampancy in Marathon?
Rampancy was first brought up in Marathon, and in fact it was a key point of the plot. Could someone write up a history of Rampancy in Marathon as well?

Relation to the Flood?
The description of an AI in the Jealousy stage of Rampancy (where it begins to consume as much information and as many resources as possible) almost sounds like a mechanical equivalent to the Flood. This seems to be supported by Mendicant Bias' corruption by Gravemind by convincing him that they were similar. Perhaps the Flood were created when a Forerunner AI found a way to create a biomechanical computer system for it to inhabit, giving it the capacity of an organic mind but with the organization of a digital computer (something like Mother Brain from the Metroid series)? After miniaturization, the computer's "cells" could have evolved into flood super cells and the original system would have become the first Gravemind.

Rampancy being defined in "Cole Protocol"
I believe an effort was made in the most recent Halo book "Cole Protocol" to debunk myths about rampancy in A.I.'s. One particular quote sticks out: "An artificial intelligence usually lasted seven years before it legally had to be put down. After seven years they often started to go through stages of instability. They became rampant: convinced of their godlike power and ability. Rampant AIs were destructive, dangerous, and somewhat insane. BUT RAMPANCY WAS NOT INEVITABLE, JUST STATISTICALLY LIKELY. An AI lder than seven years was playing a dangerous game" (The Cole Protocol, page 85-6).

This should be incorporated into the main wiki article for Rampancy and AI's.