Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Carolingian]

You're thinking too deep, it's a simulation based on memories.
They simulate the thoughts, the feeling, the desires.

The Endless aren’t a society, they’re a zoo.

So with that logic AI, Androids, or other forms of synthetic life-forms can never be alive or sentient? So Omega and Gigi are fake and belong in a zoo. The Omicrons in general, who used to be people but then uploaded their brains into computers (not unlike the Endless), aren't a society. And what about the Crystal Exarch? We upload his memories into young G'raha after he died yet act like he's still very much the same person we travelled the first with. Is that also just fake?

I honestly couldn't disagree more. If a creature/being has self-awareness, intelligence, and the capability of change and their own dreams and desires then I'd personally consider them alive and at the very least sentient. And the Endless possess all of that. We even see them beat the Turing Test.

But I can respect it if you simply belief that artificial intelligence can never be considered sentient but then I am honestly curious if you think the same of AI characters in other franchises like EDI in Mass Effect, Data in Star Trek, Cortana in Halo, C3P0 in Star Wars, and Wall-E in... Wall-E.

So in allot of ppl views we should sacrifice the other shards to let ppl who long since dead continue to thrive????

No, those are two separate questions. Are the Endless alive/sentient, and were we right in stopping Sphene? I'd personally answer both questions with yes, I just question whether the way we stopped Sphene was truly the best way, and I criticise the shallow writing surrounding both of these things. Again, it's not unlike the ending of ME3 where destroying the Reapers also suddenly required the destruction of EDI and the Geth because the writers said so, just like destroying Sphene also requires the destruction of the Endles just because the writers say so. No matter all the potential alternative solutions.

[arstoka]

Perhaps Dynamis?

I mean, I don't disagree that it's a possible solution but...

There are some issues with Dynamis:

1. The Shard, like the Source, is still aether rich despite its denizens being of thinner aether (unlike Ultima Thule which is the opposite).
2. Dynamis is a McGuffin that only works in certain circumstances and when the plot needs it to. That isn't to say it _couldn't_ be used but it's ill-defined and the writers have chosen to not explore it in Dawntrail (much like other concepts they have decided to ignore...or forgo to make the plot work).
3. We also don't know the process for which new Dynamis based lifeforms are created. Again, it just kind of exists and is reactive to emotions.
4. If it is based on emotions, how come people die on the Source (or any Shard for that matter) if they believe hard enough (especially after the events of Endwalker)? How are they not able to live in perpetuity because "I REFUSE TO DIE". The only strong case for this would be the Warrior of Light but...we're basically a demi-god with plot armour that exceeds the limits and constraints of the world building in may ways. The WoL is not a good benchmark to define what is possible of others in the world building. You then turn Dynamis into a belief system and...there goes any sense of tension in the story because you just render any death as "Hauchefaunt died because he didn't believe he could live (hard enough)" or any other such nonsense when a character is dying or has died. (I mean, Guloul Ja Ja died, surely he wanted to live hard enough to protect his people? No? That's not how that works? Okay.)

I would argue that using Dynamis to create bodies and maintain the lives of the Endless would be incredibly boring and would be more of a determent to the overall quality of the world building because, not only has Dynamis been used to destroy the literal embodiment of Despair, saving the "people" of Living Memory with it would only posit the answer to almost EVERY conflict as "why didn't we use Dynamis to resolve this" or "why didn't we save them with Dynamis"? (Granted, the writers in Endwalker sufficiently shot themselves in both feet and an arm for introducing this concept in the first place, but I digress.)

I'd much rather prefer the more grey area of forcing the memories onto a cleansed soul and stuffing it into a robot or other corporeal body (see Ala Mhigo the dugeon's body swap fight, or Endwalker) (or robots in a similar vein to Otis) than saying "Dynamis did it". (I mean, the Regulators already do part 1, and Otis existed for like....400 years as a sentient being without any actual signs of being obsolete aside from when he took on too much lightning energy which killed him but that's an exceptional circumstance.)

[MikkoAkure]

So with that logic AI, Androids, or other forms of synthetic life-forms can never be alive or sentient? So Omega and Gigi are fake and belong in a zoo.

I didn’t say that they aren’t sentient. I said they’re not a society.

They only exist because Sphene cant let her people go. All their needs are met by the system and they’re just there for Sphene’s enjoyment. There’s a few different “habitats” with various things going on to keep them entertained but one of the Endless even says they can only watch the same play over and over so many times. They probably can’t even really form new meaningful relationships amongst themselves because who knows when one of them might get sucked back in again and only manifested centuries later. It took that one NPC 3 “reincarnation” cycles for him and his beloved from their actual living lives to be made corporeal in Living Memory at the same time.

Since they’re stuck there, there’s only so much they can accomplish and eventually the terminal is just going to randomly stick them back in the server after some time anyway. There’s nothing for them to do except exist, at least the Ancients were actively discovering things and trying to improve their society. Closest the Endless have is the guy who hands out buckets of fake popcorn.

It’s not their fault though, Living Memory is designed to just be some sort of artificial afterlife collecting the dead to be displayed. But in that regard it’s more like a zoo than an actual society.

[Carin-Eri]

*Snip due to text length*

Thanks for the reply - excellent points!

I'd have to agree that using Dynamis to explain this would feel... well, lazy. I guess it just occurred to me that the whole 'sustaining themselves through strong lingering emotions' had some similarities to how Dynamis was said to work.

Eitherway, agree that it wouldn't be a good use of it - it would basically become FFXIV's version of the Dragonballs.

[CKNovel]

So with that logic AI, Androids, or other forms of synthetic life-forms can never be alive or sentient? So Omega and Gigi are fake and belong in a zoo. The Omicrons in general, who used to be people but then uploaded their brains into computers (not unlike the Endless), aren't a society. And what about the Crystal Exarch? We upload his memories into young G'raha after he died yet act like he's still very much the same person we travelled the first with. Is that also just fake?

I honestly couldn't disagree more. If a creature/being has self-awareness, intelligence, and the capability of change and their own dreams and desires then I'd personally consider them alive and at the very least sentient. And the Endless possess all of that. We even see them beat the Turing Test.

But I can respect it if you simply belief that artificial intelligence can never be considered sentient but then I am honestly curious if you think the same of AI characters in other franchises like EDI in Mass Effect, Data in Star Trek, Cortana in Halo, C3P0 in Star Wars,

Big strawman there, we never mentioned those characters, focus back on XIV's golden city, not Omega, not C3PO, not Wall-E or your coffee machine that says good morning every morning.
G'raha wasn't dead just asleep, both just fused you can ask him after waking him up from the Crystal tower.

You also makes a massive mix-up comparing AI that thinks for itself and AI that is ordered to think in a certain way. You need to spread your emotional thinking and logical thinking.

As for your other questions, "were we right to stop Sphene" just take the same situation in a different way. Imagine if Sphene was taking care of Undead and those undeads requires live human flesh to feed.
Would it be moral to stop Sphene? Of course it's moral, at which point does sacrificing a life to prolong the image of another is moral?

[Zakuyia]

So with that logic AI, Androids, or other forms of synthetic life-forms can never be alive or sentient? So Omega and Gigi are fake and belong in a zoo. The Omicrons in general, who used to be people but then uploaded their brains into computers (not unlike the Endless), aren't a society. And what about the Crystal Exarch? We upload his memories into young G'raha after he died yet act like he's still very much the same person we travelled the first with. Is that also just fake?

I honestly couldn't disagree more. If a creature/being has self-awareness, intelligence, and the capability of change and their own dreams and desires then I'd personally consider them alive and at the very least sentient. And the Endless possess all of that. We even see them beat the Turing Test.

But I can respect it if you simply belief that artificial intelligence can never be considered sentient but then I am honestly curious if you think the same of AI characters in other franchises like EDI in Mass Effect, Data in Star Trek, Cortana in Halo, C3P0 in Star Wars, and Wall-E in... Wall-E.



No, those are two separate questions. Are the Endless alive/sentient, and were we right in stopping Sphene? I'd personally answer both questions with yes, I just question whether the way we stopped Sphene was truly the best way, and I criticise the shallow writing surrounding both of these things. Again, it's not unlike the ending of ME3 where destroying the Reapers also suddenly required the destruction of EDI and the Geth because the writers said so, just like destroying Sphene also requires the destruction of the Endles just because the writers say so. No matter all the potential alternative solutions.

Honestly your all making this harder than it needs to be. Pull the plug shut it down. There are an abomination. What makes there existence even remotely understandable. They are like ashkin being who need to long since be removed. There existence threatens other shards I long since made my peace. Shutting down there existence is a mercy. What did Erenville mother call it a twisted mosuleum

[Turtledeluxe]

There was plenty of instances where we were not even given the ability to explain and talk about problems. The lightning-aspected soul sickness for instance... we have a cure for that and we discovered it in The First against light-aspected souls and bring it back to equilibrium. We brought it in the Source to cure the tempering of various races, may it be due to other primal influences like Ifrit, Titan, Leviathan, etc. We have a solution. We never got to explaining it. Plot just jumps ahead and skips it. Why?

Time restrictive setting... it feels more like just poor writing in general.

Correct. The writers didn't really do their homework as far as previous expansions. But also.. you can't tell the writers knew certain players were going to make threads like this? It's poorly written, but their rationale is all in the script. A lot of the timetable stuff, alternatives fuel sources, etc are addressed by Sphene and Cachiua, a couple of times. You have to move to theories like "well those characters don't know what they're talking about and we do becuase umm, the Crystal Tower". I mean that's fine if you want to theorycraft. But I think the story is written in a way that protects itself from being deemed genocide, just with VERY convenient and on the nose dialogue.

And Endwalker did the very same thing to address the awkwardness of events going exactly the same despite the Elpis meddling.

That's why I don't think these are necessarily worth ethical analysis when they're just problems borne of writing, not ideological problems.

And ultimately we do agree on one thing. The writers are hovering around complex and interest theoretical concepts but treating with them with kid gloves for easy access emotional payoff. That sums up 7.0 in its entirety. It's all payoff with no buildup.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

*snip*

There are two arguments made in Living Memory and when people take issue with the first, people bring up the second while never addressing the first.

1. The Endless are unnatural, inferior beings and therefore it's fine to eradicate them.
2. Sphene will be forced by her programming to destroy all life in the universe to maintain the Endless.

Here's the thing, if someone suggested we kill every single Garlean so Varis would have no reason to conquer the Source, not only would we refuse to do it, we'd think that person was a monster. However, with the Endless, the characters pout a little, grumble about it being hard, but they still wipe out an entire people between boat rides and ice cream and the reason for that is because they are deemed an inferior form of life.

"I do not consider you truly alive, ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you."

And every argument anyone might try to make as to why the Endless do not meet the standards of personhood are undercut by the narrative itself. Why am I dressing up as a bunny to give happy memories to an AI I am about to shut down? Because the story attempted to have it's cake and eat it too, we're TOLD that these are not people and we shouldn't feel guilty about deleting them, but we're SHOWN that in every way that matters they were people. And whether we had to kill them or not to save ourselves, killing them should have been treated with more gravity.

We have a guy tell us that he was PROUD that he took the same job in death that he had in life and that he STAYED TRUE TO HIMSELF. Why is this AI that I've already shut down saying this? Because he wasn't a program, he a person, a person whose existence I just ended and ending his existence even if I did it to save all life in the universe should have been treated with more respect.

[MikkoAkure]

Here's the thing, if someone suggested we kill every single Garlean so Varis would have no reason to conquer the Source, not only would we refuse to do it, we'd think that person was a monster. However, with the Endless, the characters pout a little, grumble about it being hard, but they still wipe out an entire people between boat rides and ice cream and the reason for that is because they are deemed an inferior form of life.

You're comparing apples to oranges and the scenarios are completely different.

The Garleans are normal, mundane people comparatively with just one life to live. The Endless have already lived and died and are then brought back into an artificial afterlife after the incorporeal parts of their being are processed in a factory and then require the souls of others to keep going. But the civilization the Endless came from still exists. Alexandria is right there, no one on the Source is threatening their existence, and they are free to continue on. Turning off the terminals to save the world doesn't endanger the country they came from, no one at all is affected by their loss, and none of them even die in the traditional sense since they have already died before and have been on borrowed time.

The living Alexandrians don't even remember the Endless, they just know that when you die you go to the cloud but they have no memories of the individuals. That was the whole point of us interacting with them instead of just going straight to the terminals (also to pad out the zone). Their own families and loved ones won't remember them when they're gone and they don't remember them now, but at least we can if no one else will. They had no interactions with the living world at all except for one Turali expat who remote-controlled a robot.

The situation sucks and tough situations make writing more compelling, but this is not at all like killing a whole civilization of living people because not only is the rest of their civilization carrying on just fine without caring about them at all, they were already dead to begin with.

[Carolingian]

Big strawman there, we never mentioned those characters, focus back on XIV's golden city, not Omega, not C3PO, not Wall-E or your coffee machine that says good morning every morning.

But they're the same thing; sentient synthetic life-forms. AI with self awareness, the ability to change and adapt, with desires and dreams, with emotions.