The Internet in Honoverse

OsageOrange wrote:Based on what I know of the Honorverse, there would be at least localized Internets, most likely on the planetary scale, and perhaps on a system scale. An intergalactic one, even with present in-universe tech, is extremely impractical.

Can you say monetization of distributed information?

Thinking about the problem I'm guessing that Honorverse probably has google-like companies which has monetized information distribution between systems.

Joat42 wrote:
Can you say monetization of distributed information?

Thinking about the problem I'm guessing that Honorverse probably has google-like companies which has monetized information distribution between systems.

Undoubtedly, and I'd place a bet that the Hauptman Cartel would have its own fair share of such policies and cover companies that would operate in internet-equivalent computer network.

oyohan wrote:
I understand that and appreciate the direction HE's taken the story. The human element is everything. I'm just pointing out that MWW probably started planning out the story arcs in the 80s... if things progressed linearly, no issue. But current events and current tech advances kinda impact the world the author creates... esp in the realm of science fiction. It's been a exponential increase in tech changes.

Having played around with computers since 1981, i´ll have to object, because really, the differences are essentially in speed, not in function.

And it´s only a couple of years since it was considered a great achievement for the Neuron AI to be able to fly in formation with another aircraft. Because as long as AIs are nothing but number crunching, they are not seeing reality, only numbers representing reality, there is zero actual understanding involved.

And speed of computing doesn´t affect that.

The most advanced AIs today can at best fake appearing "smart", but in reality, it´s just utter bullshit.

That computer they had playing Jeopardy or the bigass chess one? Zero intelligence. Both are built on being able to cheat really fast, by using supersized libraries of information, information catalogued and organised by humans.

So for the chess computer thing for example? I saw what happened when they tried having it play without the cheat libraries(millions of games played by humans), and then it lost 19 out of 20 games against international champions, and >3/4 against national champions.

Truth is, i´m not seeing anything closer to AI today than i saw when i was 6 years old and fiddled with a computer for the first time.

And having been involved in trying to write AIs, well lets just say that project was dumped for good reasons.

Tenshinai wrote:

oyohan wrote:Truth is, i´m not seeing anything closer to AI today than i saw when i was 6 years old and fiddled with a computer for the first time.

And having been involved in trying to write AIs, well lets just say that project was dumped for good reasons.

What about all the recent "progress" in machine learning or deep learning and quantum computing? I use quotes because I'm not educated enough to judge if it's true progress or not. But I watch a lot of TED talks and follow the news. It seems like there is progress being made... Elon Musk said in his recent bio that he worries that Sergey Brin will accidentally unleash it upon humanity.

And those examples... Big Blue... that's decades old.

oyohan wrote:What about all the recent "progress" in machine learning or deep learning and quantum computing? I use quotes because I'm not educated enough to judge if it's true progress or not. But I watch a lot of TED talks and follow the news. It seems like there is progress being made... Elon Musk said in his recent bio that he worries that Sergey Brin will accidentally unleash it upon humanity.

And those examples... Big Blue... that's decades old.

What you have are improvements in programs (written by humans), which can fake intelligence quite well. It is like in the Honorverse: as long as the problems posed or questions asked are within the parameters of the program, it can react quite well. The problems arise in unexpected situations. Because much higher computer speed, things can be handled, which was not possible some years ago. But this is a developement in grade, not in quality.

I think it's already there and ubiquitous in "first world" free systems, meaning that the SL's problem for the past X00 years has been laziness allowing corruption to become indemic. Consider how Anton Zilwicki operates, or why Ruth Winton's handheld "mini-comp" which "in plot" is a hacker/cracker's dream machine is worth more than it's weight in well -- any known earth substance you'd like to name.

Then again, you've nailed the "space" distance problem precisely. Using Anton's mission to Smoking Frog or their infiltration of Mesa as examples, there's no "universal internet". Manticore in fact is the de-facto power in the universe because their ships not only carry the most cargo, but in the process are the banking couriers for most of the human explored galaxy.

Come to think of it, maybe the MAlign should have rethought their plans once the streak drive capability became available, and used that added speed to dominate the "information carrying trade" -- also allowing them to dominate and even dismember the SL via "disinformation wars". A lot cheaper and less risky than pissing off Manticore militarily, that is for dang sure.

SharkHunter wrote:
Come to think of it, maybe the MAlign should have rethought their plans once the streak drive capability became available, and used that added speed to dominate the "information carrying trade" -- also allowing them to dominate and even dismember the SL via "disinformation wars". A lot cheaper and less risky than pissing off Manticore militarily, that is for dang sure.

What makes you think they haven't?

kzt wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:
Come to think of it, maybe the MAlign should have rethought their plans once the streak drive capability became available, and used that added speed to dominate the "information carrying trade" -- also allowing them to dominate and even dismember the SL via "disinformation wars". A lot cheaper and less risky than pissing off Manticore militarily, that is for dang sure.

What makes you think they haven't?

No textev that they have, and plenty textev that they have pissedof Manticore.

kzt wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:
Come to think of it, maybe the MAlign should have rethought their plans once the streak drive capability became available, and used that added speed to dominate the "information carrying trade" -- also allowing them to dominate and even dismember the SL via "disinformation wars". A lot cheaper and less risky than pissing off Manticore militarily, that is for dang sure.

What makes you think they haven't?

To your point, yes they are using disinformation, but much more than that they've been using blackmail whose sexually perverse vices they've been catering to, and the SLN's own institutional arrogance against them, by in essence feeding folks "their lines" of bad political and military misadventurism.

The type of disinformation I'm suggesting would be "using this newly developed streak drive" to carry petabytes of data faster, including at some point starting to feed bad data into an "arrived in system's" markets, that is basically galactic wide stock manipulation, eventually wrecking key industries, misdirecting resources, etc. etc.

Instead, they've killed millions of people and pissed off the deadliest space navy in the Honorovers. Yeah, like that's a grand way to get to the end game....

They effectively control the SLs media by controlling the SL agency that tells the palace guard media what to talk about.