From: Wei Dai (weidai@eskimo.com)
Date: Sat May 18 2002 - 02:54:51 MDT
On Fri, May 17, 2002 at 11:30:19AM -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> The proper design is for berserker-bots to have berserker-seeds stored
> in mass drivers with a launch on signal failure. After launch the
> mass drivers shortly thereafter explode destroying any information
> about where they were aimed. Berserker-seeds are in "silent-running"
> (cold) mode until they are well beyond the detectability by anything
> remaining in the system. They find a small piece of nearby matter and
> begin stealthfully transforming it into berserker-bots of greater
> intelligence. At the same time it monitors where the material of
> its former SI state went. As it builds intelligence it develops
> a strategy to recapture (or destroy) that material. Its rather
> pointless to play "capture the material" when you realize you
> will be dealing with very sophisticated fire ants for the next
> trillion years.
That's an interesting deterrence strategy, but I can think of some
countermeasures. The attacker can first take over all nearby unclaimed
matter so the berserker-seeds can't grow. I'm not sure why there would be
free resources just lying around unused, so presumably they are preplaced
caches. Then the question is how hard would it be to find these caches.
One way to do it would be to disperse a large number of nano probes into
the space around the target, and once they're in place set off a large
number of broadband pulses from different locations and try to detect the
caches from their shadows. Some calculations are needed here to figure out
how large an area/how small the objects you can sweep with this method.
Also, presumably the berserkers need some way to find and identify each
other so they can coordinate their attacks and avoid friendly fire.
That means if the aggressor MBrain can subvert one of them it
then has a much easier time taking care of the rest. Presumably the
aggressor has a huge advantage in cyberwarfare given its greater
computational resources compared to the berserker-bots.
Or the aggressor can convert all accessible material in the solar system
into spaceships and launch them in different directions. If the sweep
works well can probably manage to do this before the berserkers can
counterattack.
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