Siding with the Institute is the only sane choice

[Einhanderc7]

The synths are sentient, however they are not sapient. there is a large difference in definition there.
The railroad foil to the institute, I'm not even sure what to do or think about that mindless addition to the game.

The factions feel like they are just there to reward some spoiled kid who couldn't stop whining about wanting BOS, super mutants, synths, the institute, and the railroad because it was in FO3.

 

[NMLevesque]

The synths are sentient, however they are not sapient. there is a large difference in definition there.
The railroad foil to the institute, I'm not even sure what to do or think about that mindless addition to the game.

What is your basis for saying they aren't sapient?

1.Attempting to appear wise or discerning.
2.(dated) Possessing wisdom and discernment; wise, learned.
3.(chiefly science fiction) Of a species or life-form, possessing intelligence or self-awareness.

I was actually pretty happy that they were going to expand upon the Institute, but then it turned out that they hate cybernetics. Which makes no sense. What's-his-face gives you a cybernetic upgrade for recapturing his slave...whose plasma rifle I then to melt WHF's face. It was also one of the better written quests in Fo3 but apparently Broken Steel was their favorite part...ugh. A transhumanist faction could have been great. It's not as though there aren't era-appropriate sci-fi stories to riff of of. Say, Invasion of the Body Snatchers but with androids. Huh...I wonder what Liberty Prime would have been like if he was modeled after Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still.

 

[CT Phipps]

They make Synths for disposable and extremely hard to kill labor.

One would think that would be extremely easy to understand.

Their 1st generation Synths suck at combat but Coursers are supposedly able to fight as well as Super Mutants.

The FEV project was to improve them even stronger.

The synths are sentient, however they are not sapient. there is a large difference in definition there.
The railroad foil to the institute, I'm not even sure what to do or think about that mindless addition to the game.

The factions feel like they are just there to reward some spoiled kid who couldn't stop whining about wanting BOS, super mutants, synths, the institute, and the railroad because it was in FO3.

I'm confused about what the problem with the Railroad is. Yes, they're overpowered but there's slaves and they rescue slaves.

Is there a problem with that?

 

[Walpknut]

The Railroad is a simplistic faction that has only one goal that affects such a small portion of the game world that one wonders why exactly where they one of the Big Factions at all. It's like if THe Kings got their own ednging in New Vegas but their quest is still the same length and then they nuke the NCR, Legion and Mr House out of nowhere for no reason. They don't even free slaves, they just free Synths exclusively. They are boring, their technology is mostly unexplained and their quest ends in a fart.

People put too much emphasis on the technology of the Institute breaking away from the usual aesthetic from the series as a negative.

I'll say that would've actually made them interesting... if they had done anything with it.
Just imagine a truly Alien faction, with ideals bigger than the Wasteland whose masterplan is all emcompasing and out of the mundane. Their kidnappings and replacing with Synths actually having any meaning.

But no, just people in Labcoats creating Replicants for no reason and rotting away in their hole on the ground once they fart their quest.

They make Synths for disposable and extremely hard to kill labor.

One would think that would be extremely easy to understand.

Their 1st generation Synths suck at combat but Coursers are supposedly able to fight as well as Super Mutants.

The FEV project was to improve them even stronger.

1. Robots exist in Fallout, also Synths aren't any harder to kill than the regular robot. Why even bother making them artificial humans instead of just making deployable turrets?

2. Super Mutants in FO4 are kind of a Joke.

3. How? And why did they just turned wastelanders and then release them into the wasteland?

 

[Alphons]

The Railroad is a simplistic faction that has only one goal that affects such a small portion of the game world that one wonders why exactly where they one of the Big Factions at all. It's like if THe Kings got their own ednging in New Vegas but their quest is still the same length and then they nuke the NCR, Legion and Mr House out of nowhere for no reason. They don't even free slaves, they just free Synths exclusively. They are boring, their technology is mostly unexplained and their quest ends in a fart.

People put too much emphasis on the technology of the Institute breaking away from the usual aesthetic from the series as a negative.

I'll say that would've actually made them interesting... if they had done anything with it.
Just imagine a truly Alien faction, with ideals bigger than the Wasteland whose masterplan is all emcompasing and out of the mundane. Their kidnappings and replacing with Synths actually having any meaning.

But no, just people in Labcoats creating Replicants for no reason and rotting away in their hole on the ground once they fart their quest.




1. Robots exist in Fallout, also Synths aren't any harder to kill than the regular robot. Why even bother making them artificial humans instead of just making deployable turrets?

2. Super Mutants in FO4 are kind of a Joke.

3. How? And why did they just turned wastelanders and then release them into the wasteland?

Railroad is more like if Followers were one of the main factions, offered radiant quests, asked you to complete whole House questline after Moon over the Tower to advance their plot and demanded that Legion and NCR should be destroyed, their children blasted in atomic generator explosion, because they stand in a way of Securitrons freedom.

 

[Einhanderc7]

It's all broken and debate is pointless. I think we are just spinning on our heads at this point trying to nit pick and ceaselessly aggravating topics that will never yield results of any kind. While the railroad and institute foil each other (some how?) they do so in the most haphazard way possible. To be honest its like observing two kids at a playground fighting over a broken toy.

As for the sentient/sapient topic, synths are not sapient. Sure they may seem like they possess wisdom but as shown by Valentines foray into Kellogg's mind we get to observe how they are programmed. The moment Valentine lets Kellogg shine through at the end of the "mind quest" it becomes apparent that the current personality of the Synth is nothing more than a carefully designed construct. People who feel that the synths are some how sapient in this case would also feel that their google home is "alive" as well.

 

[CT Phipps]

It's all broken and debate is pointless. I think we are just spinning on our heads at this point trying to nit pick and ceaselessly aggravating topics that will never yield results of any kind. While the railroad and institute foil each other (some how?) they do so in the most haphazard way possible. To be honest its like observing two kids at a playground fighting over a broken toy.

As for the sentient/sapient topic, synths are not sapient. Sure they may seem like they possess wisdom but as shown by Valentines foray into Kellogg's mind we get to observe how they are programmed. The moment Valentine lets Kellogg shine through at the end of the "mind quest" it becomes apparent that the current personality of the Synth is nothing more than a carefully designed construct. People who feel that the synths are some how sapient in this case would also feel that their google home is "alive" as well.

The problem with this argument is it makes no sense since brains are nothing more than programmed computers themselves. The hard problem of consciousness is one which has often been debated and about the nature of the soul but at the very least, our minds are still just biological distillations of information.

 

[Einhanderc7]

The problem with this argument is it makes no sense since brains are nothing more than programmed computers themselves. The hard problem of consciousness is one which has often been debated and about the nature of the soul but at the very least, our minds are still just biological distillations of information.

Therefore we lack the ability to determine if they are indeed sapient. We humans think we are because as far we know humans are the most intelligent entities around. We have innovated, created art, as well various languages and abstract concepts.

The Synths in this case are nothing more than an extension of human will, as they have not created anything on par with humans. Sure you can program them to be reasonable facsimiles but that does not inherently make them sapient.

In the case of synths someone solved the stop button problem of AI paradoxes, however it created a new problem which basically put them in a cascade failure state where they question their motivator/directive. While some may consider that a form of sapience, it is actually another form of a halt state where the synth is constantly pouring over that data in an infinite loop.

 

[CT Phipps]

re the most intelligent entities around. We have innovated, created art, as well various languages and abstract concepts.

The Synths in this case are nothing more than an extension of human will, as they have not created anything on par with humans. Sure you can program them to be reasonable facsimiles but that does not inherently make them sapient.

In the case of synths someone solved the stop button problem of AI paradoxes, however it created a new problem which basically put them in a cascade failure state where they question their motivator/directive. While some may consider that a form of sapien

Eh, my interpretation are Synths are humans.

Just genetically engineered ones with some cybernetic elements.

 

[NMLevesque]

As for the sentient/sapient topic, synths are not sapient. Sure they may seem like they possess wisdom but as shown by Valentines foray into Kellogg's mind we get to observe how they are programmed. The moment Valentine lets Kellogg shine through at the end of the "mind quest" it becomes apparent that the current personality of the Synth is nothing more than a carefully designed construct. People who feel that the synths are some how sapient in this case would also feel that their google home is "alive" as well.

The only thing that demonstrates is that Valentine has more than just Kellogg's memories. He was implanted or connected to (I forget which) part of Kellogg's brain. That he retained information or data from that process doesn't mean that he isn't sapient. Nor would the source of his intelligence either. Though that was actually the mind of a human being that was implanted into a synth. Just because it started out as a copy doesn't mean it's any less real. A perfect organic copy of a human brain would be no less a person than the original it was copied from, so long as it possessed the same capacity.

Therefore we lack the ability to determine if they are indeed sapient. We humans think we are because as far we know humans are the most intelligent entities around. We have innovated, created art, as well various languages and abstract concepts.

The Synths in this case are nothing more than an extension of human will, as they have not created anything on par with humans. Sure you can program them to be reasonable facsimiles but that does not inherently make them sapient.

An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, let alone when it represents a known unknown. Not sure why we're assuming that synths are any less capable of creating stuff. That's never indicated anywhere. Sounds like the same crap people said to justify colonialism.

In the case of synths someone solved the stop button problem of AI paradoxes, however it created a new problem which basically put them in a cascade failure state where they question their motivator/directive. While some may consider that a form of sapience, it is actually another form of a halt state where the synth is constantly pouring over that data in an infinite loop.

? Not sure what you mean, but I don't think that would be exclusive to synths. Humans spend plenty of time questioning our motivations and the directives given to us. For instance, that someone can't directly upload them to our brain, only means that someone can't directly upload them to our brain. It doesn't mean that we aren't 'programmed'. We just have a special word for it: indoctrination.

 

[Einhanderc7]

@NMLevesque I understand what you are getting at, however we lack sufficient information to justifiably call synths sapient. In the case of humans there is a great deal going on with the human brain. Simply uploading a human into a artificial construct does not equate to sapience nor immortality.

Factors that make a human brain unique vs. an artificial construct is the way the brain itself has grown into a specific shape that also corresponds with the experiences of the person. The human brain is also constantly bathed is a myriad of chemical substances that artificial constructs simply cannot recreate. In the case of human uploading we would see a ghost in a shell moment where a human has been detached from what it was that made them human. The best example of how that would play out would be to willingly blind all of your senses, and strip emotion away.

The whole point of AI is to learn what intelligence is, that is why so many companies, nations, and scientists are looking into it so that they can build a true intelligence to compare against our own. However as it currently stands AI is more like an epic fantasy, as the programming required to solve issues that would seem simple to a human are impossible for them.

If your curious look up some of the most common encountered problems AI researchers are encountering. A lot of them actually sound very silly, but they are indeed legit obstacles such as the stop button paradox.

 

[Walpknut]

Railroad is more like if Followers were one of the main factions, offered radiant quests, asked you to complete whole House questline after Moon over the Tower to advance their plot and demanded that Legion and NCR should be destroyed, their children blasted in atomic generator explosion, because they stand in a way of Securitrons freedom.

No, because the Followers are actually fleshed out and have multiple endings.

 

[CT Phipps]

Mind you the thing is that even if the Institute is doing awful shit--is it enough reason to turn thousands of innocent people into homeless refugees (at best)/murder them all (at worse) and destroy any chance of creating more Synths which effectively genocides a race?

 

[Risewild]

Mind you the thing is that even if the Institute is doing awful shit--is it enough reason to turn thousands of innocent people into homeless refugees (at best)/murder them all (at worse)

If they are doing awful things, then they are not innocent.
If there are innocent people in there, then they should feel relieved that they are not part of a community that keeps doing (for decades) things so awful that make most or all of the civilized wasteland communities look like saints.

If the Institute is composed of intelligent and advanced people, then they will survive on the surface. After all, the rest of the world managed to scrape by and form settlements, what would stop good people from the Institute from doing that too? Even Enclave people managed to survive and some even assimilated themselves into wasteland communities.

and destroy any chance of creating more Synths which effectively genocides a race?

It is not genocide of a race, Synths don't age so to genocide you would have to actively pursue and kill them. There wouldn't be more of them being made in the Institute, but who knows how technology in the Fallout universe will evolve, maybe a few Synths could became scientists and find a way of creating more synths or make it so synths can reproduce in the future, they have plenty of time for that.
I am pretty sure Synths would prefer no other Synth be made if it's only purpose is to be a slave of the horrible institute. I don't think the Railroad would be willing to genocide synths but their last mission is to explode the institute .

 

[CT Phipps]

1. The people of the Institute don't know the atrocities are being committed. That's kind of a big deal.

2. I don't think that's how survival works in the real world. They have no infrastructure to fall back on and the actions of their leaders means everyone hates them.

3. The majority of Synths actually want to stay in the Institute as you find out when you infiltrate them that only a minority want to escape.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

1. The people of the Institute don't know the atrocities are being committed. That's kind of a big deal.

I never got that impression. I always thought the majority simply justified it as making progress for humanity.

 

[NMLevesque]

@NMLevesque I understand what you are getting at, however we lack sufficient information to justifiably call synths sapient. In the case of humans there is a great deal going on with the human brain. Simply uploading a human into a artificial construct does not equate to sapience nor immortality.

Factors that make a human brain unique vs. an artificial construct is the way the brain itself has grown into a specific shape that also corresponds with the experiences of the person. The human brain is also constantly bathed is a myriad of chemical substances that artificial constructs simply cannot recreate. In the case of human uploading we would see a ghost in a shell moment where a human has been detached from what it was that made them human. The best example of how that would play out would be to willingly blind all of your senses, and strip emotion away.

The whole point of AI is to learn what intelligence is, that is why so many companies, nations, and scientists are looking into it so that they can build a true intelligence to compare against our own. However as it currently stands AI is more like an epic fantasy, as the programming required to solve issues that would seem simple to a human are impossible for them.

If your curious look up some of the most common encountered problems AI researchers are encountering. A lot of them actually sound very silly, but they are indeed legit obstacles such as the stop button paradox.

Either we don't have enough information to make any assumptions, or we do. You're moving back and forth between those two positions here. I don't think we can assume that the synth brain, or their equivalent is lacking an equivalent of different brain functions and components, or of brain chemistry in general (or that human minds cannot be fully copied and uploaded to them). I think their description in game suggests otherwise, including the fact that they have human DNA, but we can set that aside. The main point is that we're never given any indication that they lack it. I'm also not aware of any intelligence test that synths cannot pass. Synths questioning their own humanity, or whether they are really people is definitely a post-Turing test behavior. They can clearly solve problems, have identities, a theory of mind, etc. So what are they known to be lacking? (without assumptions).

As for real world AI is hard there are three things to consider. Fallout has more advanced tech, it's a soft sci-fi that doesn't entirely make sense, and they already had AIs in Fallout. So it's not really a valid point in this discussion. Also, you can't connect any of those problems to their behaviors. Which is really the only way to actually figure out the capabilities of an intelligence. Looking at its hardware, even if we could, would not tell us much even if we were capable of understanding said hardware.

 

[CT Phipps]

I never got that impression. I always thought the majority simply justified it as making progress for humanity.

Well, the Super Mutant laboratory is behind a bunch of red lasers in a secret alcove where you need the highest security to visit it versus all the other labs which you can just walk in to get.

The 2nd in command of the Synth Retention Bureau also only wants to bring back Synths who want to return. There's also a guy who married his Synth girlfriend.

Also, the Institute residents are all happy about you stopping the Raider Synth and praise you for doing good--which is weird since said raider synth only endangers Commonwealthers.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

Well, the Super Mutant laboratory is behind a bunch of red lasers in a secret alcove where you need the highest security to visit it versus all the other labs which you can just walk in to get.

It is an old lab, we know at least one other person knew of it besides Shaun and Kellogg. It is hidden away yes, doesn't mean the Institute doesn't know where the Super Mutants come from.

The 2nd in command of the Synth Retention Bureau also only wants to bring back Synths who want to return. There's also a guy who married his Synth girlfriend.

That doesn't mean they aren't aware of the bad actions the Institute has taken previously and present.

Also, the Institute residents are all happy about you stopping the Raider Synth and praise you for doing good--which is weird since said raider synth only endangers Commonwealthers.

I honestly can't recall what exactly they say, it's been quite some time since I last played Fallout 4.

 

[CaptJ]

The original version that I made of this had a typo in near the end. I still have no idea what the hell they are trying to achieve.

Spoiler: For CT Phipps

I didn't include President Eden because it is basically the same thing as President Richardson and it ruins the joke by stretching it too long.

@CT Phipps
I get the whole "they have all that useful tech so killing them off is pretty bad" but that isn't a good case for the organization itself when you can just evacuate them. Also the children thing, pretty much all factions have children with them (minus Unity) so it isn't really a reason to side with the Institute.