254. Profession: AI Therapist

AI therapist is something of a poetic misnomer. Of course, AIs (as distinct from AGIs) do not develop emotional problems. Simple AIs break hard, either realizing there is a problem and putting themselves on standby, or not, and carrying out meaningless tasks. More sophisticated AIs break in more subtle ways, often not failing completely, but carrying on actions in the wrong contexts, with unpredictable results.

AIs based on actively learning neural networks or evolutionary algorithms often develop a few strange habits based on coincidences or improperly optimized reward systems. AI therapists can expect to treat surveillance systems who have decided to mark every person wearing blue as a unique morph, automechs that just won't stop insulating, servitors that obsessively imitate the actions of their owners, and the occasional neurotic elevator.

223. Profession: Evolutionary Inspector

The post-singularity computing power available to transhumanity, and the development of realistic simulations, have made the use of evolutionary algorithms as design tools cheap, easy and practical. Most products will go through, at minimum, a period of "refinement", using algorithms to simulate and evolve simulations of the product towards various metrics of quality. Many others are evolved even more than they are designed. This can seem like magic, but can also cause problems, most notably, not knowing how your own product works. Evolutionary inspectors go through the records of evolutionary processes generation by generation, breaking down exactly what developed and why.

Why did the successful line develop as it did? What was the most successful generation before overspecialization? Will the product perform as well in the real world as it did in simulation, or did the algorithm find flaws in the simulation to exploit? Are their adaptations that could become spin-offs, capable of enhancing other products? Did the product develop weaknesses that could be addressed by a designer? How is a simple adaptation able to achieve inexplicable results?

185. Profession: Security-Ecologist

One of the strategies of the Planetary Consortium/Autonomist Alliance cold war that is common to both sides is autonomous sabotage. Gremlins are the weapons of choice, designed to disrupt the enemies actions, slow their economy, and waste their resources. An arms race has developed, each side attempting to develop countermeasures to the other's gremlins while seeking to design new gremlins that will overcome their enemies new countermeasures. Many gremlins are capable of reproducing, and many others are designed by automatic evolutionary algorithms. Their countermeasures are themselves often self-reproductive and designed by automatic evolutionary algorithms. On some autonomist stations they are set up to deliberately mimic predator-prey relationships, with bots preying on gremlins and allowed to reproduce themselves according to their success.

This cycle is repeated with almost any widespread and actively used security system. The gremlin ecologies develop relatively slowly, being bound by physical replication, but software is relatively unhindered; it is common wisdom that you should re-install your mesh security software regularly before it develops into something incomprehensible. The results of the arms race and automated evolution is often best modeled as an ecological system, and neither side has full knowledge of what has developed.

Specialized in the complex relationships that form between automated, self-improving security systems and their aggressors, security-ecologists are trained first and foremost to be able to identify the roles of unique security systems and their roles within the ecological system that has developed, and then to exploit that knowledge in the pursuit of either shoring up security or defeating it.

Mechanics

Profession: Security-Ecologist can be taken as a knowledge skill.