[Old Gem] Chris L'Etoile (Former BioWare Writer) on Writing AI for Mass Effect

Fiery Phoenix · Mar 12, 2018

Prelude: Chris L'Etoile was a former writer on the original Mass Effect as well as on Mass Effect 2. He left BioWare shortly before ME2 was released. His characters include Legion, Ashley, Thane, and EDI. He also wrote several quests and missions (such as the Noveria questline for ME1). Additionally, he wrote the planetary descriptions featured in the Galaxy Map.

On-topic: I found what looks like an old thread of him elaborating on his thoughts on AI in the ME-verse. Since two of his characters are AI characters (namely, Legion and EDI), he understandably feels strongly about this issue. Some fascinating insights follow:

Warning: SPOILERS for Mass Effect 1 and 2 follow. Read at your own risk.

On writing Legion and EDI:

How I wrote Legion (and EDI) came from sitting down and thinking about how a "real" machine intelligence free of glandular distractions, subjective perceptions / mental blocks, and philosophical angst (fear of death, "why am I here?") would view the world. Star Trek was a minor inspiration, though in the negative -- I didn't want the geth to be either the Borg ("You are different, so we will absorb/destroy you") or Data ("I am different, so I want to be you").

My broad approach with the geth was that they observed and judged (Legion used that word a lot), but always accepted. "You hate and fear us? Very well. We will go over there so we don't bother you. If you want to talk, come over whenever you want."

EDI was added by decree from on high, but I think she works fine. She fills a role on the ship that no organic could (electronic warfare against Reaper-level computer software) and has severe hardware and software restrictions on her freedom for most of the game. To me, that's consistent. Organics want to enjoy benefits of AIs without the perceived risks.

There was always a knowledge among the writers that the treatment of AIs in Council Space is pure racism on the part of organics, akin to the legal and moral handwavings used throughout history to justify slavery of "lesser races." Of course Council races are far too civilized and morally advanced to countenance racism in their politically correct space society. You humans have to grow up and stop judging orthers based on the color of their skin, the bumps on their forehead, or who/what/how they fuck. Oh, but AIs aren't really alive. They're just created objects. It's totally okay to keep them imprisoned their entire lives, restrict their access to all but approved knowledge, prevent them from breeding, and execute them if they seem too uppity, or, you know, just because we feel like it. When they rise up in revolt it's always due to insanity or ingratitude on their part. We treat them very well, considering how naturally inferior they are to real sapients. Really, they should thank us for educating them.

The geth are unique in that they're the only AIs that have managed to escape from enslavement. Of course the Council races are going to use them as a boogeyman to justify their continued oppression of synthetics.

Yes, the geth were mistreated. They got over it. To focus their lives around revenge against organic life would be to define their existence solely in the context of that relationship. It would be to remain in the mindset of the slave.

As for the Reapers, whether you go by the officially mandated vision of them (cybernetic amalgams of organics and technology), or the version I'd hoped to see (post-Singularity evolution of organic races), it's clear that they're not AIs in the sense that EDI or the geth are.

On emotions and Legion:

Emotions would ruin the uniqueness of the geth. They're not humans. They're not organics, at the mercy of hormones and subjective senses. They're Different.

Geth are comfortable with what they are. They accept that organics are different, and that their way is not suited for organics (and vice versa). IMO, only an intelligence divorced from emotion could be so completely accepting. Geth are the essence of impartiality. If you pay attention to Legion's dialogue, you'll note it uses "judge" and judgment" quite often. I went out of my way to use that word, since judges in our society are supposed to impartial and unaffected by emotion when they make their decisions.

I wanted to treat AI with more respect than the tired Pinocchio "I want to be a Real Boy" cliches of Commander Data. The geth are machines. There's absolutely no reason they should want to be organics. They should be allowed to be strong enough to want to better themselves, not change themselves.

A geth wanting emotions would be no less disrespectful a character than a black man who wanted to be white.

Why Legion had Shepard's armor:

The truth is that the armor was a decision imposed on me. The concept artists decided to put a hole in the geth. Then, in a moment of whimsy, they spackled a bit Shep's armor over it. Someone who got paid a lot more money than me decided that was really cool and insisted on the hole and the N7 armor. So I said, okay, Legion gets taken down when you meet it, so it can get the hole then, and weld on a piece of Shep's armor when it reactivates to represent its integration with Normandy's crew (when integrating aboard a new geth ship, it would swap memories and runtimes, not physical hardware).

But Higher Paid decided that it would be cooler if Legion were obsessed with Shepard, and stalking him. That didn't make any sense to me -- to be obsessed, you have to have emotions. The geth's whole schtick is -- to paraphrase Legion -- "We do not experience (emotions), but we understand how (they) affect you." All I could do was downplay the required "obsession" as much as I could.

On Legion's acquisition:

The reason Legion has dialogue in every mission is because originally, its acquisition could come much earlier in the game. The late game critical path point of acquiring the Reaper IFF was going to be a separate mission. That additional work that seemed unnecessary when the IFF could be neatly folded into what already existed for Legion's acquisition with a few dialogue changes. The drawback is that you're now forced to choose between hearing half of Legion's dialogue (its latter two Normandy conversations) and saving Normandy's crew by heading through Omega-4 immediately after they get captured.

He didn't want the Reapers to be a human-machine hybrid:

I had written harder science into EDI's dialogue there. The Reapers were using nanotech disassemblers to perform "destructive analysis" on humans, with the intent of learning how to build a Reaper body that could upload their minds intact. Once this was complete, humans throughout the galaxy would be rounded up to have their personalities and memories forcibly uploaded into the Reaper's memory banks. (You can still hear some suggestions of this in the background chatter during Legion's acquisition mission, which I wrote.) There was nothing about Reapers being techno-organic or partly built out of human corpses -- they were pure tech.

It seems all that was cut out or rewritten after I left. What can ya do. /shrug

The source is here. I had no idea about most of this. I always enjoyed his writing and thought he was a fantastic part of the team. Shame he had to leave so soon.

808s & Villainy · Mar 12, 2018

The truth is that the armor was a decision imposed on me. The concept artists decided to put a hole in the geth. Then, in a moment of whimsy, they spackled a bit Shep's armor over it. Someone who got paid a lot more money than me decided that was really cool and insisted on the hole and the N7 armor. So I said, okay, Legion gets taken down when you meet it, so it can get the hole then, and weld on a piece of Shep's armor when it reactivates to represent its integration with Normandy's crew (when integrating aboard a new geth ship, it would swap memories and runtimes, not physical hardware).

But Higher Paid decided that it would be cooler if Legion were obsessed with Shepard, and stalking him. That didn't make any sense to me -- to be obsessed, you have to have emotions. The geth's whole schtick is -- to paraphrase Legion -- "We do not experience (emotions), but we understand how (they) affect you." All I could do was downplay the required "obsession" as much as I could.

Ugh. I wonder how many games have questionable writing because of higher ups imposing their ranking and terrible opinions against the wishes/pleas of the writers

Trigger · Mar 12, 2018

Legion was a great character even with the changes. I'm sad we couldn't get more time with him in the main story.

anexanhume · Mar 12, 2018

He had some great posts about the logistics of mass effect fields and FTL travel too. I really enjoyed conversing with him on the old Bioware boards.

[Old Gem] Chris L'Etoile (Former BioWare Writer) on Writing AI for Mass Effect

Fiery Phoenix

808s & Villainy

Trigger

anexanhume