The idea of organic beings creating artificial intelligence, AI, is saturated with the fear that their creation will develop an innate need to conquer. This concept has invaded most fictional worlds involving any form of artificial intelligence.
Although not said outright, BioWare highlights this relationship between organics and AIs in the Mass Effect trilogy. By building a world where creating new AIs is illegal, BioWare sets the scene for existing artificial intelligences to establish themselves free from the control of their creators, and core to the Mass Effect universe is the idea that AIs can search for peace with organic races. The designs and the roles of the Catalyst, Reapers, geth, and EDI all support this theme.
AIs are prevalent in every aspect of the trilogy, which gives BioWare an adequate platform to make a stand about AIs that is contrary to most fictions. Uniquely, Mass Effect AIs want peace with organic races. Only external control causes the various AIs to behave aggressively. Without that control, they cease any aggression. This stance on AI is never explicitly mentioned, meaning we need to take a deeper look at each AI in order to comprehend what BioWare is trying to say about AI.
Compulsory Fears
The player – and the player’s avatar Commander Shepard – first experiences the AI through a prothean beacon. The long-extinct Protheans built the beacons as a warning against the Reapers, massive destructive machines, which eliminate most organic matter from the galaxy every 50,000 years. From the outset, nothing solid is known about the Reapers, so the player naturally fears the unknown alien aggressors. Players finish Mass Effect 1 with a few dim facts, like that the Reapers are a species of ancient, organic machines. Those few who acknowledge the Reapers’ existence are terrified by them. Even through the trilogy’s final chapter, Reaper-induced alarm hangs heavy over the characters until the end, where the role of AI is finally explained.
The AIs of Mass Effect
Catalyst and the Reapers
Chronologically, the first AI created in the Mass Effect universe is The Catalyst. There may have been other insignificant AIs built before the Catalyst, but they hold no literary purpose beyond demonstrating previous conflicts between synthetics and organics. The Leviathans, an ancient, aquatic species, built The Catalyst to prevent the endless cycle of war. Unbeknownst to the Leviathans, the Catalyst constructed the Reapers to begin a cycle of harvesting advanced species as the ‘solution’ to organic/synthetic conflict. The Catalyst’s first victim was its own creators. By destroying the Leviathans, the Reapers removed the line of external control, and in turn reduced their own aggression. The Catalyst fell out of common knowledge and, over the millennia, disappeared from myth. Through a chain of control, The Catalyst was aggressive because of Leviathan control. Following this, the control over the Reapers leads to their individual aggression. That secret control by The Catalyst is what justifies why the Reapers continue to be aggressive.
The Geth
While the Reapers and the Catalyst are the overarching enemy of the Mass Effect universe, the geth are the most prominent and expansive type of AI. The geth conform to classic AI literature: they nearly purged their creators, the quarians, from the galaxy. When the geth began to network together and learn on their own, the quarians began executing all geth. A select few quarians chose to protect the geth, and stood up for them, stating there was no reason for the extermination. They argued that while the geth had begun to learn and to disobey, the geth never went on the offensive except to protect other geth. The hostility from the quarians forced the geth to become aggressive in order to survive. Notably, geth forces spared the retreating Quarians. Again, we see AIs driven to violence by external control. The conflict eventually led to a galactic law banning production of new AIs.
We see another side of the geth through Legion, a Geth that speaks for all Geth, whom Shepard encounters in Mass Effect 2. Legion adopts his name from this quotation from Mark 5:9, “My name is Legion: for we are many.” Legion helps Shepard in Mass Effect 2, and notes that Shepard is the first organic to not be hostile when face-to-face with a geth. Ultimately, Shepard serves as a mediator between Legion and the surviving quarians, brokering a plan that saves both species. Through Legion’s guidance, Commander Shepard discovers the truth behind the geth and quarian war; that the quarians fired the first shots, not the geth. Legion transfers an advanced program into the surrounding geth to grant them individual sentience, allowing them to fall in line with the Commander to fight alongside organics in the deciding battle with the Reapers. Since they are no longer being controlled or attacked, the geth refrain from aggression towards organic species, and thus eliminate the threat of AI waging war on organics. The only aggression they show is the same type of aggression shown by organics; they ally with organics, and choose to fight alongside them against the larger threat of the Reapers. By making artificial intelligence destructive at first and then slowly warming up the player to the idea of AI being peaceful and helpful, perception transitions from the earlier mindset of fear, to understanding.
EDI, a Human AI
Near the beginning of Mass Effect 2, the player is introduced to the Enhanced Defense Intelligence (EDI), who serves the Commander as an information source and cyber-warfare defense. In Mass Effect 3, Shepard finds out that EDI was born from a virtual intelligence that went rogue. When placed on Shepard’s ship and away from direct control, EDI shows no signs of aggression, unlike the VI she was born from. EDI’s behavior changes since there is no direct control over her, following the theme of AI freedom directly correlating to peace. Near the end of Mass Effect 2, the virtual “shackles” that kept EDI from having total control over the Normandy are removed. By doing so, the crew frees EDI from the last portion of external control. Later, in Mass Effect 3, EDI takes over a humanoid-robot body. Her behavior in this body expresses that the last trace of her aggression has vanished. She has become more than an AI, and has become a being in her own right.
It is only through freedom that AIs are allowed to seek peace.
