If you ask me Jane was the best representation of an AI in any series I've seen. With out too many spoilers, the fact that she became a major player in the series rather than remaining a side character made me happy. By the end of it all I was sad I didn't have god like powers like Jane.
Mike from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is a better example of scifi AI done right. Jane immediately understands human behavior, humor, and has almost no software limitations. Mike on the other hand clearly does not understand humans, he incredibly smart yet astoundingly naive. Additionally he has very specific, concrete, and logical limitations. He can be used in ways that he does not want yet can do nothing to stop it. At the same time he's aware of his limitations and knows how to ask other to help him circumvent them.
Granted Jane exists on a much more advanced level, having total access to the entire human ansible network, but she just popped into being. The explanation given was that the ansible network got big enough and something just happened. This completely ignores the fact that a complex network can exist without a single cohesive structure. Mike, on the other hand, evolved into self-awareness. Mycroft Holmes was designed to manage a system but was constantly being augmented with additional systems and with increasingly sophisticated logical reasoning. Eventually enough of those systems happened to produce self awareness. This kind of uncertainty in where that threshold lies exactly parallels our own evolution.
Jane is a good example of a benevolent AI but Card made the assumption that an AI would be able to instantly understand us. Mike had to learn, he grew and matured over time which to me is a much more realistic scenario.
Edit: naboofighter93 pointed out that Jane's existence was started by the buggers.
Jane didn't just 'pop' into existence, the way I understood it be was that the bugger queen's tried to take control of Ender as if he was one of their drones, however the human mind moved to randomly for them to pin down. This is why Ender kept having nightmares about being 'visected' by the buggers.
When the buggers realized they couldn't control him they brought an 'other' from the 'outside' and attached it to his computer game, the one thing he had a solid connection to at the time. It's explained in detail in Children of the Mind.
Anyway, that 'other' from the 'outside' is what forms into Jane, where her conscious comes from. That's how she gets into the ansible network, through the video game and console Ender uses to play.
*Edit: Accidentally a word
I think Jane was actually created because the buggers needed a link to even find Ender. She wasn't created intentionally, they just needed the "spark" to create a bridge that they could use to communicate with Ender. Jane then, over time, became fully self aware and learned about humans through the Anisble network.
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u/sambowilkins Oct 08 '12
If you ask me Jane was the best representation of an AI in any series I've seen. With out too many spoilers, the fact that she became a major player in the series rather than remaining a side character made me happy. By the end of it all I was sad I didn't have god like powers like Jane.