this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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Now who would the Necrons be? China? An ancient empire that went dormant, but it's now reasserting itself once more.
China would be Leagues of Votann, advanced technology, healthy approach to AI, overlooked by Empire for a lot of time, percived as capitalist but it have no sense, respects ancestors, controls rare earth minerals.
I wouldn't say the Squats have a healthy approach to AI, they're just on the opposite end of the spectrum to the Imperium's full(sans Cawl) Butlerian Jihad position, the Iron Kin are cool but the Ancestor cores(the 'Votanns' in Leagues of Votann) are essentially their deities which have been breaking down over time and becoming 'senile' due to memory degradation but they can't do anything to fix them as they're Inviolate in their culture that's not a healthy relationship imo
Honestly Chaos who will use AI to spawn horrors(that's a good thing to chaos guys) but not controlled by it(they have the gods and daemons for that lol), and especially the Ta'u who use limited(intelligence on par with 'lower' animals rather than on par or greater than an average T'au) AI in a 'normal' way in their drones and battlesuits but aren't controlled by it have a much healthier approach
The Imperium is a bit weird in that regard because they still clearly use machine intelligences, they just totemically house them in old human skulls so they can pretend it's just a post-mortem augmetic modification to a person instead of something fully mechanical. Housing them in human remains may also diegetically help protect against warp corruption, since it means they're being housed in relics that people believe to be inherently pure. There's also the reading of machine spirits in general as AIs of varying levels, which shows up in some stories.
The hypocrisy and idiosyncracy is part of the point, imo. The Imperium is an inversion of expectations, cliches, and even its own themes in a lot of ways: it's monolithic, unifying, and intolerant of any deviation from its monoculture on the surface, but actually extremely fragmented and autarkic, highly varied, and too overwhelmed to care about anything but the biggest "don't make daemons, collaborate with outside states, or stop paying your taxes" rules; it's completely inflexible and rigid in its application of its rules, except its enforcers just kind of do whatever they feel like and constantly decide whether a rule really mattered or not on the fly; they're embattled and fragile and constantly being overwhelmed on the surface, except the one truly solid and unyielding thing about them is their endless war machine and how they're dug in deep everywhere they touch; etc. Denouncing AI while actually making heavy use of it in specially permitted forms is extremely on brand for them.
So the approach that would (and did in their part!) prevent Men of Iron rebellion (Ironkyn are literally Men of Iron) is less healthy than subjugation of true AI, not to mention actually creating warped murdering monstrosities??? Wtf.
Partial agree about cores but it's mainly because they are malfunctioning, while functional they actually not only allowed for survival in extremely hard conditions but actually helped to create one of less vile societies in entire universum. Also Leagues do know they are malfunctioning and want to fix them, it's not blind dogmatic faith in crumbling machines like in case of AdMech, they just have the problem that nobody really know how to fix such advanced technology.
Yes essentially worshipping AI(especially one that you know is breaking down and can't fix) is less healthy than not
While the LoV understanding of tech and AI is greater than the AdMechs (although since machine spirits are real they do have some knowledge Squats do not), but their beliefs are just as irrational in many cases such as believing that uploading a facsimile of a personality is a true afterlife
And if you're making the philosophical argument that GAI deserves equal standing with organic members of a faction, and thus consider the T'au's use of limited non sentient AI as subjugation(and if that's your position then you should also consider the LoVs use of COGs subjugation), then chaos allowing AI free reign while not holding organic members in thrall is healthier even if you don't like how the outcome looks, Chaos abominable intelligences and Iron Kin(whom I'm not convinced are the same as men of Iron as they can only simulate emotions, and do not naturally experience them like MoI such as UR-025 do) are both ultimately murder machines
Only thing with the Tau is they are a class based hiarchical society. Regardless of their approach to tech and AI.
Yeah I always point that out when people call them 'space commies' and such, no faction in 40k is the 'good guys', there's also the 4th sphere expansion faction who want to purge the T'au empire of all humans and other auxiliary non-T'au races(because they are more physic than the T'au race and their belief in the 'greater good' as given birth to the Goddess T'au'va warp entity which they consider an abomination as the GG is meant to be a secular materialist philosophy and not spiritual/religious)
Still the quality of life for the average human citizen or auxiliary in the main T'au empire is much better than that of the average hive-worlder or guardsman in the Imperium, its only when you take the threat of Chaos into account that you can argue the Imperium is 'better'(for humans at least)
But getting off track with tangential opinions here, I only meant to comment on the varying relations to AI between factions as why imo the T'au's approach to AI is healthier than that of the LoV
In the future I hope we get some more canon info on the Demiurg, who are squats that have joined the T'au empire(or are at least mercenaries for them like the Kroot are) and their specific use of AI, could be an interesting avenue to explore some of the issues around artificial life
I would argue the tyranids are about as close as you can get in terms of being "good". Just an intergalactic force of nature consuming anything in its path indiscriminately for survival.
Not so good for non-tyranids, but I see what you're saying that their motivations are hunger and survival and not anything inherently malicious. however the same(lack of inherently malicious motivations) can also apply to several other factions or at least sub-factions within those
And the lore on this point is fuzzy and as been retconned several times, but its often implied nids were a created bio-weapon species rather than a natural evolution/force of nature
Even if that's the case the fault would be with the creators. The tyranids couldn't be held responsible for being created the way they are. But yes, they are bad for anyone who's not a tyranid obviously lol
True, I'm just saying they're not necessarily a 'force of nature'(in academic terms, rather than as a simile or metaphor i.e. 'like a force of nature'), not that being so or not affects the maliciousness or lack thereof of their motivations
Definitely more healthy than worshipping eldritch evil nightmares from the warp or nazi golden corpse or outright ban which cause trillions of humans to be lobotomised and live centuries of nightmarish suffering.
Laying down your life to protect essential piece of machinery or cultural heritage is not that much irrational, even communists did that a lot in let's say WW2 or other wars.
What is "true" afterlife?
I don't, Tau don't use true AI, they seem to be wary too but their wariness stem more from the cautiosness than fear (though i believe they will reach true AI eventually and probably soon) i more thought about Men of Iron.
What is your source that Ironkyn are different from Iron Men? Also Ironkyn looks just like Men of Iron with some variations.
Yes there is no philosophical difference whatsoever between Ironkyn and some chaos AI /s. Btw chaos don't really make their own AI, they just put a daemon inside the machine, so i would say neverborn count as AI even less that they count as live beings.
Finally, i don't adhere to the popular US sci-fi trope that AI need to be bad. It is, ultimately, a human creation. When raised by comrades in communism, it will likely become a comrade. If raised by the US military, it will cause untold suffering.
Come on that's in bad faith and you know it. I explicitly didn't say that, I only commented on the health of their respective approaches to AI not the health of their cultures in general, I even made a point to mention the gods and daemons that replace the cores as objects of worship in Chaos cultures
That's a fair rebuttal if there is a chance of recovery or successful defence of the core
In 40k souls are real, a true afterlife is one where that lives on and not just a chatbot imitating someone's personality no matter how accurate. A craftworlder's soulstone being put into an infinity circuit or a chaos worshipper being elevated to daemonhood are examples of 'true' afterlives in the setting
The following article(don't be thrown off by the 'community' in the URL these articles are written by GW staff and are canon)
https://web.archive.org/web/20250808181850/https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/hj7fodsl/lore-of-the-ironkin-are-these-robotic-citizens-truly-regarded-as-equals/
"Though designed to fulfill certain roles at the Votann’s behest – such as the mighty Steeljacks, born with larger and stronger frames – these designations are not set in stone, and the Ironkin may gravitate towards a different calling as their knowledge and experiences grow. Nevertheless, their programmed nature means they are not able to truly experience their own emotions and drives, so it is a rare Ironkin that shows ambition or a desire to command."
And the UR-025 short story Man of Iron which features him spontaneously emotionally reacting to events, I don't have it to hand to find a better excerpt but here's a post with some examples https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/fj4pmd/short_story_excerpt_man_of_iron_ur025_disposes_of/
"It targeted the Kastelan first. Pinpoint hits stove in the bigger robot’s metal vision plate and shattered the sensorium behind. It staggered back two steps, sparks flashing all over its armoured shell, before recovering. Though blinded, the Kastelan returned fire. Bullets flaring with phosphor burn smacked into UR-025’s shoulder, spoiling its aim. This irritated the older machine. It switched targets to the slave robot’s elbows and shoulder mount, shattered them all so that its guns hung uselessly. Ranged weapons disabled, the Kastelan lumbered towards UR-205, head down to batter the older robot into submission. UR-025 stepped aside, smashing the larger machine’s knee with its power claw. The Kastelan could have taken a blow like that easily, but on the unsafe walkway it was fatally upset and stumbled sideways. Its huge mass snapped the guardrails with a pair of sharp metallic twangs, and it fell with a mighty splash into the water and was swallowed up without trace.
'Threat eliminated,’ said UR-025 with relish."
There are also parts with his internal monologue which make this clearer
Despite being outwardly aesthetically similar, the ability to experience emotion or lack thereof makes Ironkyn and Men of Iron very different from each other
That's not true, Chaos specifically the Dark Mechanicum and Iron Warriors make use of true AI and also sometimes combine it with demonic possession in a single machine, but they(AI and Daemons) are distinct, if you think I'm wrong on this point say so and I'll find some excerpts that support my position
Neither do I, and I don't think anything I've said indicates the opposite, this was discussion about AI in the fictional setting of 40k not irl, but I also think that putting human's under the direct control of AI with no human oversight could be bad i.e. using AI for central economic planning could be hugely beneficial but if there is no human oversight to decisions it makes it could possibly lead to bad paperclip-maximiser scenarios but that's a entirely different discussion about irl AI guardrails and safety which is beyond the scope of this argument
No it's not in bad faith and you know it, worshipping (and you also know it's not the same kind of worship that imperials and chaos do) benevolent ancestors is not the same as worshipping the fuckers from warp.
Eldar soul do seem to very much resemble being uploaded to core. Also when the soulstones are getting shattered they seems to go to their after-afterlife, which is admittedly short since they are being devoured by Slaanesh. Who know, maybe Kyn souls are really being uploaded to the machine, some old human tech is really able to do it too, like the Proteus Protocol.
Seems like conjecture, but ok. I would assume Kyn would notice their Ironkyn borthers are just a clankers in the few thousand years, but apparently not.
Pretty anectotal evidence, maybe he developed feelings after at least 10000 years he's been functioning? I can recall the chaos-corrupted Iron Men at Menazoid Epislon, they did seems completely mindless but if it was to either corruption or being newborn/stored right after production or both, idk.
Again, maybe it's a function of time. Also i don't recall UR-025 showing much "ambition or a desire to command" too, so maybe he also was "not able to truly experience their own emotions and drives"
I can recall three specifical true AI used by/allied with chaos forces: Kaban Engine, Castigator Titan and Tabula Myriad but neither of them was created by Chaos and only Castigator was possessed by a daemon. I can concede to the Dark Mechanicum since i don't know that much about their creations, Iron Warriors use tons of corrupted engines but they are afaik at most on the level of posessed machine spirits and battle automata, not true AI.
Agree for IRL, my point was that it did worked for Votann in-universe, since they are doing less bad than other human/abhuman factions that don't use AI. Future might still prove it was a mistake, but it's not exactly look like roses for everyone else and there was certainly less suffering along the way.
When did say it was? my point is that the LoVs worshipping AI is unhealthy, even if that 'worship' is to a lesser extent than the Imperium/Chaos's, or the core's are perhaps materially more 'benevolent' to their worshippers, not that Chaos or the Imperium's relation to their own deities isn't also unhealthy
Chaos and other factions can have a healthier relation to AI that the LoV do, even if their relation to the whatever their non-AI deities are is even unhealthier, has been my point
Apart from the major distinction that in the 40k setting 'souls' do exist which have an immaterial ineffable quality that can't be transferred from one vessel to another through simple copying of a connectome, soulstones transfer this soul from a biological being to a semi-inorganic infinity circuit, Ancestor core's don't do something similar they copy brains rather than transfer souls
Possibly but that's complete speculation not even vaguely hinted at in even outdated canon
'ambition or a desire to command' aren't the only emotions, If you want me to find some excerpts of his internal monologue say so, it'll take a while but not too long if you're adamant about me being wrong on this point. UR-025's internal monologue and the neutral third-person narrator describe his emotions as spontaneously occurring, rather than a deterministic response like those from a Ironkyn which even when simulating an emotion rather than cold pure logic is deterministic and non-spontaneous
As for the Proteus Protocol it ability to transfer spiritual consciousness in only rumoured from a couple of unreliable narrators in a couple of codexes/rulebooks and isn't even hinted to be related to the Votann's uploading tech(other than many Votann/Imperium technologies being based on the same STCs, it isn't confirmed), if it was fully explored in lore with a novel and was explicitly shown to transfer souls and connected to the LOVs uploading tech then I'd change my tune
The LoV splitting of from the bulk of humanity and been interacting with the cores for a similar if not longer amount of time, the initial what would become Squat colonisation compilations of STCs/cores happened before the rebellion of the men of iron. And possibly before even their creation(if the theories about Men of Stone being the Votann are true), if any Ironkyn haven't survived that long or haven't developed 'real' emotions that supports by point about there being an essential difference between Ironkyn and Men of Iron
I never said that Chaos were the first to discover Abominable Intelligence(however some among the humans(not the first race to do so) that would later become DM members) rather that they make use of fully sentient AI but it is not the ruler/deity of their faction
And the T'au's approach is working for them(an arguably Chaos's is as well as their faction as grown in power since the AdMech forbid research on AI and other technologies causing half of the Mechanicum to join Horus), that doesn't mean either approach to AI is better or intrinsically morally correct or healthier than the other
It's still more healthy especially if you consider this isn't happening in the void, as consequences of chaos dealing with AI is mass murder and consequense of Imperium total ban on AI is servitorisation which is one of the worst horrors in entire 40k.
Soul in 40k seems to function as (potential) connection to the warp and it's not even consistent, souls of Kyn are supposedly "weak" as are Tau souls but if we goes by this logic Necrontyr would have even weaker because they didn't had psykers at all, yet C'tan felt it tasty enough to go to a great lenght to eat them. Same is with Slaanesh lusting after drukhari souls as much as the other Eldar, while they genetically engineered what is effectively "soul" from their race.
Proteus Protocol transfer of soul is confirmed in Eisenhorn novels, Pontius Glaw retains his after using it. If you talk about Kyn, you seem to be very sure that "speculation" isn't true despite parallels existing.
My point is that LoV avoided Men of Iron rebellion, which would point to two facts - their relationships with MoI were more healthy and that Ironkyn are Men of Iron, just most possibly as much changed from the basic version as Kyn themselves are changed from basic humanity.
This was not my point, i pointed to chaos not having need to create true AI at all.
Half of Mechanicum didn't joined Horus because AI ban, again there was one AI on Mars then and barely anyone even know about it.
If you don't see that Votann and Ironkyn are better than mass servitorisation or putting demons in things in order to kill more people then we truly don't have anything to talk about, so please disengage if that's the case.
I agree about the imperium, I've said that chaos' is arguable but one of the ultimate products of the Ironkyn existence is also mass murder; they are (on the whole labour units also exist)soldiers/killing machines, but that at least the T'au relationship to AI is healthier even when taking into consideration the wider effects that approach has on the culture
How does the relative strength of souls relate to the AI conversation? a soul is a soul weak or not
Ah didn't know that, if you could post an excerpt that'd be great but I' do your word for it, but yes parallels do not make me think the same soul transference is true for LoV uploading especially since the protocol isn't from an STC which is where most of the shared Kin/Imperium tech comes from, and it is likely but not confirmed that the LoV uploading tech came from an STC schematic already included in the cores
For 'their relationships with MoI were more healthy' more than who's specifically did you mean here?
I disagree with the 'that Ironkyn are Men of Iron' conclusion you make, the fact that they didn't fight during the MoI rebellion doesn't prove they are the same, Ironkyn attacking baseline human during the rebellion might be, and their isolation can explain not being involved on that conflict. I believe the theories that the Votann are the Men of Stone more likely
For 'just most possibly as much changed from the basic version as Kyn themselves are changed from basic humanity.' that's a pedantic argument it can be argued both ways if Abhumans are humans or not, on one hand they are objectively different, or that on the other they same as one because one is the origin of the other
They have as much need as other factions to use it; to create weapons
I didn't say it was the sole reason rather that it(the ban on AI research) along with other reasons like the other bans such as on warp tech and on innovation in general were the trason and Kel-Helbor and his faction joining Horus
Again I never said its worse, you're conflating the very isolated point about the healthiness of relationship to AI with the greater cultures and its affect on them. to succinctly restate my point I think that the LoV worship of Ai is less healthy than the T'au's utilisation of AI
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