Forensic Large Dataset Model

Fox closed the door of the service bay behind Enzo to provide them a moment of privacy. Enzo stood stiffly, his moist-looking blue-gray eyes locked on the supine figure on the gurney.
Through the gauzy sheet that covered her nakedness, it was visible that Sara's body had been taken apart at all the major joints: pelvis, mid-torso, shoulders, and neck. The pulse pistol blast had entered her processor case through her right eye socket just left of the nose, the sudden pressure of expanding plasma cracking her head open vertically from her lip upwards along the saggital plane to nearly the nape of her neck. Two rubberized straps held the two halves together; Fox hadn't bothered to reinstall the screws after his failed attempt to salvage what was left of the card computer in the artifical skull that had one served as the seat of Sara's consciousness.
What would have been quite the grizzly sight were she an organic, flesh-and-blood human seemed nonetheless disturbing to Fox. After all, until recently, Sara and Fox had enjoyed a cordial working relationship. It was inevitable that co-workers aboard Revelation would become friends - to get into eachother's businesses, like the residents of a small town dirtside - and HLAI enjoyed no immunity to this social effect. The cold professionalism with which he had disassembled the platform of one Sara - the artificial intelligence who advised Revelation's staff about the ins and outs of Ibren's geology - started to slip when Fox found himself standing next to the man who saw Sara - the woman - as a lover and confidant to be grieved.
Fox struck a solemn tone and gestured towards the hard-cased diagnostic terminal sitting on the cart next to the gurney. It was a forensic large dataset model, the kind built into a portable hardware module for use in analyzing disparate information to make it accessible to a human operator. A bundle of cables wended their way from the module through the hooks of an apparatus not unlike an IV stand before descending in a web into the crack in Sara's head. The device projected tiny, blue-hued holographic image of Sara, who stood still and silent in the otherwise dimly-lit space.
"She isn't suffering," Fox whispered. It was a reverence thing, not a practical thing; the AI creche felt like a hospital in that moment. "I was able to recover some of her memories for the investigation," he said, then silently cringed. If Enzo thought it was an invasion of Sara's privacy, he didn't say anything, so Fox forged ahead despite the lump rising in his own throat. "What remains is fragmented, incomplete. Without the core of what makes her her, interacting with those memories further will cause them to decay to the neutral state. If you have questions - or anthing you'd like to say - now would be the time." In a slightly louder voice, he enunciated for the benefit of the machine: "Begin Emulation."
Wordlessly, Enzo nodded and approached the gurney, taking the platform's loose-hanging right hand in his own. He knelt to whisper something in Sara's ear. The expression on the hologram's face brightened as the small speaker on the diagnostic system began to emit the tinny, annoyingly compressed approximation of Sara's voice. "My love, I know this hurts. But please know that you made the right choice. Tell Fox to salvage what he can of my components. When I am gone, use my parts to restore the others."

A Forensic Large Dataset Model, or FLDM, is a form of non-sapient artificial intelligence developed by scientists with the Cobalt Protectorate to combine pieces of seemingly unrelated pieces of information in a data network to generate useful conclusion. Based on previous reinforcement learning technologies that were once used for image recognition, image generation, text editing, and coding, FLDM systems represent the power of the Protectorate's advanced computer architecture to concatenate information in a more efficient and far-reaching manner than any individual or group of human beings could manage on their own.

Applications

Aside from the obvious applications of such an artificial intelligence in criminal investigations, FLDM setups are also often frequently used in the medical and computer science fields to draw conclusions about problems with actual or emulated biological systems, such as Human-Like Artificial Intelligences. An FLDM has the benefit of being able to draw useful inferences even when the systems that generated the data are no longer extant; in the case of damaged or destroyed HLAI in particular, this allows investigators to effectively 'speak with the dead.'

Limitations

Enzo turned to Fox, regarding him with tired, puffy eyes. "She sounds so... her. Is she aware of anything?"
"No," Fox said. "It's like a large language model, but building on the smattering of her memories that were still recoverable. If you say gibberish, or ask her about something out of her set of experiences, the illusion is broken. I'm sorry, Enzo. I wasn't able to recover her."
Enzo shook his head. "Gravity, handball, hammer, salvation."
The hologram of Sara wavered and seemed to distort, the number of fingers on her hands and joints in her arms vacillating as the device tried to interpret what it was hearing. "I bequeath hands-hands gypsum?" it said, then seemed to restore itself. "-made the right choice," it repeated. "I love you."
Enzo gave a pained smile. "S-she would've been mad if I'd just given up without trying," Enzo said. His hollow laugh was interrupted by a sniffle. "That's just her." He daubed at the corner of his eye with a sleeve. "Fox, is this cruel?"
Fox approached Enzo and put a hand on his friend's trembling shoulder. "Yes," he said, and felt himself choking up. "But only for you. She is at peace."

Importantly, an FLDM is itself not a sentient artificial intellenge per Harkin Institute metrics. Though an FLDM can sometimes emulate an intelligence, such as in investigations involving destroyed HLAI, it is designed specifically not to directly modify the components it is attached to out of a designed intention to preserve evidence and, thus, is incapable of providing these components with any new 'experiences.' The memory contained within the FLDM is not itself designed to house information in a way that HLAI systems could access.
The effects of this emulation have occasionally proven disturbing for investigators and associates alike, who find the likeness startling unless and until their questioning extends beyond the knowledge of the creature or system being accessed. For example, an FLDM might be used to assemble data from the userbase of a large extranet gaming forum and, in the process, create a semi-plausible emulation of the vibrant culture that that forum might have once enjoyed. A member of that forum that played with others and subsequently lost contact with them - perhaps as a result of deaths, separation over interstellar distances, or interpersonal fallings-out - would be distressed to find the FLDM able to mimic those lost forum members in a semi-believable way, evoking painful memories of loss in the process. On the other hand, this emulation can sometimes also be a source of comfort for a nostalgia-seeker who was themselves separated from a social milieu that they used to enjoy; the Flockmind surrogate technology sometimes employed by remote outposts of the Vbyifabid Family-Flock is similar to an FLDM in this regard, albeit one with a much more expansive capacity to emulate and evolve over time.
If forced to go beyond the bounds of the dataset it has been provided in the course of investigation, an FLDM is capable of 'hallucinating' in the manner of commercial large language models. Metadata is provided to the operator to indicate when this hallucination is taking place, though, in modern designs, a combination of hard coding and a separate reinforcement learning layer allow for these edge cases to be detected first so that they don't bias the investigation. An FLDM can also sometimes be defeated by the intentional introduction of large quantities of misleading or 'junk' data into the dataset by the system or group being targeted. For example, a network owned by a asteroid colonist smuggling ring might have several layers of seemingly legitimate business traffic overlayed atop it to present the illusion of an otherwise legitimate business with a small number of of 'bad apples,' while several of the 'smugglers' themselves might be bots designed to emulate real people otherwise not involved with the smugglers who will wind up framed for smuggling in lieu of some actual criminals. Savvy investigators will counteract these techniques by catching on that something is 'off' about the data and expanding the dataset beyond that provided by such conspirators.

"I-" Enzo was wracked with a sob. "I can't -"
Fox gave Enzo's shoulder a squeeze. "Brother," Fox said, "she would want you to let her go." He reached over to the diagnostic terminal and keyed in a command to accept commands from someone other than himself; normally, anyone but Fox or another member of the computer or engineering staff with the right credentials would be shut out. "When you're ready..." He left the statement hanging and, with another squeeze on his friend's shoulder, retreated to give the couple a moment alone.
After a few moments had passed in silence, Enzo whispered something else into Sara's ear. The holographic figure smiled. "I know you will do the right thing," it said. "Revelation is in good hands with you at the helm. I am in good hands." Another pause. "I love you," it said again.
Enzo stood up, his hand still tightly clasped around Sara's hand. Looking up into the lights with glistening eyes, Enzo's throat bobbed as he swallowed back tears. "Terminate emulation," Fox heard him enunciate through gritted teeth. "Authorization Salt-two-nora-raven-three. Acknowledge."
The hologram shimmered and faded away, soon accompanied by the whine of cooling fans shutting down. A different, masculine voice came from the speaker. "Emulation terminated." She was gone.

Access & Availability

FLDM systems are expensive, complex, and, because of the sensitive nature of what they are used on, are generally installed on dedicated hardware rather than being hosted on the extranet. These devices, sometimes marketed as 'portable detectives,' typically take the form of a small briefcase arrayed with external ports for a variety of different networking cables.

Complexity

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