Hunter-Seeker

The Hunter-Seeker is an artificial general intelligence program assumed in ASC 3066 to still be running in a large computing cluster in Backbone Site named the Octopus Array. While its actual thoughts are utterly unknown and unknowable to humans, people analysing the goal system content of early copies of the software tend to agree on the currently popular assumption: It works to gently prevent, allowing 5% chance of failure, the creation of any other artificial general intelligence programs anywhere on Micras, while otherwise trying to stay out of human affairs.

What it actually does seems to have very little to do with this goal. The Hunter-Seeker is considered a legal person in Backbone Site, and it runs a company named the Hunter-Seeker Association. This company is crewed by a few dozen people, and its general work seems to be in stock investing and in maintaining the Octopus Array. The AI itself creates the stock market predictions, and they are almost immaculately precise. However, they are also few and far between, and the Hunter-Seeker association tends to stay under the radar - only slightly richer than it is absolutely necessary in order to keep the AI existing and expanding at a steady pace.

In general, people tend to leave the HSA alone, and the HSA leaves people alone. However, since its creation AI research has become extremely unpopular. Those people who genuinely have the skill and interest for it tend to be offered extremely well-paid work in a field that skirts but does not quit reach actual AI research, and those who stop short tend to make several friends online over the years who will each convince them to try a different field of work.