The other unexpected science I got this month was in the pages of Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #7.  As usual there are spoilers (though these aren’t really big spoilers.) 

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is such an abstract concept that it is difficult to say often what constitutes artificial intelligence.  One of the main challenges in creating A.I. is that intelligence comprises so many different aspects and many of the workers in the field aim to tackle only one problem, while not looking at the bigger picture.  However, while the field is somewhat far off in its goals, the field of A.I. is one of the most common in science fiction.  It would have been a difficult claim here to say that A.I. had developed in the Humanids by themselves, it was technically put there by Brother Eye.  Brother Eye put them there because Batman built artificial intelligence into the Brother Eye, which is a good accomplishment for him considering that he does all that other stuff.  

Group Intelligence

Where the artificial intelligence is not really possible except in this setting, the portrayal of how the Humanids persist is actually a lot more interesting (if maybe inadvertently so).  The Humanids have a shelf life of 24 hours, at which point they die and their biological materials get reused to create new Humanids.   Instead of just dying though, now that they have an artificial intelligence they pass on their knowledge to the new Humanids.  Sounds like something which would require a computer mind, but it really isn’t.  Ants do the same thing, if an ant is killed in the process of completing a task, another ant doing a less vital task will complete the task in its place without having been told.  The exact function of how this works isn’t known, but it is interesting to point out that you don’t need a computer to have such as form of group intelligence.

Verdict: Good science