You can think of a program as sort of like a series of runes that end up producing a spirit. Instead of using runes, a program uses electronic impulses. There's a physical and computational division here, but the really important part is that the runes are giving out a series of commands that make something happen. URSULA's at an advanced state where her program probably lets her adapt to new things. The code is set out so that she can be flexible and write new things into her memory, which would be is a record that she can access through her program. URSULA might even be able to alter her own program. She is nonetheless based on a series of explicit and direct commands, and her tendency to fall into the parameters of those rules marks her as more likely to be an AI than a spirit.
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You can think of a program as sort of like a series of runes that end up producing a spirit. Instead of using runes, a program uses electronic impulses. There's a physical and computational division here, but the really important part is that the runes are giving out a series of commands that make something happen. URSULA's at an advanced state where her program probably lets her adapt to new things. The code is set out so that she can be flexible and write new things into her memory, which would be is a record that she can access through her program. URSULA might even be able to alter her own program. She is nonetheless based on a series of explicit and direct commands, and her tendency to fall into the parameters of those rules marks her as more likely to be an AI than a spirit.