After taking notice of Project Electric Sheep, fellow Arek'Jaalan contributor Valarie Valate directed me to the work of Anneka Tong, who sometime ago developed a cybernetic cow. Given the clear parallels with my "infomorphic sheep," I contacted Ms. Tong, and she kindly responded with several details of her venture.
One element in her response struck me in particular.
Rather than present the cow's mind with imaging of its actual environment, or a fanciful virtual one, she opted to translate reality into imagery the cow would "understand." In place of asteroids, the creature saw fields of grass. Actions the cow would then take to move and eat became signals to the mining barge's motion and laser controls.
Such an environmental translation would apply well in an infomorphic setting. One can imagine ships crewed by infomorphic "animals," manipulating controls through execution of their natural physical activities. Falcons might gather intelligence; hounds might give chase. Many animals - dolphins, ravens, octopi - demonstrate remarkable capacity for learning and problem solving. Infomorphic projections of such creatures might circumvent difficult problems with artificial intelligence. It may even be that rogue and Sleeper drones derive some of their cognition in part from such a technique.
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