Lets see if I can remember and summarize what I recall reading about them (Rob or others will have to correct me when they get back from GenCon so some of this could be wrong). First there are two kinds of "thinking machine", when you hear AI it actually refers to systems that can certainly emulate a degree of intelligence, maybe some learned behaviour... but overall they are more of a highly accessable system that excells in a certain area, NOT a self-aware entity. AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is "AI" in the self-aware sense. AGI entites not only have equal rights, they ARE considered a part of transhumanity and both they and the Uplifts (animals that have been altered to possess self-awareness... see the sample character) fall into a faction collectively referred to as the "Mercurials". Mercurial status (Uplift and AGI both) seems to very with the Faction/society they are with... but all in all the picture that was painted was that it's a lot safer and simpler to create AI robot entities that will never rebel rather than risk it with AGI slaves... that said I seem to recall some cases of AGI that were indentured slaves as punishement for real or percieved collaboration with the TITANS during The Fall). As an after-effect of The Fall, all AGI are socialized as much as possible so that they associate well with the rest of transhumanity and given their own capacity to resleeve with biological-based morphs the line between robot and human blurs a lot (that's not to say that some may have VERY different opinions of humans and their role in society). Anndd, that's pretty much all I recall...