Information creep

Information creep is an illness from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Information creep is a malady that afflicts robotic lifeforms: i.e. Transformers. It consists of the corruption of data in the Brain module that results in memories being subconsciously (or rather, unconsciously) re-interpreted. It sometimes is also known as "blurred data" on worlds such as Caminus. It seems to be a particular affliction of "MTO's"; Transformers that were constructed cold rather than forged, who were mass-assembled, then given an orientation program.

In the end, High Command decided they wanted their new troops to fight, not study, so they reduced the steps from ten to eight to three. Three steps, Nautica: 'From thaw to war in under an hour.' Because who cares whether or not a warborn knockoff with a three-minute life expectancy can quote Dominus Ambus or notate the Grand Celestial Melody? So long as he can assemble a path-blaster with his brand-new eyes closed, everyone's happy. That's sarcasm, by the way. I dabble.Skids, "Twenty Plus One"

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

Following the disappearance of the Lost Light and the necessity of 20 'bots cramming into the Rodpod, they began talking amongst themselves. During one of the conversations, Ammo, Riptide, and Getaway told Nautica about the "Ten-Step Program" that MTOs had to pass in order to be declared "world-ready" (which Riptide hated), Ratchet weighed in with anecdotal info about the high percentage of MTOs who claimed to have had mystical experiences, which he claimed were neurological hallucinations that were a product of their virtually-newborn senses. Swerve took offense, pointing out that faith wasn't a new idea, but Skids countered that with a brief lecture on a condition known to affect robotic lifeforms known as "information creep"—the corruption of brain data that resulted in memories being unconsciously reinterpreted. Nautica was familiar with the condition, which was known on Caminus as "blurred data". Twenty Plus One

Notes

• In real life, human beings are subject to "memory errors", which includes memory loss, remembering events that never occurred, or remembering them differently from the way they had actually transpired. They can happen for a myriad of differing reasons, including emotions/stress level during the particular situation, expectations and changes to environment. This sounds much like "information creep" in robotic lifeforms.
• "Information creep" is a term used by Wikipedia to describe the slow feed of information into an article that winds up shifting its perspective and/or readability over time

External links

• Memory Errors at Wikipedia