Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3391-3395 (9th to 13th January 2017)
Case:
--- Quote from: ZoeB on 11 Jan 2017, 23:32 ---If this entity was dishonest, it wouldn't have pointed out why it might not be trustworthy.
--- End quote ---
Unless it had anticipated Bubbles' would reason along the same lines, and had therefore pointed out one reason not to trust it in order to mask it's untrustworthiness ... :evil:
--- Quote from: osaka on 12 Jan 2017, 04:00 ---Faye's boobs are still a very powerful narcotic, even for Bubbles.
--- End quote ---
Additionally, Hanners has shown some talent in the "Hugging it better"-department.
--- Quote from: StevenC on 12 Jan 2017, 05:19 ---Most people seem to think the grey maybe-maybenot AI is a government agent.
Am I the only one who got an immediate vibe of Mephisto? As in Faustian deal Mephisto? Is an AI Satan a thing post-singularity?
--- End quote ---
Satan as in "Quasi-Supernatural Entity with the sole goal of ruining humanity spiritually and morally"? No. Not in SF-lit, as far as I can recall. In "serious" discussions about AI ... IDK. Off-the-cuff I'd say that judging from the one secure datapoint for intelligence that we have - ourselves - it would not be rational to expect an AI to develop into an artificial Satan (in the boundaries of the definition in my above line), for lack of human examples (I recognize that the veracity of that statement is highly dependent on one's definition of 'evil' in general, and 'sole aim' as well as 'ruin' in particular). I think 'satanic' behaviour simply "doesn't pay of", in a (very vague) game-theory sense, or in the sense of "parsimonious use of ones resources".
The closest I can recall is the Eschaton in Charlie Stross' Singularity Sky - but that's more like a dialed-up Skynet that believes in the principle of applying the minimum of violence necessary to protect itself from humanity meddling with causality in its historic lightcone. Where "minimum violence" can include a planetary civilisation violating it's commandment suddenly finding itself in the path of a city-sized asteroid.
Not strictly speaking evil, but terribly, terribly ... un-empathetic.
Stibbons:
--- Quote from: Tova on 12 Jan 2017, 03:59 ---This all brings up a point that I'm not sure has yet been discussed.
How well is Bubbles going to cope with suddenly being confronted with these long-dormant memories?
Even in the best-case scenario, this is going to be pretty painful.
--- End quote ---
She has friends.
Also suddenly finding that she is equipped with tearducts, perhaps courtesy of Anonybot.
retrosteve:
A lot of people mentioning Emily's lack of consent. I am more worried about her utter lack of understanding of her objective.
She wasn't even awake for the exposition part of this game. She knows little or nothing about what Bubbles has in her head or even that she wants memories back, or does not. Even presuming that Emily has some amazing ability to hack encryption and that the UI is intuitive enough for her to use correctly on the first try, does she know why it might be helpful? A goal?
retrosteve:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 12 Jan 2017, 02:11 ---
--- Quote from: nfearnley on 12 Jan 2017, 00:28 ---To clarify, the new character seems to use the pronouns: we/our/ourselves/us
--- End quote ---
Conventionally, that makes them royalty. Are we about to discover that robots have a monarchy?
Alternatively, and more obviously, it is simply because they are the avatar of a collective cloud-connected being, in computing terms a cluster, which is how some of us interpreted it from their first appearance.
--- End quote ---
Alternatively alternatively, the grey entity is a member of the shadowy agency Androgynous People In Grey and is speaking on behalf of the organisation as a whole.
BenRG:
--- Quote from: retrosteve on 12 Jan 2017, 05:58 ---A lot of people mentioning Emily's lack of consent. I am more worried about her utter lack of understanding of her objective.
She wasn't even awake for the exposition part of this game. She knows little or nothing about what Bubbles has in her head or even that she wants memories back, or does not. Even presuming that Emily has some amazing ability to hack encryption and that the UI is intuitive enough for her to use correctly on the first try, does she know why it might be helpful? A goal?
--- End quote ---
The UI is the key; if it is successful in establishing to Emily on a subconscious/instinctive level that the encryption is a narrative 'bad guy', then she'll try to take it down, irrespective of what these avatars are in real life.
"Once upon a time, in the magical land of Unicorn Valley, a wicked Corpse Witch placed a barrier across the land, keeping the Unicorns from taking their foals to the Sugar Hills where the best grazing may be found. All despaired until, one day, a clever little girl named Emily fell into the land to confront the barrier and the wicked Witch. To prove that the light of a pure heart can conquer any barrier.
"This is the story of how imagination, love, tolerance and the Magic of Friendship can conquer any evil and bring happiness to all. This is the story of the finding of the Rainbow of Light...
"This is the story of Emily and Her Little Ponies!"
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