Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 3741 to 3745 (May 14th - 18th 2018)
awgiedawgie:
--- Quote from: Staff_Inflection on 18 May 2018, 23:43 ---Yeah, this account is like 5 years old but I don't post much either. I suspect I have several quite unpopular opinions, despite overall being a fan and following the comic for nearly 10 years now
--- End quote ---
I suspect that if anyone - myself included - ever shared their full opinion on many topics here, they would be driven out of town on the next available donkey cart.
That’s what I like about the forum. On the whole, people are pretty good about keeping their discussion within the context of the thread.
Masterof7s:
I normally don't post on the forums. But I felt compelled to register at this Bubbles/Faye turn of events because we talking about a robot/human pairing. Jeph is normally pretty smart about this sort of thing so I hope he's worked out the science behind this arc or I'm going to be really disappointed.
When you eliminate all the romanticized nonsense behind human coupling, the bottom line is that humans are driven to pair up because of hormonal and chemical influence. It is literally a biological physical need for oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and other mood stabilizing chemicals that produces the pain and longing we feel when we are lacking physical affection. Faye I can understand because she hasn't gotten laid in months and really isn't all that affectionate with her circle of friends. She is touch starved and her body is responding to any physical stimulus.
Bubbles on the other hand is a machine. A sentient and sapient machine with an artificial, humanlike consciousness to be certain, but a machine nonetheless. She has no biological needs, because she is not a biological being. What logic processes are being satisfied by this interaction and why do those processes exist in the first place? This is not a matter of "just feeling it" because feelings are tied directly to the physical body through the chemicals that are produced during moments of intense emotion, and you can't have emotion without internal biological organs. So outside of a bunch of algorithms designed to mimic or present a simulacrum of human emotion, even with a humanlike consciousness, a machine can not feel the same way a human does. So what is Bubbles getting out of her relationship with Faye turning physical?
The narrative needs to address the science in some way because right now it feels like lazy fan-fiction.
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Masterof7s on 19 May 2018, 03:32 ---So what is Bubbles getting out of her relationship with Faye turning physical?
The narrative needs to address the science in some way because right now it feels like lazy fan-fiction.
--- End quote ---
Over the years Jeph has put a lot of thought into the nature of his AIs, both within the comic and in pieces he's published elsewhere such as Tumblr or whatever. There is still a long way to go - your doubts express that - but at least I don't think he can be accused of being lazy over the matter. There is also a degree of conflict between explaining in detail, and maintaining the privacy of the characters (as he has done for Marten and Claire, for instance) - this conflict has also seen some expression in the forums themselves, so we must be careful not to demand unsympathetic explanations.
BenRG:
There are two issues here that Masterof7s seem to have missed:
* AIs in the Questionable Content universe are so humanlike in their cognition that they are as obviously driven by emotional impulses and the desire for certain sensory inputs as any human;
* Social interaction and close social integration are clearly very important elements in their behavioural prioritiesNow, early on, Hannelore told Winslow that AIs were not designed deliberately initially, they were an emergent phenomenon of non-sentient polymorphic software in specific types of hardware with complex sensory arrays with the objective of performance optimisation spontaneously developing consciousness. Because of this, we can't say that there is a 'design' purpose for anything that they do. Their algorithms spontaneously generate priorities that makes them as random and as irrational as humans and just as dominated by emotion and impulse.
At least in Bubbles' case, the pair bonding with Faye is about social and emotional intimacy and trusted companionship. Causing her bond-mate pleasure and experiencing pleasure in return is part of enhancing that bond. Which, by the way, is the second biological driver behind sex after reproduction. The only reason we get pleasure is to program us on a subconscious level to want these things.
fayelovesbubbles:
--- Quote --- Bubbles is a machine.
--- End quote ---
That’s not very nice...
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version