Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
What is Bubbles' sexual orientation?
Mad Cat:
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 19 May 2018, 21:49 ---
--- Quote from: A small perverse otter on 19 May 2018, 17:48 ---
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 19 May 2018, 14:17 ---Mad Cat, we've seen repeated evidence that AI gender identity is not directly tied to their current chassis. Station, for example, identifies as male and he's a space station. Pintsize identifies as male and his chassis doesn't have any gender identifying markers. Evidence all points to their gender identity being part of their code.
--- End quote ---
I wonder whether "code" is the right term here. I thought Bubbles had once basically said that AIs experience gender identity much as humans do. That seems consistent with Winslow saying "and I think I'm a boy" -- it's not something which he felt was discretely written into his code, but rather something which arose from within it and his life-experience.
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It's still code, though. AIs have adaptive code, as do humans. Even if a specific gender identity wasn't present at the time of their emergence, it is still part of thier code now. My point is that it's part of thier core personality and not linked to thier current chasis.
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Eeeeeeehhhhhhhh. There's plenty of artificial intelligence systems that rely on what we would refer to as "codes", logic programming, predicate logic, case-based reasoning, rule-based systems. These are all incredibly brittle systems and generally suck at general intelligence of a human-type. Witness how hard it was for IBM to make Watson successful at Jeopardy. Now, Watson is being used in vertical siloes, such as the tax code for H&R Block, and in medicine for certain hospitals/insurance companies, where it doesn't have to reason about absolutely everything.
If you want a system to be able to reason about anything and everything, those AI technologies are not gonna fly. You're gonna need something like an artificial neural network coupled to a machine learning system that can introspect and grow organicly, and I used that word with all due deliberation. As we have seen in QC, AI personalities are created out of whole clothe, each unique. CBR and RBSs just can't do that. What can do that is something akin to a genetic code to describe how to stochasticly (50¢ word for randomly) generate a new AI personality from an existing AI personality (or personalities (not just two, there's no reason AIs couldn't reproduce with three existing personalities coming together to copy aspects of themselves for use in the construction of the unique, new AI personality)). These kinds of artificial intelligence systems, you don't just add another line of code to its programming. You have to educate it the same way you would educate a human mind. You communicate with it, talk to it. Listen to any questions it has and then answer them. True general intelligence AIs will learn the same way human intelligence learns, just at an accelerated rate. Unfortunately, this means sentient AI will also be err to most if not all of the same psychological problems as humans, and prolly a few new ones.
sitnspin:
I meant code in the more vague, metaphorical sense than literal lines of code, in the same way I would refer to humans being a mix of hardware and software.
I'm not a programmer. I can barely even use a computer. The specific mechanical processes don't particularly matter to me. What is important to me, and to the discussion of sapient beings, is how they experience the world and themselves subjectively, not the mechanics of it.
Staff_Inflection:
--- Quote from: sniktchtherat on 19 May 2018, 07:46 ---This thread glancingly touches on a fairly dark line of thought - if her chassis has a functional gender, the military thought there was a combat or readiness purpose to her having it. If that sentence does not horrify you, then reread it with empathic and moral filters off.
Fortunately, the high-odds likelihood is there will be wacky hijinks of varying types as Bubbles and Faye puzzle out how things work between them to the point that any particular biological normatives being absent ceases to be a concern.
As to gender identification. the only even slightly 'masculine' aspect of Bubbles' affect is her stance in earlier appearances, and that is less masculine and more soldier on post. She's a she, just a very crisp and solid she.
RE the whole 'Fayesexual' line: I'd say El Goonish Shive beat QC to the punch on that particular compounding, albeit with a different character. It's a simple reference to "this character is attracted to this character, regardless of respective genders and gender identities at the moment". Faye is actually the better question - her orientation has to this point always been heterosexual, she clearly identifies as female, and clearly identifies Bubbles as female.
Given her sister is lesbian, and there IS a genetic component to 'nonstandard' sexuality, it might be worth wondering if Mr. Whitaker was dealing with something that was treated fairly abysmally in the mid-late 80s Southeastern US. It's also worth considering how Faye might have reacted to a male chassis in the exact same circumstances - cultural cues may have caused different actions, and the story might have gone in an entirely different and probably less happy direction.
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In regards to your first thought, I've also considered on more than one occasion the darker themes the QC-universe occasionally brushes up against. It's important to remember the QC-verse is not ours. Troubling implications that clearly exist in our world dont necessarily have to exist in this one.
Consider Star Trek. It was once asked of Patrick Stewart why a middle-aged man would be bald in the 27th (or w/e) century. And he response was to the effect of "In the future, such trivialities don't matter"
That's the particular headcannon I've stuck to throughout the years
snufflebottoms:
--- Quote from: jeph on 19 May 2018, 22:11 ---Y’all need to settle down, damn
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I feel like this is pretty much true of the entire forum. You make ANY opinion comment and you are violating someone's ideals or a fictional character's boundaries or idk the laws of grammar or some shit.
This thread of was originally speculation on a fictional female robot's sexual orientation. Lol the world we live in.
So I guess to bring back on topic: I think Bubbles is gay. I think she's always been gay but perhaps falls on the ace spectrum or has been shut off romantically due to trauma. Normally, I wouldn't go the trauma route since ace =/= damaged but in Bubbles case I think she falls on the ace spectrum AND has been put off romance due to events in her backstory. This is purely speculation (this whole thread is) but I think that's the simplest explanation.
Mad Cat:
I think sniktchtherat is confusing sex and gender. Sex is physical. gender is psychological. The only outward appearance on bubbles' chassis of sex is a larger chest, all the better to install larger, stronger myomer synthetic muscles into to give her superhuman upper body strength as, clearly, Ofc. Basilisk does not have, and a distinct lack of male genitalia. There would be no physical evidence of gender, as that is a trait solely of the software that runs on said hardware, i.e. of the AI personality that got installed into it, i.e. the essence of Bubbles.
As has been mentioned, Bubbles' gender would be Bubbles' gender regardless of what chassis she inhabits. If something were to happen to Bubbles' combat chassis and she had to be installed in a chassis that looked more like Momo, Bubbles' gender, and sexual orientation most likely, would remain unchanged in the transfer. I only say most likely because with a completely new chassis may come new sex organs and thus new possibilities for sexual expression that may resonate with her gender identity in a complementary way, or a destructive way, which may itself affect her sexual orientation.
Sex is about what you have, bodily. Gender identity is about who you are and how you think. Sexual orientation is about who you're attracted to and what you want to do with who you're attracted to. This is why people like me are called, most specificly, transsexuals. We don't want to change our genders. We want to change the physical sex of our bodies, a task that is quite difficult for a biologicly embodied entity, but almost trivial for embodied AI in the QC-verse.
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