Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

Wouldn't robots consider the words "robots" and "artificial" offensive?

<< < (7/11) > >>

Storel:

--- Quote from: awgiedawgie on 31 May 2018, 21:02 ---How about "non-organic intelligence"? There's no connotation of being fake, as there can be with "artificial" or "synthetic". And since the Singularity, the only relevant distinction is that humans are organically derived, and AIs are not.

--- End quote ---

We already have a perfectly good word that means "not organic"* : inorganic (as in Organic Chemistry vs. Inorganic Chemistry). An Inorganic Intelligence would be an II, which is how Australians already pronounce "AI" anyway...  :-D


__________
* In the "living or formerly living" sense of organic, not the "grown without pesticides" sense.

Inconsequential:
The term "AI" seems to be a slightly more "formal" usage, but "robot" has never been used in a way that seemed the least bit offensive. "Droid" has popped up here and there as well, and also seems fairly inoffensive and interchangeable. (Bubbles has described herself as a combat droid.) The term "android" originally meant a human-shaped robot, but that's a loose definition.

Many AIs have referred to themselves or others as "robots". "Robot jail", "I like being a blue robot chick", "I am a robot!", "robot drunk", etc.

I don't think Faye and Bubbles would have named their shop "Union Robotics" if the term "robot" was the least bit offensive.

One very interesting thing was when the Fayebubling started and Bubbles was talking to Tai, she said "Faye has demonstrated no interest in... in the kind of person I am." Bubbles hardly ever stutters, and it's telling she couldn't quite figure out how to identify herself.

Later on, Faye says "... it's a lot. Bein' with a lady, who also happens to be an AI..." So it's obvious that Faye considers Bubbles a woman first, and an AI second.


The Benevolent Creator (Jeph be his name) is generally very precise in his use of language (even in May's outbursts...) so the words we see in this universe are there for a reason.


Some other interesting bits of language I've noticed:

- AIs refer to their "existence", but I don't think one has ever referred to their "life". Maybe once...?

- A few AIs have referred to being "born". I guess beginning your existence is being born whether you're a robot or a human.

- Humans are almost always referred to as "humans". O'Malley once used the term "organics" - http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3695 "Meatsacks" and a few similar terms for humans have popped up sarcastically here and there.

- AIs and humans refer to AI and human "hearts" several times, meaning their emotional center. "You possess a kind heart", "Holes in our hearts", etc. Bubbles once makes a joke that she doesn't have a heart, she has a coolant pump.

- The words "people", "person", etc. include both AIs and humans.

- AI bodies are referred to as both "bodies" and "chassis". The difference seems to depend on whether they're talking about the body as a mechanism. AIs also seem to feel varying degrees of "integration", or how "at home" AIs feel in their bodies, or how much the body influences the personality. Roko is very integrated, and has had only one body since she was born. Others have switched bodies and been immediately at home -- Momo and Winslow. Of course, May wanted to be a fighter jet, and constantly gets pissed at her cheap government issue chassis.

- Most of the AI characters have humanoid bodies with varying features, but we see lots of other AIs with other types of bodies. Most with humanoid bodies use nonhuman skin and hair colors -- great way to just skip the uncanny valley issue altogether. Momo and the other Idoru chassis use human-like skin (with fairly realistic blushing), but nonhuman hair and eye colors, and even the seamless ones like Bubbles, Momo, Winslow, and Roko seem to have vents or seams at the neck.

- Ever notice that Hannelore has consistently been the most at ease and natural around AIs? Neat how a comic can do such a great job of getting such a subtle difference across. Makes sense; she grew up around the first AIs and Station was instrumental in helping her become a functional human.

- Probably another topic for another day, but I've always wondered what Bubbles' body and existence were like before she joined the military.

- Definitely another topic for another thread, but clothing on AIs is another semiotic rabbit hole we could rummage around in...

alc40:
The term "robot" does usually seem to be used neutrally in the comic, but there's one exception I can think of:

--- Quote ---May: ...a friggin' robot could do this job.
Dale: You are a robot.
May: I'm an ANDROID. And nobody likes a goddamned pedant.
--- End quote ---
So it seems like the older meaning of "robot" as an automaton is still around in the QC universe, even if it's rarely used in that way (at least among the comic's characters).

awgiedawgie:

--- Quote from: Inconsequential on 04 Jun 2018, 17:54 ---Probably another topic for another day, but I've always wondered what Bubbles' body and existence were like before she joined the military.

--- End quote ---
It has been my theory from the beginning that the body she currently has is the only one she has ever had. And I have seen no evidence or convincing arguments to sway my opinion. I believe that her mind (her core AI "self") and her body were designed for each other as part of the military program. Yes, she had to actually voluntarily join the military, but there is evidence that people who grow up in military environments or families are likely to join the military themselves. So if Bubbles also "grew up" in a military environment, along with being - as she put it - "well-disposed toward such a role", the people in charge of the program could produce a very strong likelihood that she would indeed choose to enlist.

Morituri:
While I think Bubbles did volunteer (she strongly implies it when she says to Momo, "I felt called to serve"), It may not be strictly true that all AI of Bubbles' era would have the choice to voluntarily join the military.  If I remember correctly, AI Civil Rights in their current form came into existence while she was serving.   So the Army may have manufactured AI (and chassis) specifically to be born into the role of soldiers.  The army clearly manufactured Bubbles' current chassis; it does not make sense that she would be embodied in it prior to joining. 

If it's her first chassis, I'm supposing without evidence that prior to joining the Army, Bubbles may have been a non-embodied AI living in a server rack somewhere. In that case she'd have been embodied in a military-issue chassis when she joined.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page