Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT Strips 3891 - 3895 (10-14 December 2018)

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Pogopotamus:
So ...assuming AIs get to "choose" a body and Bubbles appears to be a MILspec super duty fighting/military chassis that (assumedly) she got when she became a solider do we further assume they get to keep whatever hardware they had from the last job they performed?  You'd think the military might want that specialized hardware chassis back for re-use or just might not want it wandering around the civilian landscape.  They did take back Pintsize's death ray.

OldGoat:

--- Quote from: alc40 on 10 Dec 2018, 11:40 ---I have a little time so I went digging around about AI memories & transfers.  The ones I found are from various time frames, and the earlier comics may well be inconsistent with later ones:

59: Pintsize on Marten's desktop
268: implication that backups could be kept, although Marten deleted it
2000: Momo gets a new chassis
3008: Corpse Witch removing an AI drive
3044: Marten has memory backups of Pintsize
3376: Bubbles talking about AI minds

--- End quote ---

And #3406 in which Bubbles sayeth unto Corpse Witch, "I could rip you apart, tear out your mind substrate, and crush it to dust in my hands."  I presume "mind substrate" means the crystal lantern looking thingie she removed from Higgs's robonoggin in #3008.

Case:

--- Quote from: Pogopotamus on 10 Dec 2018, 14:48 ---So ...assuming AIs get to "choose" a body and Bubbles appears to be a MILspec super duty fighting/military chassis that (assumedly) she got when she became a solider do we further assume they get to keep whatever hardware they had from the last job they performed?  You'd think the military might want that specialized hardware chassis back for re-use or just might not want it wandering around the civilian landscape.  They did take back Pintsize's death ray.

--- End quote ---

Hmmmmh - Yes, they took Pintsize's laser (which, I hasten to add, he was prone to firing at anything that took his fancy, apropos nothing at all) but not his body. Presumably, the QC-verse AIs have 'an opinion' about taking away an intelligence's body they've accustomed to - probably less extreme than humans would rate the equivalent treatment applied to one of their own, but I doubt it would qualify for 'charitably', 'enthusiastic' or 'kindly'. Their chassis' relevance to an AIs sense of identity and personhood is probably different from the equivalent relation we have with our bodies, but IMO, we've seen some indications that it's by no means 'not a big deal'.

Second, unlike Pintsize, Bubbles has given no indication of being anything but scrupulously restrained in the application of her chassis' capabilities (admittedly, ill-positioned walls and bothersome doors seem to rank somewhat lower on her list of 'things that warrant restraint due to ethical concerns'.)

Thirdly, QC-verse is positively teeming with AIs mingling with humans while inhabiting chassis' capable of effortlessly denting steel, or literally dis-arming each other, without any of the meatbags present showing the slightest signs of fear or distress (*) (**)

Furthermore, we don't know that the military hasn't already deactivated and/or removed some of her systems - what we know is that she is walking a very large and very strong chassis around ... manymany other very large and strong AI-chassis. Could be that her most militarily relevant hardware has little to do with her chassis' structural capabilities.

And, last, but maybe not least: The only way known to us so far of incapacitating someone inhabiting the type of chassis Bubbles is wearing is a battlefield EMP specifically tailored to overcoming her military-grade chassis' defences against EMPs. It's probably safe to assume that anything that can knock Bubbles out will likely also do seriously unpleasant things to the artificial brains of any AI in the vicinity, not to mention any critical urban infrastructure that fails to evacuate to a safe distance in a timely fashion.

So maybe, there was a staff-meeting somewhere that abruptly ended in a deafening silence after someone asked the innocuous question "What if she says 'No'?"


(*) Note the italics - I didn't forget that humanity has a wee bit of a way to go yet before AI can consider themselves universally accepted. The casual non-reaction most Northampton residents display vis a vis 'artificial people who could dis-arm me!' walking around seems to indicate that QC-verse humanity is not at the very beginning of said learning process).

(**) No, Marten doesn't count, on account of ... of ... Being! Marten!.

JoeCovenant:

Anyone else have problems getting onto the page/forum today?

(No new comic.. :(   )

BenRG:
Yeah, Jeph's webhost was down for about 5-6 hours this morning for hardware maintenance and so both the comic and the forums were inaccessible. They're up again now (as you can doubtless see). However, Jeph has said that he won't be able to upload today's strip for a while. In the meantime, he says he's made yesterday's Patreon post accessible to guests as well as members so today's strip should now be visible there until he is able to do the upload.

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