Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT 4176-4180 (13th - 17th, January 2020)

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Wingy:

--- Quote from: sitnspin on 18 Jan 2020, 07:36 ---
--- Quote from: Wingy on 18 Jan 2020, 06:13 ---And related to that, how does an AI decide if they are male or female or neither for embodiment purposes? 

--- End quote ---

They choose bodies that most correspond to their sense of self. People don't "decide" they are male or female, they discover it.

--- End quote ---
Errrr, uhm, people do exactly what you've described - they discover;  I'm asking about AIs.  How does a piece of silicon decide to be embodied as one or the other, or has Jeph not covered this angle before/yet/ever?.  Unlike people, AIs can choose, and apparently do.


--- Quote ---Consider the implications of what you are asking.

--- End quote ---
I have; it took me a while to work it out for people, but I've made my peace with all that.  I wouldn't be surprised to see May shut down and be rebooted into a military-grade male body with nary a wobble internally - though others around her might wonder a bit.  Most will just shrug and wish her well, though I expect Momo will freak out - perhaps more over the military aspect than the gender swap.

Is it cold in here?:
If they can change to a body different from their internal identity and not feel gender dysphoria, that's a big difference from organics.

JimC:

--- Quote from: Aenno on 18 Jan 2020, 07:42 ---, and happens often enough to justify paid position of exact person Roko is speaking with, and the very existence of his budget
--- End quote ---
I think you're making an assumption that it would be the officer's only job, and in my personal experience of UK government that wouldn't be a valid assumption.  If something new comes up that isn't a big enough deal (and doesn't come with enough budget) to justify a full time post then most likely executives would be quite keen to grab it for their department as part of the usual empire building, but then the winning exec will dump the actual work on whichever officer doesn't run fast enough. In that circumstance the officer has been landed with a job they never wanted or applied for, and almost certainly regards it as an unwanted distraction from doing their "real" job, and thus unless they are some kind of saint a consequent poor attitude is understandable.

Tova:

--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 18 Jan 2020, 14:35 ---If they can change to a body different from their internal identity and not feel gender dysphoria, that's a big difference from organics.

--- End quote ---

Do all transgender people experience dysphoria?

notsocool:

--- Quote from: Aenno on 18 Jan 2020, 07:42 ---Actually, it's you who are making the assumption they're the SAME thing.
--- End quote ---

Occam's Razor. It is in fact most likely the same thing, because a) it is something the comic showed (a storytelling concept) and b) your assertation is that May is oddly forced to be embodied when there is no special reason for her to be. To accept this, we have to accept that May is being treated differently from other disembodied AI parolees. Or we can read the comic without making stuff up, and take the word of the comic itself that May requested her body.


--- Quote ---1. Remove restrictions for her parole, which actually are quite for a reason: first, allowing convicted criminal to do things they abused to do a crime is a offer to repeat; second, allowing her to earn money by renting a body utility means she can afford herself not to be in society but just sitting on her sofa doing AI stuff. Both are, actually, removing a very reason for parole. That wouldn't be parole, that would be pardon.

--- End quote ---

There are a ton of other ways May can earn money legitimately without a human-sized body, even if we continue to prevent her from renting out her processors like Pintsize. Real life parolees take such jobs all the time. One example quoted in this very thread was working in a call-center, which she can do in a mini body. Other examples are all kinds of office work, computer art, sales (having a cute mini body may even be advantageous), copywriting, and for that matter, operating machinery, as long as it's the kind that can be controlled by a disembodied AI. Seriously, the idea is to get her a fully functional smaller (or a disembodied option) and hence cheaper body rather than a big crappy one for the same price.


--- Quote ---Wait, wait, wait. Where is the gift thing came? US government, as far as I know, isn't about "gift" things, and it was never said it was a "gift". They're usually doing what they MUST do, and you must fight to even get it.
--- End quote ---

A gift is exactly what you are asking the US government to give to May. Seriously, the root word is "give", and throughout all this the only way to describe what we're doing to the body is a "gift".


--- Quote --- And why do you think Roko speaking with parole board in 4173?
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---asking the parole officer to do his damned JOB
--- End quote ---

The man is not a parole officer.

I think you might be confusing the meeting Roko is having in 4173 with the meeting Roko is having in 4031. In 4173 the person is the man responsible for issuing AI bodies. That is his job, and he explains (rather condescendingly) that he is in fact doing his job. He cannot issue her a better chassis because his budget is limited. But here's something you may not realize: it might not be his ONLY job. He could be handling an entire range of AI parole matters, and this is just one aspect of his work. This is pretty universal when there is a "niche of a niche" case (unless of course government is inefficient, which it often is). If you're familiar with government office work at all, you'd know that one guy in a ministry is generally responsible for a whole bunch of things. It's often true in the private sector as well. I myself am a mechanical engineer, but since I am good with computers, the company asks me to do all the computer-related work in the office. Similarly, another engineer is asked to do purchasing, and another does low-level logistics that we don't want to bother the logistics department with. All this is besides our main job, which is to maintain a  very complex machine used in offshore work.

Similarly, May's parole officer in 4031 tells Roko that he actually doesn't have the authority (as in, it's not something he's even sure he'd allowed to do; he had to check with legal) to do what Roko is asking. Government is not monolithic, no more so than a private corporation. Each person has their roles and responsibilities, and individuals do not have the power to overstep their position (not without being fired or disciplined).


--- Quote ---And all of this said by a man who is definitly intrested in doing nothing in this particular case, as a reasons he would not do anything.
--- End quote ---

His explanation in fact is very clear why he cannot do anything. What is he going to do? In fact, Roko is, as he says, wasting his time, even if he didn't have to actually tell her this. By the way, since you mentioned this in an earlier post, his rudeness is not something the can be sued for. Being rude is an American basic right, and the worst thing Roko can do is to complain to his superiors.


--- Quote ---4173 doesn't say explicitly that having a body isn't a condition of her parole
--- End quote ---

Fair enough. But it does explicitly say she requested her body, which implies it isn't a condition of her parole.


--- Quote ---Long post about how parole works
--- End quote ---

And this is exactly what I am talking about. All this May's decision. It's her parole plan that involves having a body. Seriously, there is no magic reason why she would somehow be forbidden from making a parole plan to be disembodied the same way other disembodied AI do, and if she was, that's what they should be going after rather than trying to get her a new body. And please don't claim she might be forbidden from being disembodied because she committed the crime as a disembodied AI, that's ALL disembodied AI criminals.

One of the things about parole is that you are allowed to change your parole plan in the face of new circumstances. If May did not expect to have to maintain her crappy body and only now realizes it, what they should be doing is talking to her parole officer to change her plan to a disembodied one so that she can avoid those maintenance costs.

Again, giving her a body is the most expensive way to handle her case.


--- Quote --- US system also believes that parole system are responsible for parolees enough to care and declare that parole system should actually help them with residence, employment, financial and personal stuff. They're writing it plainly.
--- End quote ---

"Help" in this case is not giving them anything. As you yourself pointed out, the parole system does not "give" any of this as part of parole; they instead help the parolee do this themselves. What they do is put the parolee in contact with the relevant people, and help them make calls and perform the requests for them. At no point for instance, does the parole system give a parolee a house, a job or anything of the sort. The best they do is help the parolee find a house to rent and find a job to work in.

In this case, the parole board in fact went above and beyond by letting May(and AIs like her) have her body for free! Perhaps they asked a local AI charity to contribute cast-offs, or an ex-con who upgraded.


--- Quote ---Comic declaration is that humans are ultimately responsible for the AIs, and, actually, are ultimately responsible for everybody around, their feelings and well-being. Again, it's moral question, and yes, as a moral question it's a question of beliefs.
--- End quote ---

Humans, government, and the parole board are not the same thing. Each is a subset of the previous one. The parole board is not responsible for SNAP, the government is. And how they carry out their obligations is another thing. They don't have to perform these obligations by giving out free stuff. In fact, one of the most American values is teaching people how to help themselves, hence why they love the "teach a man to fish" proverb so much.

What I am pointing out is that the parole board does not give away for free the equivalent of an AI body to human parolees. And the government does not give away AI bodies to AIs in general. What you are asking is for the parole board to give an AI body to May when it doesn't gave similar gifts to humans (SNAP is not a parole board thing), and for the government to give and AI body to May even if it doesn't give AI bodies to law-abiding AI. This is to illustrate how much of a luxury a human-sized AI body is. It's kinda like a new car. Lots of people have them, but they are expensive, and no one gets them for free from the government.

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