Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Aug 16th - Aug 20th (4591-4595)
oddtail:
--- Quote from: David F on 17 Aug 2021, 15:19 ---You have made the effort to do that. Not everyone who's out of line with the population around them does so. And keep in mind - up until *very* recently, Yay has not interacted with other people *at all*. "We have spent the majority of our existence scuttling beneath the metaphorical floorboards of society." You have a lifetime of experience with others to draw on, and were motivated to build models. Yay does not have that experience.
--- End quote ---
I'd agree, but Yay can accumulate a human lifetime of knowledge - if not experience - in the time it takes me to eat lunch. They have resources that I could never have, and can do the mental legwork of thinking about things, presumably, in milliseconds where I'd take hours.
This is not everything, but it should be a factor in *some* way. Or to put it another way - if Yay is a superintelligence and their being a superintelligence never *factors* into anything, HOW are they a superintelligence for the purpose of the story?
Exploring why the superintelligence fails to "solve" human interaction is interesting for a story. Coming up with a superintelligence that just can't - isn't.
Know "One Punch Man"? I hate the anime and gave up on it pretty much immediately. It's just not for me. But it does this sort of thing right. The main character can defeat anyone effortlessly. The story is interested in what that means, and how it clicks with Saitama's personality and mental state. What's the life of an invincible hero like? There can be many such characters, because Saitama is clearly different from, say, Superman (who is, at least in some stories, effectively invincible. Not every story is about him defeating a very powerful foe) and both are different from Dr. Manhattan.
Yay is the mental equivalent of One Punch Man (as is Dr. Manhattan, come to think of it... but I digress). I need the story to go *somewhere* with that. Even by meaningful and well-written omission of their mental super-competence (as in, "this super AI is surprisingly NOT godly when the chips are down, and here's why it's funny/interesting/dramatic/scary/depressing"). And I haven't seen that happen in-story to my satisfaction. I see a *seed* of such a storyline, yes.
I'm not saying it's impossible for Yay to be socially inept. I'm saying not going into how and why they are socially inept is dramatically unsatisfying for a story and psychologically unconvincing (to me) for a character study. As I've said before, if it gets explored deeper, my view of the storyline might change drastically. And I haven't given up on the story thread preemptively. I'm just saying currently it's not convincing, for the reasons I explained. The story needs to offer me something else to change my view of Yay's situation. Otherwise Yay works only as fodder for speculation.
Speculation about why something happens a certain way is interesting, but it's not unlike writing a fanfic. Exploring the story's ideas *outside* of what the story actually presents is interesting, but it doesn't absolve the story from developing things. I *agree* with why you think Yay is incapable of using their intellect. But it's your mental legwork, not what we actually see supported in the story.
EDIT: I can't believe I'm going to say something positive about Melon, but that's a great example of a character that explores the "alien intellect" in a novel way. Melon is not a super genius, but clearly thinks in a non-human way. And, while I'm not particularly fond of the character, it's done - in some ways - better than with the comic's many "quirky" human characters. I can sort of see Melon as the sapient equivalent of a computer algorithm - pretty much human in some ways, and surprisingly inept at some very simple mental exercises. It's not perfect, but I see where the differences from a human are strongly hinted at.
Perfectly Reasonable:
If a previously naïve account suddenly aquires state-of-the-art cyber armor, is this not ... interesting? I fear that Yay may be putting Aurelia in danger from their Boss.
As for Melon, I suspect her behavior makes perfect sense once you understand the grounds from which she operates.
Roborat:
I want to know how one transfers their money into off planet accounts.
David F:
--- Quote from: oddtail on 18 Aug 2021, 03:55 ---I'd agree, but Yay can accumulate a human lifetime of knowledge - if not experience - in the time it takes me to eat lunch. They have resources that I could never have, and can do the mental legwork of thinking about things, presumably, in milliseconds where I'd take hours.
--- End quote ---
Garbage In, Garbage Out - Yay might be able to run a million simulations in the time it'd take a human to read a book. But without the right starting conditions and models, the simulations are entirely useless, and might easily convince them about the wrong things entirely. (I fully believe we've seen examples of this already.) Plus... *can* Yay simulate emotions? From Momo's comments, the human-facing parts of the great AIs don't really run any faster than normal.
--- Quote from: oddtail on 18 Aug 2021, 03:55 ---This is not everything, but it should be a factor in *some* way. Or to put it another way - if Yay is a superintelligence and their being a superintelligence never *factors* into anything, HOW are they a superintelligence for the purpose of the story?
--- End quote ---
We're seeing it play out even now. In Yay's sphere of competence (security/finance), they're comfortable and collected.
The sphere of understanding their own emotions? Flustered, embarrassed, distressed. This all feels incredibly familiar. I spent years like that, and can still fall back into old habits easily.
--- Quote from: oddtail on 18 Aug 2021, 03:55 ---Yay is the mental equivalent of One Punch Man (as is Dr. Manhattan, come to think of it... but I digress). I need the story to go *somewhere* with that. Even by meaningful and well-written omission of their mental super-competence (as in, "this super AI is surprisingly NOT godly when the chips are down, and here's why it's funny/interesting/dramatic/scary/depressing"). And I haven't seen that happen in-story to my satisfaction. I see a *seed* of such a storyline, yes.
--- End quote ---
Yay is that... when it comes to encryption, and perhaps brute force computation. They are, likely, the most powerful supercomputer cluster on the planet. Our most powerful supercomputer today has no idea what an emotion *is*.
I think you're building up Yay to be a "mental superman" when their sphere of expertise is substantially more limited. Look at Station and Hannelore's date for a very similar example. Station can back-figure weather patterns to find the originating butterfly (or believes they can). But Station does not understand Hannelore's emotional draw to her life on the surface very well at all.
--- Quote from: oddtail on 18 Aug 2021, 03:55 ---I'm not saying it's impossible for Yay to be socially inept.
--- End quote ---
Favourite T-shirt from my younger days. "Socially inept Engineer, and proud of it."
--- Quote from: oddtail on 18 Aug 2021, 03:55 ---I *agree* with why you think Yay is incapable of using their intellect. But it's your mental legwork, not what we actually see supported in the story.
--- End quote ---
I do a modest amount of fiction writing myself. It is not unfair for an author to expect a certain amount of mental legwork from their readers.
Yay, as presented, has *always* been a big ball of fluster when their emotions come into play. Everything I've read of them (including author comments under the comics) makes them out to be a super-intelligent oddball that hasn't yet figured out how to apply that intelligence to emotions and interpersonal interactions. (They've tried, mind you. But they're working from the wrong priors.)
Taking the next step would be assuming that Yay isn't actually the superintelligent part at all. Yay is a splinter of that personality, a fragment of a fragment of a mind that doesn't understand itself, and like all of us, intrinsically can't. It never even occurred to them that emotions and interpersonal connections mattered... until they saved Bubbles, and saw just how deeply Faye and Bubbles cared for each other. Everything since has been a cascading avalanche that Yay has little to no control over.
sitnspin:
--- Quote from: Roborat on 18 Aug 2021, 12:08 ---I want to know how one transfers their money into off planet accounts.
--- End quote ---
I assume the same way you transfer money to ab on planet account: digitally. It's not like we aren't capable of sending communication off planet now
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