And here I was thinking that the monster was the memories - and that killing it caused the deletion.
I'm having my problems with the whole "Emily can break encryption with a toy gun"-storyline.
I have a feeling that CW never intended to hand Bubbles the encryption key after ten years. I've no idea what her plan was, though.
I wonder if CW had a reason for wanting to ensure that those memories never resurfaced.
And here I was thinking that the monster was the memories - and that killing it caused the deletion.That could still be the case. And if so, Gray Ghost might have known, or might not.
One possible option is that the memories are now 'off site' somewhere as additional insurance. I'm really seriously hoping that isn't the case because I'll have to massively re-think my idea of how AIs work in Questionable Content. Once again FWIW, They don't seem to think that this is possible or they'd suggest it.
I guess that I don't like this outcome. It's feels too much of a cop-out. We'll see where Jeph takes it.I'm having my problems with the whole "Emily can break encryption with a toy gun"-storyline.
You don't need to de-encrypt a file to delete it. You just don't know with any certainty what you may have just cast into digital oblivion.
Do AIs contain anything akin to logs of the actions performed by/on/in their brains? Perhaps Emily can track down logs showing that Corpse Witch did things which are in themselves incriminating. Or perhaps there might even be some record of the memories in logs which have been overlooked - that's the sort of loophole that can happen in our present IT systems.
You know, I'm going to take a different stand on this.
Bubbles is free. There are thousands upon thousands of people who would probably give everything they own to be able to erase painful memories.
With the memories gone, Bubbles can move forward with her life, free of the pain they caused her
You know, I'm going to take a different stand on this.
Bubbles is free. There are thousands upon thousands of people who would probably give everything they own to be able to erase painful memories.
With the memories gone, Bubbles can move forward with her life, free of the pain they caused her and the control they allowed people to place on her. She is truly free now. CW won't fuck with her, she knows too much about what goes on there, she can just ride off into the sunset and begin a new life.
It is like the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, "To Walk Away, You Have to Leave Something Behind."
Here's a possibility: the 'pshoo' gun didn't destroy the beast: it absorbed it. The memories are now stored in the 'doink' projectile, lying about and ready for Creepybot to pick up as soon as no one's looking.
>Or that encryption is somehow separate from the data?
If so that would make sense technically.
People have locking keyboxes to store physical keys in, and there are ways to use encryption that involve a "key encryption key" that the monster might have represented.
If Emily pshooed a KEK, though, there should be a block of forever incomprehensible stuff in the room.
And like that...they're gone, as quickly as they arrived. Who knows if/when they'll be back and/or what we'll learn about them.
As for the Eminence Gris ...
Contrast the empathy toward Bubbles with the arrogant contempt for her carbon-based friends.
I'm disappointed in this outcome. Jeph could have done some excellent things with this character and this set-up but chose to just use it as window-dressing for a hand-wave of the whole dilemma. I guess we need to move forwards but I'm sorry to say that this was one of his worse arcs because of how it was handled and how it was resolved.
My disappointment in this storyline continues to increase.
Okay, that aside, it looks like Jeph is going with the 'the memories were erased - be it malice or incompetence matters not' angle (once again downgrading Corpse Witch as a threat by several notches). I think it's pretty obvious that the rest of this week will be Faye trying to help Bubbles come to terms with the fact that she's lost some very important things; she'll never remember her squad-mates faces or be able to recall their fates, something that I'm sure was important to her as remembering them would give their sacrifice meaning. It's hard to understate just how devastating that fact will be to her.
Yeah, I'm disappointed in this outcome. Jeph could have done some excellent things with this character and this set-up but chose to just use it as window-dressing for a hand-wave of the whole dilemma. I guess we need to move forwards but I'm sorry to say that this was one of his worse arcs because of how it was handled and how it was resolved.For once, I think you and I are in pretty much agreement. I was immediately interested by this storyline and the incredibly diverse story options it presented. Having your own memories being held captive by a third party who uses it to control you is a really cool idea. Adding the twist that the memories were bad and undesired, but still wanted, gives an extra little twist that makes this a top-notch setup, the kind of stuff that really great sci-fi stories are built off of. How do you stop someone like that? How do you beat her? Comparisons could be made to abusive relationships, blackmail, even slavery, but none of them are perfect fits because it's such a cool, unique situation.
It's slightly odd for an entity that never lies to use the phrase, 'to be honest.'
I'm disappointed in this outcome. Jeph could have done some excellent things with this character and this set-up but chose to just use it as window-dressing for a hand-wave of the whole dilemma. I guess we need to move forwards but I'm sorry to say that this was one of his worse arcs because of how it was handled and how it was resolved.
I'm open to the possibility that it's not fully resolved, and that the inclusion of EG in the plot is going to be relevant to what follows.
If it does fizzle out meaninglessly, I'll be disappointed too...
My disappointment in this storyline continues to increase.
I'm the complete opposite. I was expecting to get disappointed because the eminence grise solves all the problems for them. Instead, it's added a layer of mystery (where did the memories go?) and tension (how could such powerful AIs fail?). This is the groups first attempt to solve the problem, and it fails; they're right back to the beginning. In a movie, this would be about 80% of the way in...
I though this story arc was pretty awesome. This comic doesn't do much but slice of life and I think we're seeing a setup of the wider universe.Bubbles is in good hands. From this strip, so is humanity, and everyone else.
I think it premature to act as though this storyline is over.
Looking back, I'll say that this storyline proceeded nicely. Perhaps our CGI-movie-conditioned selves expected more razzle-dazzle in the mindscape panels, and a longer bit of struggle with overcoming the encryption lock. But doing that would have been a lot of work to pull off, and wouldn't have added anything important to the story. (I think lots of Hollywood CGI-fest movies buy lots of pointless computer-generated spectacle, and are poorer as a result.) Introducing the Grey One adds another layer to the world-building of QC, but we don't learn enough about them to nail down their exact place in the order of things. Like the earlier throwaway reference to "Gary," this adds to a vague sense that the commanding heights of the new post-singularity world are much different from ours, but doesn't spell out how (which is fine, I think).I think you're kind of misunderstanding the complaints here. We're not saying that it was solved too fast because it was visually uninteresting or didn't literally take a long time, we're saying that it was solved too fast because none of the characters had to struggle or overcome anything. There's some rising and falling action when they discover Bubbles' problem and start brainstorming ways to try and decrypt the information, (Contacting Station, talking about the problem with each other, trying to come up with alternative ways.)
If you really think nobody's struggling, I don't think we're reading the same comic.Emotional turbulence is not the same thing as struggling to complete a goal. There was a problem presented that needed to be solved: How do we get Bubbles' memories back? And then the solution just appeared from thin air, mere moments after being introduced. I go pretty in-depth in explaining what I mean by this, so I'm not sure how you read my post and decided that I was talking about anything except the problem solving done by these characters during this arc.
Why are we assuming that just because the memories are not in Bubbles anymore...that they're actually gone forever?Because that's the way Jeph is telegraphing it. Yes, the information all comes from subjective sources and could *technically* be wrong, but since nobody in-story has even raised the question of 'What if it's saved elsewhere?', it is either a case where that possibility is never going to come up, or else Jeph is simply awful at foreshadowing or plotting out storylines, and I don't want to believe that the latter is true.
Random thought that just hit me.
What if Agent Creepybot was actually Corpse Witch in a different chassis?
Maybe she's been on overwatch on Bubbles the whole time and it's all been a deep cover smoke and mirrors job the whole time.
I think you're kind of misunderstanding the complaints here. We're not saying that it was solved too fast because it was visually uninteresting or didn't literally take a long time, we're saying that it was solved too fast because none of the characters had to struggle or overcome anything. There's some rising and falling action when they discover Bubbles' problem and start brainstorming ways to try and decrypt the information, (Contacting Station, talking about the problem with each other, trying to come up with alternative ways.)
Then a character we've never heard of or seen before just shows up, hands over the key, and solves the problem.
Why are we assuming that just because the memories are not in Bubbles anymore...that they're actually gone forever?Because that's the way Jeph is telegraphing it. Yes, the information all comes from subjective sources and could *technically* be wrong, but since nobody in-story has even raised the question of 'What if it's saved elsewhere?', it is either a case where that possibility is never going to come up, or else Jeph is simply awful at foreshadowing or plotting out storylines, and I don't want to believe that the latter is true.
Random thought that just hit me.
What if Agent Creepybot was actually Corpse Witch in a different chassis?
Maybe she's been on overwatch on Bubbles the whole time and it's all been a deep cover smoke and mirrors job the whole time.
You can't crack a one panel joke over something that's going to be so emotionally devastating to Bubbles.I think you're kind of misunderstanding the complaints here. We're not saying that it was solved too fast because it was visually uninteresting or didn't literally take a long time, we're saying that it was solved too fast because none of the characters had to struggle or overcome anything. There's some rising and falling action when they discover Bubbles' problem and start brainstorming ways to try and decrypt the information, (Contacting Station, talking about the problem with each other, trying to come up with alternative ways.)
Then a character we've never heard of or seen before just shows up, hands over the key, and solves the problem.
In turn, I think you may be misunderstanding "the problem." Bubbles' memories and whether or not they can be recovered are really more symptom than cause. The driving conflict here isn't "will Bubbles recover her memories?" It's an important part, to be sure, but not the core struggle.
The bigger issue is how Bubbles is going to choose to change, or not, how she lives her life in the immediate future. Whether she recovers her memories contributes to that, no doubt, but that's the major shift in play. Faye cares about getting Bubbles' memories back not for the memories themselves, but because of what they would mean for Bubbles' continued integration back into a real life after having spent so much time purposely isolated and underground. This is a struggle that's exacerbated by the present circumstances for reasons others have already posted in this thread re: trauma and loss and etc., and it certainly wasn't "solved" by anything that happened in the last week.
That said, everything about this stretch with the anon android has felt pretty amateur hour. I'm not gonna dissect it - not worth the time or energy - it's just been a weak approach to what could have been an interesting turn, a hand wave as someone posted earlier, and it was probably a mistake to devote this much space to, essentially, an excuse to move on to more important parts of the story. Hell, in QC fashion this all could've happened off-page and been brought up as someone's one-liner CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT JUST HAPPENED with minimal explanation of what even transpired, make the nonsensical nature of it sort of a meta joke, but eh, whatever. Sometimes misses happen.
I'm not exactly disagreeing with this here, but I was specifically referring to the conflict that existing within this short section of the plot. (Namely, from comic 3386 to the current comic, 3403.) It is, effectively, a short story in and of itself, which exists as a subset of the main story - Not a subplot in the traditional sense, because it doesn't run parallel, but rather a miniature but complete arc of its own.I think you're kind of misunderstanding the complaints here. We're not saying that it was solved too fast because it was visually uninteresting or didn't literally take a long time, we're saying that it was solved too fast because none of the characters had to struggle or overcome anything. There's some rising and falling action when they discover Bubbles' problem and start brainstorming ways to try and decrypt the information, (Contacting Station, talking about the problem with each other, trying to come up with alternative ways.)
Then a character we've never heard of or seen before just shows up, hands over the key, and solves the problem.
In turn, I think you may be misunderstanding "the problem." Bubbles' memories and whether or not they can be recovered are really more symptom than cause. The driving conflict here isn't "will Bubbles recover her memories?" It's an important part, to be sure, but not the core struggle.
The bigger issue is how Bubbles is going to choose to change, or not, how she lives her life in the immediate future. Whether she recovers her memories contributes to that, no doubt, but that's the major shift in play. Faye cares about getting Bubbles' memories back not for the memories themselves, but because of what they would mean for Bubbles' continued integration back into a real life after having spent so much time purposely isolated and underground. This is a struggle that's exacerbated by the present circumstances for reasons others have already posted in this thread re: trauma and loss and etc., and it certainly wasn't "solved" by anything that happened in the last week.
I'm glad people are free to be critical on this forum, but I wish there was some perspective. It's the first arc I didn't enjoy, and probably only because I was listening to people telling me I shouldn't enjoy it, when it's one guy writing a 4-panel daily comic all by himself.
You all do realize, it's only Wednesday.
You all do realize, it's only Wednesday.Theory: Tomorrow will be an emotional rollercoaster between sadness in the first panel and rising anger (and probably Bubbles storming out Coffee of Doom) in the last panel, with Faye and Emily trying to stop her... Friday: Bubbles crashing into the skate park, grabbing CW by the neck - all with some dramatic-short dialogue - and the last panel just consists of the silhouettes of Bubbles pinning CW against a wall and smashing her head in...
You all do realize, it's only Wednesday.Theory: Tomorrow will be an emotional rollercoaster between sadness in the first panel and rising anger (and probably Bubbles storming out Coffee of Doom) in the last panel, with Faye and Emily trying to stop her... Friday: Bubbles crashing into the skate park, grabbing CW by the neck - all with some dramatic-short dialogue - and the last panel just consists of the silhouettes of Bubbles pinning CW against a wall and smashing her head in...
Just a thought.
Their existence answers many questions about how the rather innocent postSingularity QCverse can exist.
*Brun is walking by the Smif campus*
Tomorrow: Brün finds a new clock to add to her collection.
. But if they grays are just gonna appear, be gods, then disappear with no further exploration I am going to be terribly disappointed.
I was really hoping the comic would go more into the story of the grays so I am hoping that bubble's will at least try to explain who the hell they were to Faye and the others. But if they grays are just gonna appear, be gods, then disappear with no further exploration I am going to be terribly disappointed.
It would be interesting if we learned that Ms. Ghost was somehow brought into what's going on by Pintsize. Or by someone else in the cast unexpected, like Claire or Marten.
Does it bother anyone else that Gestalt talks with a human speech bubble rather than the square one that all other AIs have used before? Doesnt that make them extra creepy with a creamy smooth, "just gotta trust them", used car salesman kinda vibe?Sometimes I wish that nobody had pointed out the different speech bubbles for humans/AIs, but then a character like this has a round one and it makes it interesting again. I guess it's not terribly different than round/square pupils on Futurama.
Does it bother anyone else that Gestalt talks with a human speech bubble rather than the square one that all other AIs have used before? Doesnt that make them extra creepy with a creamy smooth, "just gotta trust them", used car salesman kinda vibe?
Does it bother anyone else that Gestalt talks with a human speech bubble rather than the square one that all other AIs have used before? Doesnt that make them extra creepy with a creamy smooth, "just gotta trust them", used car salesman kinda vibe?
By "others", I meant those off panel, Mr Madness. 8-)Right, which is just Dora, isn't it?
Does it bother anyone else that Gestalt talks with a human speech bubble rather than the square one that all other AIs have used before? Doesnt that make them extra creepy with a creamy smooth, "just gotta trust them", used car salesman kinda vibe?
By "others", I meant those off panel, Mr Madness. 8-)Right, which is just Dora, isn't it?
What doesn't really work for me in today's comic is the sudden switch of Creepybot's attitude towards organics.
Does it bother anyone else that Gestalt talks with a human speech bubble rather than the square one that all other AIs have used before? Doesnt that make them extra creepy with a creamy smooth, "just gotta trust them", used car salesman kinda vibe?
I notice a lot of people here not being happy with how things played out. Many times I've been reading a story and found myself unhappy with how the author ended the story. But that's just the nature of being a reader. Many here are arguing with Jeph's storytelling...but I find it easier to just accept it. It's his story, he's telling it, and it is what it is.Okay, well... Yes, that's true, but this is a forum with the sole and explicit purpose of discussing the story of Questionable Content. If we aren't supposed to talk about what we like and dislike... I guess we're just supposed to spend all the discussions on here talking about fan theories and shipping?
not being rude or anything, just...it's a story. Nothing more, nothing less. It goes how it goes.
Maybe my perspective is different because I don't read Jeph's other, sci-fi comic, but I think this is in perfect keeping with the way QC's style has developed. No big, tremendous adventure to track down the memories or anything like that. Because ultimately, the memories are a McGuffin for character development, and nothing more. Let's not forget that QC is character driven, not plot driven. Yes, it was a touch of a deus ex machina to have this random character come in and give our main characters the means by which to make this discovery, but I'd imagine that it's because it's not at all the point of this arc. Jeph was just providing a reasonable means (which he can call back to later) by which to progress Bubbles further as a character, without resorting to thirty strips of what essentially amount to worthless plot tease.It's not a problem just that the deus ex machina came up, or even that the problem had an easy solution, it's that Jeph was clearly building to something bigger, and then failed to deliver on that promise. It's like if you have a favorite coffee shop, and then one day you see a sign advertising the coffee-palooza, and then as the days go by there's more and more advertisement and hype being built, and then you show up for coffee-palooza and discover that they now offer a new flavor of creamer.
Given that what follows this is the more important part, I can't for one second imagine being more satisfied if this outcome, or one like it, had succeeded several weeks of "Detective Whitaker and the Mystery of the Missing Memories".
Comic's up. Dora may still be asleep. Bubbles is up.
One of the more interesting things to me about the hivemind-in-gray is their apparent utter unconcern for secrecy. Unless there's going to be a grand mindwipe on all the participants a little way on, they seem utterly unconcerned that news about their existence gets out.
. There are lots of good reasons for not breaking too many of the rules too much of the time, but, in fiction, to try and force everyone into a procrustean bed of convention: now honest, is that how you really want things?
Um...am I the only one who doesn't think "Creepybot" is an AI? I thought she was some kind of weird dream figure that lived in the minds of AIs?
By "others", I meant those off panel, Mr Madness. 8-)Right, which is just Dora, isn't it?
(points to signature)By "others", I meant those off panel, Mr Madness. 8-)Right, which is just Dora, isn't it?
Maybe it was so long ago I DON'T REMEMBER MR ARCHIVE-FU MADNESS
I fear I find all this amateur critic stuff about bad writing a bit wearying.Who's saying that he's bad for not following the same old conventions? Nobody is saying that. We're saying that the new things he is trying aren't turning out very well. I believe I even made comments about how branching out and trying new things is good!
I'm not a major comics fan, and don't get involved in the subculture, although I do have about 35 years issues of a UK comic called 2000Ad in the loft... And from that, an observation. In the early days 2000AD used a now deceased artist called Massimo Belardinelli. He produced to me wonderful artwork in a complex surreal style which produced often amazing images. Look him up on the net if you like. However there were those who argued that he had something of a weak poiint when it came to directly representational human anatomy. Frankly this didn't bother me, if there were some surreally positioned muscles amongst all this gorgeously imagined imagery then so damn what. But it meant that his work got a bunch of criticism from those who couldn't look past the doctrinaire position of how it should be done and just enjoy the glorious artwork. And the end result, as they now admit was a mistake, TMO (the editors) didn't commission anything like as much work from Belardinelli as he should have done.
So what's my point. Yeah, our man is going to have better arcs and less good arcs, but also he's going to try stuff, and why not. Look at the way he's transformed his artwork from the early days. Happened by trying things and experimenting and learning. But you know, in real life people do walk in from nowhere and disappear again. One of the most influential people in my life I only met a handful of times, each widely spaced and for at most a few days at a time. Be pretty damn boring if every comic was written to the same identikit utilitarian rules. So folks, when you criticise, think. Are you really only criticising for not following the same sad old conventions? Some of what's being said comes over like that in this head. There are lots of good reasons for not breaking too many of the rules too much of the time, but, in fiction, to try and force everyone into a procrustean bed of convention: now honest, is that how you really want things?
This is not the end
I suspect the issue here is that, while Jeph has probably been building to this development for some time, we speculative creatures envisioned from what has gone before something quite different. The result has been jarring, the reactions perhaps foreseeable. Where we were hoping for an imaginative or clever solution, it would seem that the intention was to set up an Gordian knot for the sole purpose of introducing a new character whose motives, history, and future actions could well be fascinating.Who was speculating? I was just taking the story presented at face value.
Personally, I am content enough to sit back at this point to find out where this is going to take us.
Speculation is good, but if you invest heavily in an expectation of what you'll get out of a story by the time it's over, disappointment is a very real possibility.
speculative creatures envisioned from what has gone before something quite different. The result has been jarring,Good thoughts, I think. Now you make me think about that I reckon that perhaps my reading style is not so much to look ahead and imagine where the plot will go, although I do like looking around and speculating about more of the background.. Comes of being a horrendously fast reader of novels maybe...
Who was speculating?
I had to read this comic 3 times to stop giggling like a mad man. and even then while reading the comments about today's comic I kept going back and re-reading this comic.. at this point I've read it about 10 times... Man is this gooood
So ... what, I wonder, was CW expecting to happen right after "... nice knowing you"?
I'm thinking that, previously, Corpse Witch was expecting the very worst case scenario was that Bubbles would walk out and that was it. One thing she wasn't expecting (and probably doesn't know how to deal with) is Bubbles still being around but wanting to change the parameters of their relationship and how things work around the skate park.
That said, yeah, there is a definite feel to this of: "Your big mistake wasn't to take a shot at me, it was to miss when you did it!"
I fully agree with this - and I'm happy that it partially turned out as I theorized ^^So ... what, I wonder, was CW expecting to happen right after "... nice knowing you"?
I think the current thought on this is that she expected her failsafe (the monster) to kill Bubbles or, at the very least incapacitate her somehow. I assume the light flashing in her eyes was her attempting to activate it.
Statue my shiny metal ass. Corpse Witch is going to wind up in a Furby.
Statue my shiny metal ass. Corpse Witch is going to wind up in a Furby.
There are indeed worse places than Robot Jail.
As a side effect, this shows clearly that virtually every instance in which the forum wonders whether it influenced a story line is unlikely to be the case.I'm pretty sure this buffer is new for him, but the forum being influence is still unlikely.
As a side effect, this shows clearly that virtually every instance in which the forum wonders whether it influenced a story line is unlikely to be the case.
I'm still angry at myself for not taking part.As a side effect, this shows clearly that virtually every instance in which the forum wonders whether it influenced a story line is unlikely to be the case.
There has been exactly one strip in the long history of QC that was directly influenced by these forums.
The odds against a repeat increase daily.
Woop! Go Bubbles! Time for CorpseWitch to get her comeuppance!
BUBBLES: "Permit me to demonstrate how I acquired that alternative name."
*dismembering commences*
Statue my shiny metal ass. Corpse Witch is going to wind up in a Furby.
There are indeed worse places than Robot Jail.
Oh, a furby would be kind. Far too kind.
I'd suggest a rack mount as a place where the drive/cpu/whatever it is that IS the AI has power. And no IO. Just a few centuries of power and no way to communicate with anyone else.
Punishment for CW: She becomes the AI responsible for playing "It's a Small World" at Disneyland. She does nothing else all day but play that song over and over, and she can never get away from it.
That's a good point. I hadn't considered how her military AI might be different from civilian.
Bubbles is a former military AI. I'm betting that the DoD put fail-safes into her system (possibly in the 'brain-stem' local control software for her chassis) that prevented any outside persons viewing or altering her memories. Any attempt to do so would lead to the memory address being purged and overwritten with a gibberish '1010101010...' code. It wasn't really Corpse Witch's fault; I doubt anyone knew about it, not even Bubbles. However, her crime was to pretend the procedure worked and use it as leverage to essentially enslave a terribly emotionally-vulnerable being (oh, and add in a 'brain-bomb' kill program too) rather than honestly tell her what had happened and commiserate with her for her bad luck.
Bubbles is a former military AI. I'm betting that the DoD put fail-safes into her system (possibly in the 'brain-stem' local control software for her chassis) that prevented any outside persons viewing or altering her memories. Any attempt to do so would lead to the memory address being purged and overwritten with a gibberish '1010101010...' code. It wasn't really Corpse Witch's fault; I doubt anyone knew about it, not even Bubbles. However, her crime was to pretend the procedure worked and use it as leverage to essentially enslave a terribly emotionally-vulnerable being (oh, and add in a 'brain-bomb' kill program too) rather than honestly tell her what had happened and commiserate with her for her bad luck.
We also still don't know why a human was needed to go into Bubble's mind
I cant find the exact strip, but in a conversation with Momo, Bubbles described how some AI's wanted to serve their country. So I don't think they're purpose-built for the military, at least not all of them. Some are volunteers.
Now, after military training and service, their thinking would be different, in the same way that military trained and experienced humans often look at the world differently than they did as civilians.
Edit: Ah, here it is. http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3092
Edit: there's also this strip: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3074
Wait a minute.
"GRAY" one?
Would that be what they call themselves, now? Instead of what they called themselves, then?
Punishment for CW: She becomes the AI responsible for playing "It's a Small World" at Disneyland. She does nothing else all day but play that song over and over, and she can never get away from it.
Jesus. Remind me never to piss you people off.
For panel 2, I honestly think a more satisfying onomatopoeia could have been used, something like "WHANG" (metal face to metal wall), or "KABAM" (Bubbles did it so hard it sounded like a gunshot). Just me being picky though. ;)While another onomatopoeia may be in order, the wall is painted brick.
Additionally, that panel put me in mind of the youtube meme of repeating an impact video to the opening beat of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl". Anyone care to animate it? lol :evil:
For all her faults, I have to feel sorry for CW here.
She just pissed off, enslaved, then attempted to kill an AI with military experience, in a chassis that was almost certainly designed to close the distance with Main Battle Tanks and open them like a packet of crisps.
The next few minutes will feel like weeks I'm sure.
Punishment for CW: She becomes the AI responsible for playing "It's a Small World" at Disneyland. She does nothing else all day but play that song over and over, and she can never get away from it.I'm sorry, that's beyond the pale. It would almost certainly attract the attention of the Grey Goo Collective. Would you want Agent CreepyPasta visiting your work place?
You just contradicted yourself. Sentencing a sapient to death is sentencing them to torture for as long as they live. It is, as you put it, pure and unalloyed sadism. It's particularly vile for an AI who might otherwise live indefinitely.Punishment for CW: She becomes the AI responsible for playing "It's a Small World" at Disneyland. She does nothing else all day but play that song over and over, and she can never get away from it.
Jesus. Remind me never to piss you people off.
I don't mean to be hurtful, but could everyone salivating at the thought of CW getting her comeuppance please take a step back, and try to view themselves objectively?
I'll be brutal here. You're discussing how to most effectively torture someone. Not just physical pain, but mental anguish. Sheer and unalloyed sadism.
Not as an unfortunate but necessary side effect of behaviour modification. Not "to teach her a lesson she will never forget". But for the deep and unholy joy you get from seeing evil get its most Just reward.
Maybe CW can be rehabilitated. I have my doubts. But if not.. has her behaviour merited the forfeit of all respect due to another sophont? Consideration, yes, that's forfeit. Perhaps a quick personal extinction should be her lot as her right to be is questionable.
OK, I am sort of disappointed by the comic recently. I would not have a problem if encryption was established as easier to break in QC-verse than in our world, but there was so much build-up to the encryption being pretty much impossible, this resolution feels like a huge letdown. There were entire comics dedicated to the impossibility of solving the issue easily, and then the issue gets solved easily. I assume the storytelling purpose is to establish Creepybot as unthinkably powerful (together with casual paralysing people and bragging - twice, at that - to Faye that she could not do anything to threaten the Creepybot).
But I am not thrilled at this, because this new character feels a bit... God Mode Sue-ish. Maybe it's my tabletop RPG experience, but a new character that can casually do amazing stuff and ignore constraints put forward by the setting, where such a possibility was not earlier hinted at, and the story is not, at its core, ABOUT incredible capabilities and their impact on the world... yeah, such characters are less than interesting to me, and make me more than a little wary.
I see a lot of people here saying that maybe the memories are gone because CW accidentally deleted them. But we have to remember that Bubbles had *asked* CW to delete them in the first place. The one who thought about encrypting them to keep Bubbles around was CW, *after the operation*.
Bubbles would never have had to struggle about keeping or deleting her memories for all this time if the possibility weren't there, since at the time she had wanted them gone for good.
What we seem to be seeing here is an AI justice "system" consisting of the rule that you can't unduly piss off the hidden AI hegemon, which is separate and unbound to the human justice system. IOW the Gray One represents a kind of AI mafia. Being hidden, unbound, and, from a practical point of view, unconstrainable by non-AIs, this AI mafia is inevitably on a collision course with the official order. If it is as powerful as suggested, this does not bode well for non-AI sentients.Why do you think they don't interfere in the normal course of events?
I have a feeling that Bubbles has probably far more ....... INTERESTING plans in mind for CW
Hiro155 makes an excellent point above.I (provisionally) agree that Agent CreepyPasta is an avatar of non-sentient but sapient entity . What I don't know is how that enters into this story...
I think we get a an idea of what Creepybot is if we cross reference Bubbles' statement in panel 3 of this comic: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3240 ("precisely the sort of bogeyman that keeps futurists up at night') to Creepybot's statement "we're what makes them wake up screaming" and their statement to Bubbles that "Darling, you know EXACTLY what we are."
...is an avatar of non-sentient but sapient entity.Mmm, but in the previous, http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3239 , Bubbles says that "attempts have been made to create Networked AIs ... left with a single intellect, albeit one with vast computational resources." seems to me it could be argued that describes our gray friend, don't you think? A single intellect with vast computational resources sounds as if that could be what was at work to deal with CWs creations.
That they exist is necessary to avoid the QCverse being obliterated by a basilisk.
That they have to have a policy of non interference is necessary so they themselves don't become the basilisk.
I'll be brutal here. You're discussing how to most effectively torture someone. Not just physical pain, but mental anguish. Sheer and unalloyed sadism.An illustration, perhaps, of how problematic AI rights as an issue will become should the situation occur. I suspect few would be advocating such treatment of mainstream human characters in the comic. Obvious parallels with the history of slavery.
If by "basilisk" you mean the Roko's Basilisk notion of a future AI despot torturing clones of those who didn't work to bring the basilisk into existence, I've always found that to be a profoundly silly idea. OTOH if what you mean by "basilisk" is a generic AI overlord/despot, I'm not seeing what motivation the Gray Mafia have for not becoming a basilisk. I don't even see why they'd need to keep themselves secret. Of course if they did there'd be no comic, so I take your point there.
Welcome, new person!
Another wrinkle to the grey one who used only plural pronouns.
In an earlier strip, Momo discusses robot religion. http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2465
This combined with the things that Bubbles and Faye discussed, namely the possibility of a distributed superintelligence, leads me to believe that "they" were likelythe expressionan embodied avatar of the combined, semi-conscious, will of all the robots then meditating.
A couple of their "less puissant elders" could have included not just Station, but also Momo, Pintsize, and Jeremy. All of whom could have meditated on the injustice of what Bubbles has experienced as they added part of their runtime to the communal meditation.
Second Edit. This would make the "Comically large key" a new wrinkle on the Distributed crack of the DES, although I'm leaning toward they had found a mathematical loophole in the algorithm that allowed them to break it.
Distributed brute force cracking still takes time.
If robot memories have a predictable header, that constitutes known plaintext.
I'm imagining some serious mood whiplash when this gets done. Something like Emily taking off the headset awkwardly, saying "Miss Bubbles? I, uh, got your memory back. I'm so sorry..." and then giving Bubbles a hug while breaking up in tears as Agent Creepy walks out very pleased with itself.