I'd like Sven to come back.
Hanging out with his intern, reading, having a lovely discussion with Jimbo that leads to a concept album about lesbian werewolf ranchers rescuing their little town from an evil developer vampire zombie.
God-dammit Jeph. I love you, but another week of this? The forums cannae take it!
I'd like Sven to come back.
Hanging out with his intern, reading, having a lovely discussion with Jimbo that leads to a concept album about lesbian werewolf ranchers rescuing their little town from an evil developer vampire zombie.
Would Sven be the sort to eat black noodles on Singles Awarness Day?
Drag it out another five hundred strips, Jeph, their tears will sustain you!
We get it. Bubbles is attracted to Faye, and Faye doesn't quite realise it. Switch to another plotline, please.
We get it. Bubbles is attracted to Faye, and Faye doesn't quite realise it. Switch to another plotline, please.
I think that today's strip takes things one more step. This is Jeph confirming that Faye feels something strong about Bubbles and, at this point, is either not thinking about it or doesn't know what to think about it.
Can I just say...
I was totally unaware of Singles Awareness day...!
Can I just say...
I was totally unaware of Singles Awareness day...!
We need a Singles Awareness Day Awareness Day!
Can I just say...
I was totally unaware of Singles Awareness day...!
We need a Singles Awareness Day Awareness Day!
So long as it doesn't fall on Infinite Recursion Awareness Day, that should be fine.
Singles Awareness Day falls on Ash Wednesday this year, so everybody will be so busy recovering from their Mardi Gras blowouts the night before that they won't care about whether they're coupled or not.General poor planning on the part of the Roman Catholic church, I'd say. Christmas should be in September after all.
(On non-leap years when Ash Wednesday is Singles Awareness Day, Easter falls on April Fool's Day. Draw whatever conclusions you like from that.)
Dammit, Faye. You're too smart to be this oblivious. At least recognize what's not happening.
Well it may be that so many points were put into knowledge skills that there were none left over for non-verbal communication.Dammit, Faye. You're too smart to be this oblivious. At least recognize what's not happening.Smart people can be plenty oblivious. Trust me.
While some people are calling for a resolution to perceived romantic tension, and other's just want Jeph to change focus for a while, I find their relationship refreshing.
Can I just say...
I was totally unaware of Singles Awareness day...!
We need a Singles Awareness Day Awareness Day!
So long as it doesn't fall on Infinite Recursion Awareness Day, that should be fine.
Doesn't everything fall on Infinite Recursion Awareness Day?
Personally, I just want to see Sara happy with the allosaur.
Personally, I just want to see Sara happy with the allosaur.
They are obviously meant for one another.
oh no... It's happening... With Hannelore's extended absence, Claire's floof is becoming lonely and restless. It seeks to add others to it's mass by any means necessary. THE FLOOFENING HAS BEGUN!Well, at least it's not a semi-hypnotic beard.
SHENANIGANS
I like the mirrored body language in panel one.
Personally, I just want to see Sara happy with the allosaur.
They are obviously meant for one another.
Off the top of MY head, they should either disassemble Pintsize, or call Hanners. Off the top of Claire's head, go with the scissors.Disassembling Pintsize: Marigold knows (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1413) how to do that. A good ploy for getting her back into the story!
"poor decision-making skills"
… on WHOSE part?
Today we are reminded of something about which it is easy to forget: Claire's hair is a distinct if symbiotic life-form and it is HUNGRY. It nearly bit off Marten's tongue the first time he kissed the top of Claire's head and we all remember how Emily nearly lost her hands to this creature! What Pintsize thought he was doing tempting the beast is beyond my imagination!
Seriously, though I actually think that there was a message to Faye and Bubbles in today's strip: Neither of you live a normal life; don't expect any present or future part of it to be normal and/or predictable!
Long time reader (since 2008 I think), new poster because there's an angle here I'm not sure people are considering. This relationship between Faye and Bubbles is the first intimate, asexual, non-romantic partnership between any characters in this strip, the first queerplatonic relationship. While some people are calling for a resolution to perceived romantic tension, and other's just want Jeph to change focus for a while, I find their relationship refreshing. All too often in literature the very important friendships in people's lives, the sorts of friendships that are true partnerships, are treated as second-string to romantic and sexual relationships. Even though Bubbles may be interested in romance to some extent, she's clearly happy with the partnership she has, and may be willing to leave behind her romantic interest forever to sustain that relationship. Even romantically inclined people can be perfectly happy without romance in their lives. There doesn't need to be a resolution. And I'm happy to continue watching their friendship as they feel out their personal boundaries. This is what queerplatonic relationships are all about, that personal definition of what works and what doesn't for the people involved.
I'd actually be disappointed if Jeph decided to quickly veer this off into romance or sex. It's interesting as it is.
"Contained-field magnetics" is apparently easy to take apart and put back together.Comic 464-465 for those playing at home. (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=464)
We don’t need Marigold to disassemble Pintsize any more. There are two experienced robot repair technicians living in that apartment.Yes, but would they take him apart in such a way that he could be put back together again? And, if so, would they actually do so?
Oh no, poor Bubbles! I'm surprised we didn't see the fweeeeeeeeeeeeee again!
I am torturing Bubbles
We don’t need Marigold to disassemble Pintsize any more. There are two experienced robot repair technicians living in that apartment.Yes, but would they take him apart in such a way that he could be put back together again? And, if so, would they actually do so?
I know Bubbles lost a lot of her memories, but I'd think she'd remember enough communal living in basic training to not be embarrassed by this.Also, she & her two-tone skin walk around naked all the time. Double standards...
I know Bubbles lost a lot of her memories, but I'd think she'd remember enough communal living in basic training to not be embarrassed by this.
Oh no, poor Bubbles! I'm surprised we didn't see the fweeeeeeeeeeeeee again!
It's an open question why synthetics care about human nudity.
The darker portion is confirmed by Jeph to be a sort of unitard.I know Bubbles lost a lot of her memories, but I'd think she'd remember enough communal living in basic training to not be embarrassed by this.Also, she & her two-tone skin walk around naked all the time. Double standards...
it's because she finds the body in question attractive and she's struggling against lots of weird reactions and urges.I _do_ wonder which weird reactions and, especially, urges AI has here. Do somebody installed hormonal system in her body and made a setup to link AI core to said system?
The darker portion is confirmed by Jeph to be a sort of unitard.
It is incumbent upon Bubbles in this situation to say something along the lines of "seeing you half-naked is not a strictly platonic experience for me, as you seem to assume"? (Sorry for the awkward wording, I just woke up.)
Quoteit's because she finds the body in question attractive and she's struggling against lots of weird reactions and urges.
I _do_ wonder which weird reactions and, especially, urges AI has here. Do somebody installed hormonal system in her body and made a setup to link AI core to said system?
So what's the betting pool that this ship will either sail or sink on February 14th?
It is clear that there is some characteristic of Chatham-type AIs (much like Smart AIs in the Halo universe) that they mimic human brain-patterns in the development of friendships, personal emotional bonds and even sexual attraction. This is not hormonal as they don't have a hormonal system or even an analogue thereof. Rather, it seems to be some aspect of their personality algorithms that makes them seek emotional connections with others and, possibly through mimicry of humans around them, this sometimes expresses itself as sexual attraction.Sure. But it's a very complicated problem. Sorry for overanalysing the joke, by the way.
It is suggested that this is the case with Officer Basilik, at least with her feet.Thing is, upload technology was directly declared as noexistent in QC (at least yet). This AIs aren't copies of humans.
I think that you're getting too deep into the whys and wherefores Aenno. All Jeph has to do is be internally consistent to his own universe. He is not obliged to make what he portrays in his work consistent to how real work AI would work.That's why I said sorry for overanalyzing the joke. :) I still believe it's intresting question, but I don't want to derail thread.
FWIW, in the Halo universe, because they are directly derived from real human synaptic patterns, AIs subconsciously 'fill in the gaps' by creating in themselves reaction patterns that are analogous to attraction. So, they don't need any biological basis for it, they are 'psychosomatically' responding to what their intelligence algorithm insists ought to be there.
Also, someone has to say it:
"I am decent. I also happen to be naked."
Quote...so very concept of sexual arousing, especially human sexual arousing, is alien for them.
Try to explain this to May or Pintsize.
Faye isn't oblivious, rather she is actively in denial about Bubbles's reaction to her.
On the latest strip, 3673, Bubbles is freaking out about Faye's butt, but I can see her underwear peeking out???Various kinds of panties exist which show off large amounts of butt. Thong style, for example. Bubbles may still be seeing enough to drive her a little crazy, even if it isn't quite the 'full moon'.
All that said, I would have expected Bubbles to enjoy the view and remain silent.
Try to explain this to May or Pintsize.None of them had an arc based on being sexualy aroused by a human and trying to deal with it. Also Pintsize or May are exactly that kind of persons who would emulate sexual arousing (or, even more likely, just declaring they have sexual arousing) to pester people around.
So, I suspect that what is happening here is that Bubbles is being slain by Faye's beauty, just as one of us might be slain by beauty, because we all learned how to do that from the same books and movies. At the same time, I think, her body is furiously preparing itself for some emergency, with utterly no notion of what the emergency might be. We can't know just what that feels like, because we don't have bodies anything like hers, but it is likely profoundly moving and neither entirely pleasant nor entirely unpleasant.So you're saying about scenario like this: Bubbles feels attraction from, let's say, platonic reasons, as AI persons are modeled after humans culturally; her body detecting such attraction as a generic stress and activating generic mobilisation protocols.
Because antropc bodies have specifically been designed to simulate human reactions. Or at least passing similarities. The in universe reasoning probably has something to do with allowing them to closely interact with humans in a way that humans are used to, to better foster human-android relations. The real reason is because Jeph wants them to react in ways similar to humans to better telegraph their emotions to us. Someone like Pintsize or Jeremy, either his old assembly arm or current more humanoid form lack these sorts of reactions so it's harder at a glance for use to identify their emotional state, meaning it has to be spelled out.And the question I'm trying to ask is - is it conscious effort from AI side, and what happens if we move Bubbles' mind into toaster?
And the question I'm trying to ask is - is it conscious effort from AI side, and what happens if we move Bubbles' mind into toaster?
I think that you're getting too deep into the whys and wherefores Aenno. All Jeph has to do is be internally consistent to his own universe. He is not obliged to make what he portrays in his work consistent to how real work AI would work.
FWIW, in the Halo universe, because they are directly derived from real human synaptic patterns, AIs subconsciously 'fill in the gaps' by creating in themselves reaction patterns that are analogous to attraction. So, they don't need any biological basis for it, they are 'psychosomatically' responding to what their intelligence algorithm insists ought to be there.
Because antropc bodies have specifically been designed to simulate human reactions. Or at least passing similarities. The in universe reasoning probably has something to do with allowing them to closely interact with humans in a way that humans are used to, to better foster human-android relations. The real reason is because Jeph wants them to react in ways similar to humans to better telegraph their emotions to us. Someone like Pintsize or Jeremy, either his old assembly arm or current more humanoid form lack these sorts of reactions so it's harder at a glance for use to identify their emotional state, meaning it has to be spelled out.And the question I'm trying to ask is - is it conscious effort from AI side, and what happens if we move Bubbles' mind into toaster?
Is it off-topic? Talking about Bubbles's feelings seems to me to be relevant to a strip about Bubbles's feelings. It would irritate the hell out of her if she knew we were discussing her in this academic, abstract fashion, but we aren't in the same universe as her. It doesn't seem likely that any other AIs are listening in. That being the case, I don't see why we shouldn't.
Moderators?
I asked not if Faye would be respond to a toaster with Bubble's AI inside, but if toaster with Bubble's AI would respond to Faye. At least the same way Bubble did in current situation. :)
Bubble's body responds without conscious control for the same reason our bodies do: consciousness is slow. I can only speculate about what consciousness is for, but it reviews action rather than initiating it. Running action past a review function, especially one as multi-purpose and sub-optimized as consciousness, is slow. So, as soon as bodies register severe stress, they slam on the general emergency mode, inform the mind that they are good to go, and ask where to go.Human consciousness is, maybe, slow - it's basically an interface builded on hundreds of bugged and messy hormonal and instinctive systems, designed to long-forgotten stimules as well as current ones, and designed by a very bad designer (Mother Nature) with basic philosophy "this code worked adequatly when I submitted it, and I don't mind it's so buggy, we saving it for compatibility and support reasons"; so human consciousness just have no direct control to initiating body states.
[There is a heartbreaking moment in Peter Watts's novel Blindsight in which a soldier who controls a squad of insensate robot killers goes off to die as a rearguard. You know she is dead when her robots all suddenly speed up. They are much more efficient when no longer reviewed by a consciousness; only now there is nothing left with which you could ever possibly make peace.]Hillarious thing about Blindsight is that species with consciousness (all that messy consciousness Jukka so fond to scold about) is evolutionary more effective that specialised predator without consciousness.
Out of her explosively responsive warrior body, Bubbles might not suffer quite so much, but she would have to work just as hard not to play the fool. Once you are locked into a sociocultural psychosexual matrix, it is not easy to get out, because as far as you can tell, that is just who you are.So we're saying that AI residing in some body can't review and override this body "preinstalled" reactions. Who is installing and maintaining them then?
The extent to which AI's can form bonds with humans seems to depend on how much time they've spent with us. If Bubbles were a toaster, she may not have had the same bonding experiences and so may not develop the same feelings, depending on the degree to which she had human companionship. But I think it's clear that if her current personality were transferred into a different chassis, her feelings wouldn't immediately change. At the end of the day, AI psychology seems to developmental, not ontological- their personality forms through experience rather than being defined by their body.Let me get it straight. :)
Let me get it straight. :)
When I'm speaking about "Bubbles reacting like that" I mean "she is uncontrollably aroused by sight of Faye bottoms, and that's makes her feeling uncomfortable". I don't have nothing against romantical bonding like Station had with Hannelore. I'm not wondering how it's possible for AIs to be attracted with humans, it's quite simple. I'm wondering how they happen to be sexually aroused (at least visibly).
But to answer you question "How do AI's have uncontrolled emotional responses" (I think I've got that right?) with "Because Magic" would be completely unsatisfying.Sorry, no, you haven't got that exactly right.
But to answer you question "How do AI's have uncontrolled emotional responses" (I think I've got that right?) with "Because Magic" would be completely unsatisfying.Sorry, no, you haven't got that exactly right.
Question is "How do AIs have uncontrolled emotional responses by every detail resembling human sexual arousment."
Because if there is a emotion that have less social component that direct sexual arousment, I don't know it. It can be emulated, sure - but WHO emulate it in Bubbles?
But I can't see how "running action past a review function" is a bad thing. It's exactly the only way to reduce a chance to be absurdly wasteful by having AI chassis continually able to knock down walls and overturn armored vehicles, and prevent accidents every time Bubbles got distracted. In animal bodies it's kind of awful feedback loops builded on loops, and it's quite ineffective - everybody who ever had hormonal disfunction can vouch for that, I believe. I'd even say if Bubbles have her body entering combat-prime state each time she sees Faye's bottom, it's the very example why such a system is a mess, and why this kind of system design should be avoided.
Of course, AIs can ignore this and put this flawed design to be more like humans. But then we have that Bubbles (or some kind of system behind Bubbles personality) actually wants to act like she do.
Because if there is a emotion that have less social component that direct sexual arousment, I don't know it. It can be emulated, sure - but WHO emulate it in Bubbles?
Well first off I strongly dispute that displays of arousal are non-social. Biologically they are displays to indicate availability and to attract a mate, they are social by necessity.
The last time I checked, the U.S. consensus is that the ideally sexually arousing woman has the face of a twelve-year-old girl, the breasts of a nursing mother, and the body of a boy athlete.No-no-no, displays of arousal are 100% social. Arousal itself isn't. Arousal is arousal and defined biologically (and actually that's why libido is lowering with age - when you would be perfectly ridden of hormones working in arousal, oxytocin for example, you would quite probably be dead, or at least have quite serious problems). How society and person itself reacting on people showing arousal is completly another matter.
If you had to consciously coordinate walking, you couldn't react fast enough to keep your balance.Quite the opposite. If I really need to keep my balance (let's say it's unknown night forest) I would drop reflexive walking and start to look my steps. As conditions became less familiar, I would take more attention.
That is why AIs can learn arousal. They no doubt feel something different in their metal and plastic bodies than I do, but I strongly suspect that women, much younger men, and much older men do too, and that it still counts as arousal.Actually it's called "Qualia problem" - how to prove that my sensual experience is correlated with yours in any way - and is one of the most heatenly debated questions of modern psychology. :) But with arousal it's quite simpler then with, for example, color perception. Arousal have physiological markers, no markers - no arousal.
What is X?
Comic!
A moment's silence, please, for the many Bothans who died to bring Faye this revelation.
Alas, their sacrifice was in vain.
They teach themselves, and by doing so are able to do things that merely programmed AIs cannot.So that just means Bubbles put this program into herself. I'm just using cybernetic terms AIs themself speaks, but I'm entirely ok with a "who teached Bubbles about arousal?"
We have every reason to suppose that the AIs in QC would teach themselves arousal, some by looking at porn and some by reading novels.Look into porno or novel. What would do you see?
Philosophy is an incredibly frustating degree).I know, right? :)
Reasonably one could assume one could also do the same with a robotic mind- find the string of code that indicates arousal....and when it's achieved we have upload - a mean to retranslate human mind into robotic chassis. Which is directly defined as impossible feat (at least yet) in QC universe.
I can only compare it to what I feel when I use that word, and react accordingly. Unless something happens that shows I am making a mistake, any differences just wont be apparent.And that's the thing with us both being humans - we have similar base to start with. You have skin, I have skin, our skins are composed with basically same chemicals, they have basically same structure. When you're saying "I have a burn and now it's painful", I have actual reason to believe your experience is somehow close to mine. Not working each time, but empirically it gives humans enough common ground to understand each other.
When she talks about anger, sadness or arousal, she demonstrates human-like behaviours that correlate with those words.I believe she never talked about arousal. ;)
So we are stuck with treating them like metal people, which, to be fair, in universe is how they want to be treated. Just because two minds are made differently tells us nothing about what it's like to have either of them, if functionally they are identical.And so it goes - it's exactly problem that bothers me like a hell, so I even registered here on forum to write a big post about it. :)
Bubbles is nothing if not pragmatic, and a second bed would take up a lot of floor space. It would probably drive them crazy.
The problem with consciousness isn't that it's slow.
Let's go back to your toaster. Which is not a sentence I thought I'd ever write, but never mind. If the toaster reports feeling pain, you are right that it almost certainly is experiencing different qualia to you. But the question then becomes, what is it trying to say? Because assuming it is an intelligent toaster, it has the same knowledge you do- it knows you feel things differently than it does. So when it complains about pain, what reaction does it hope to get? Why say that?As I said I never had a problem with a AI developing love, affection, anger, suffering. If toaster would say he is in pain, I'd assume that he is experiencing suffering, and wouldn't try to feed painkillers to him. Actually having AIs around would turn this kind of semantic to actually major thing. It's entirely possible to feel suffering without pain, and affection without arousal. When AI would try to learn what's love is, I really hope they wouldn't use porn or romantic novels only, but would look into Lee works, for example.
Bubbles has needs which are functionaly emotional, and is operating in a human society where those needs are only going to be met if she can communicate them. The exact qualia she experiences are ultimately irrelevant, as long as the communication works between her and those she associates with. On a wider level, AI's in their programming can make that communication as subtle or as explicit as they like- so they can use their words, or also program in non-verbal communication cues that work just as well. The human language is there, so while they are with us they have no reason not use it.Once again I should point that I haven't problem with any AI developing love or affection. Station and Winslow developed it to Hannelore. Momo has it for Marigold. Pintsize has it for Marten and Faye. May had it about Dale (and about Momo, by the way). I never tried to make assumption about arousal being basis for affection, for instance.
When I was 15, I was into Castaneda thing in russian "new-agers" interpretation. Awareness trainings was fun, but depressing, because I lost the last reason to get rid with bad reaction.QuoteThe problem with consciousness isn't that it's slow.
It took my conscious mind days to add up all the danger signs in that parking lot incident, an incident to which my hindbrain reacted in about a second.
Everyone remember how embarrassed Bubbles was when she explained the situation to Clinton: "We do not SLEEP together. We merely share a room." She wouldn't even let anyone get the wrong idea.And so she prefer to sleep with Faye in the room with only one bed.
I just went back and found a comic where Dora is teasing Faye about having a crush on Bubbles. Faye can't catch a break--not from her sister, or Dora, or Claire or Marten, who also wondered aloud if there's something going on.Nope. All of their friends are too kind just to let it go. They would try to fix love life of two oblivious sweethearts.
Poor Faye. Poor Bubbles. Will everyone just stop???
In his footer text, Jeph promises that it will all make sense in the morning. I'm not sure that I believe that!
Quote from: BenRGFaye isn't oblivious, rather she is actively in denial about Bubbles's reaction to her.
I believe this.
Do you think Faye is also in denial about her own budding and unclear feelings toward Bubbles?
I asked not if Faye would be respond to a toaster with Bubble's AI inside...
Yes, I agree. For whatever reasons. (edit: I mean she's in denial for whatever reasons, not I agree for whatever reasons :mrgreen:)
On a topic that is only superficially related to physical space, I am kind of surprised that Faye and Bubbles get on so well without friction (that we've seen - I think) given that they are pretty well living in each others pockets. They share a house, share a bedroom, and work with each other. I've known couples that end up working in the same company, and they went to some trouble to ensure they were in different projects.
Speaking personally, I do not think it would be good for my relationship for my partner if we were to work with each other. And when we're on holiday, we usually have at least one day or half day where we separate and do our own thing. Even though (or maybe because) by the end, we are really wanting to get back together and share with each other what we've experienced.
Close relationships are a wonderful thing, but people need their space.
Quote from: BenRGFaye isn't oblivious, rather she is actively in denial about Bubbles's reaction to her.
I believe this.
Do you think Faye is also in denial about her own budding and unclear feelings toward Bubbles?
I think that as far as Faye is concerned, her feelings towards Bubbles are perfectly clear.
Also: Are Bubbles' hair growing?
I can't get past the idea that Bubbles needs a bed and she must be so uncomfortable sitting on the floor like that. Yes, I know, I know, AIs don't need a comfortable bed, but would it really kill them to have one?
Faye: Bubbles, let's get you a bed.
Bubbles: It's okay. I don't need a bed like you do.
Faye: Come on. Why not?
Bubbles: Really, it's okay. I don't need a bed.
Faye. Sigh...
I asked not if Faye would be respond to a toaster with Bubble's AI inside...
FWIW, I'd like for a human/AI love story (even if told as a lesson from history) where the human fell in love with a totally disembodied AI simply because he or she was kind, empathetic and shared a lot of the human's interests. It is only later that the AI used first a holo-avatar and then later an anthromimetic chassis and the relationship became physical (and ultimately ended with marriage and the adoption of children).
Mass Effect 2 & 3, EDI and Joker. EDI is the artificial intelligence that runs their ship and Joker is the pilot. At first she's always angry at him because he's wreckless and disorderly[.]
Here's some more poetry that Bubbles might relate to.
but my tongue is frozen in silence;
instantly a delicate flame runs beneath my skin;
with my eyes I see nothing;
my ears make a whirring noise.
A cold sweat covers me,
trembling seizes my body,
and I am greener than grass.
Lacking but little of death do I seem.
Here's some more poetry that Bubbles might relate to.
but my tongue is frozen in silence;
instantly a delicate flame runs beneath my skin;
with my eyes I see nothing;
my ears make a whirring noise.
A cold sweat covers me,
trembling seizes my body,
and I am greener than grass.
Lacking but little of death do I seem.
Sappho. Thank you. I had never given those verses proper attention.
Only fragments of her work remain, and the history of Western love poetry can be read as a series of attempts to reconstruct them.
Jeph is SUCH a tease. :laugh: :lol:
No-no-no, displays of arousal are 100% social. Arousal itself isn't. Arousal is arousal and defined biologically (and actually that's why libido is lowering with age - when you would be perfectly ridden of hormones working in arousal, oxytocin for example, you would quite probably be dead, or at least have quite serious problems). How society and person itself reacting on people showing arousal is completly another matter.
I'm sorry for bringing example, if somebody would see it as offensive, that's an example I had in university.
Let's imagine you feel arousal when see plush chairs. You feel arousal, but in the society you lives it's no-go. People demand to you to conform and feel arousal to a woman who has the face of a twelve-year-old girl, the breasts of a nursing mother, and the body of a boy athlete (let's use US Target for simplicity), but you can't and plush chairs is your thing. You're shunned as freak by people around, "that's ok to feel arousal to US Target, but plush chairs? whats wrong with you?". Hello, social rejection.
. . .
Actually it's called "Qualia problem" - how to prove that my sensual experience is correlated with yours in any way - and is one of the most heatenly debated questions of modern psychology. :) But with arousal it's quite simpler then with, for example, color perception. Arousal have physiological markers, no markers - no arousal.
I am going to synopsize my views on the subject of robot desire in the QC universe briefly and then leave off discussing it here, since we should be talking mostly about Faye's pillow thoughts now. We can pick it up in your topic if you want.I'd like to, because it really feels as off-topic here.
To be honest, I wouldn't object to someone trying to fix mine. Blergh.
To be honest, I wouldn't object to someone trying to fix mine. Blergh.
My high-school 'friends' idea of "fixing my love" life was schlepping a slightly underage vague acquaintance to our graduation ball without an invitation, aiming her at me, and watching the results from a safe distance. Moment I saw her, I realized that:
a) Those moron's idea of "fixing someone's lovelife" was pretty much: "We've seen him interacting friendly-like with her once while he was tending bar, ergo it must be twue wuv!"
b) "OhShit this could be a crush!"
c) Standing in front of a guy three years your senior that you might have a vague crush on, at his invite-only graduation ball, without an invitation ... must be one of the most humiliating environments to get your crush crushed in.
All those things running through my head, in a split second. Guess what comes out of my mouth?
"Uhmmmmmhiiiiii!!!??? What are you doing here?"
We met 10 years later. She offered me a lift from the train station, then kicked me out of the car in some remote part of town. Being the Soul-and-confidence-crushing-Nemesis of someone else's discovery of their Eros is ... perplexing, highly overrated and sometimes it requires astonishingly little actual action on your part. Srsly, a tendency to freeze right after you stuck your foot in your mouth and a gaggle of brainless frenemies is all it takes.
Thanks, 'Friends'!
That entire situation sounds utterly horrifying. Poor you. And her.
(Also, while the whole scenario sounds pretty awful, my middle-class Brit internal monologue is screaming "But that's a faux pas! In a social situation! People you are acquainted with might SEE!!! THOSE MONSTERS!!!!!"
As you can tell, my internal monologue also conforms quite happily with the Terry Pratchett theory of multiple exclamation marks.)
But I'd have liked to be loathed for my actual shortcomings, see what I mean?
Mass Effect 2 & 3, EDI and Joker. EDI is the artificial intelligence that runs their ship and Joker is the pilot. At first she's always angry at him because he's wreckless and disorderly[.]
I would think wrecklessness would be a good thing in a pilot. :-)
Yes, with any other ship; but here we're talking about HER body, you know!Mass Effect 2 & 3, EDI and Joker. EDI is the artificial intelligence that runs their ship and Joker is the pilot. At first she's always angry at him because he's wreckless and disorderly[.]
I would think wrecklessness would be a good thing in a pilot. :-)
Yes, with any other ship; but here we're talking about HER body, you know!Mass Effect 2 & 3, EDI and Joker. EDI is the artificial intelligence that runs their ship and Joker is the pilot. At first she's always angry at him because he's wreckless and disorderly[.]
I would think wrecklessness would be a good thing in a pilot. :-)
Human consciousness is, maybe, slow - it's basically an interface builded on hundreds of bugged and messy hormonal and instinctive systems, designed to long-forgotten stimules as well as current ones, and designed by a very bad designer (Mother Nature) with basic philosophy "this code worked adequatly when I submitted it, and I don't mind it's so buggy, we saving it for compatibility and support reasons"; so human consciousness just have no direct control to initiating body states.
But I can't see how "running action past a review function" is a bad thing.
<whole 'arousal/embarrassment/shame'-debate>
Not entirely sure whether I get you correctly (or if I would agree if I did): I don't think consciousness is merely a 'review' system (Yes, it does have aspects of a review system, but ... that feels incomplete).
Consciousness 'feels' to me rather like something that initially (way back when, maybe even in one our non-human ancestors) started out as a biological equivalent to what programmers would call an "exception handling" routine to an already existing, very fast & adaptive primary cognitive system - an emergency system that can temporarily take over when the primary system encounters a situation it cannot solve (or a situation where it is prone to coming up with bad solutions) - and from those origins, it evolved and became better until ... one day, it got the idea that it was actually running the show.
Regarding the whole 'arousal/embarrassment/shame'-debate:Well... again, it's complicated.But to answer you question "How do AI's have uncontrolled emotional responses" (I think I've got that right?) with "Because Magic" would be completely unsatisfying.Sorry, no, you haven't got that exactly right.
Question is "How do AIs have uncontrolled emotional responses by every detail resembling human sexual arousment."
Because if there is a emotion that have less social component that direct sexual arousment, I don't know it. It can be emulated, sure - but WHO emulate it in Bubbles?
Some minor quibbles:
1) Human physical signs of arousal are not always coupled to an actual experience of arousal - Every guy past puberty knows that (Well, unless I'm the only dude who wakes with morning wood and doesn't have to suppress the raging urge to either masturbate or have sex with an available and willing partner that happens to be around). Men get raging erections in the most impossible of situations, feeling exactly zero sexual arousal - the 'combat boner' is an example. And that's talking about what is probably the simpler part of the species.
2) IIRC, Human children start displaying signs of shame long before they first experience sexual arousal - Kids ban their parents (and especially the 'desire target'-parent) from the bathroom long before puberty.
3) We've heard that AI's can experience a sort of VR-sex amongst each other. If that is sex in any definition we would recognize, it involves at least the simulated experience of sensual stimuli and involuntary reactions, regardless of whether their bodies are capable of experiencing those sensations.
4) RetCon: Bubbles chassis is a recent experimental model. Maybe someone at Skunkworks got tired of designing horny little psychopaths with built-in lasers who are way too much into niche human fetishes for their own good, and decided that "if the bugger are so keen on it, they should start making their own kink"?
5) RetCon: Humans are smart apes, but apes we are. No matter what we do, our first basic questions are always "Can it eats me?" "Can I eats it?" "Can I mate with it?". There's something funny - and comforting - in knowing that at least 5-15% of our most recent paradigm-shattering invention The! Internet! is dedicated exclusively to pron. Even someone as otherworldly as AI-inventor Chatham would have expected that at some point, AI would be put into human-form chassis, and from there, it's a giant leap for AI-kind but a quick stroke for ... (trying to come up with a good way to end that one).
So it would make sense that the people who wrote the first versions of AI "sensual faculty software .dll's" would add at least some placeholder entries for 'sexual pleasure' (or even approximations), even if the bodies capable of feeling those sensations didn't yet exist - simply because knowing their fellow humans, they knew those bodies would exist at some point.
TL;DR - It's not impossible for Bubbles to feel shame without feeling arousal. It's not impossible for Bubbles to feel aroused even if her body would (yet) lack all the sensory faculties for lovemaking.
Only then, all the other brains had their own 'simulated internal humans', too - probably the point we started inventing art in order not to go crazy
QuoteOnly then, all the other brains had their own 'simulated internal humans', too - probably the point we started inventing art in order not to go crazy
Hasn't worked very well judging from the number of artists who are crazy.
QuoteNot entirely sure whether I get you correctly (or if I would agree if I did): I don't think consciousness is merely a 'review' system (Yes, it does have aspects of a review system, but ... that feels incomplete).
...
AFAIK it's true. Consciousness is, in a nutshell (very, very small nutshell) a system allowing to break a program (instinct) and find a way to solve a problem. It's not faster or slower that any other part by mechanism, but it's far more distracted, and have very little resource in its disposal. You can make your consciousness work fast - you'll just need to concentrate it on "this particular problem" to solve. And it's actually very difficult skill, and very tiresome one. And, as we haven't full control, we can't actually drag out every problem into consciousness.
Mental trauma is interesting example. It actually "heal itself" slowly (as nothing really happens "itself" this meaning it healing itself subconsciously). Consciousness approach, if you have correct skills and able to defeat the suffering in process, is FAR faster.
Or take learning process. As people gasp learning skills and required concentration, learning became far faster with consciousness approach.
Thing with subconscious is that it uses shortcuts. Consciousness can use it as well, as long as you have skills. I mean, it's like... "Subconscious is very fast in math. You just need to look into nightsky, and it's already done - there are a lot of stars here!"
Regarding the whole 'arousal/embarrassment/shame'-debate:Some minor quibbles:Well... again, it's complicated.
...
3) We've heard that AI's can experience a sort of VR-sex amongst each other. If that is sex in any definition we would recognize, it involves at least the simulated experience of sensual stimuli and involuntary reactions, regardless of whether their bodies are capable of experiencing those sensations.
...
TL;DR - It's not impossible for Bubbles to feel shame without feeling arousal. It's not impossible for Bubbles to feel aroused even if her body would (yet) lack all the sensory faculties for lovemaking.
1) About "most impossible situations to have erections". The very problem with human body is that we haven't any hormone with only one task. My favorite example is oxytocin. Look into wiki to a list of tasks!
How do erection work, with a great simplification? [...]
Biochemistry is fun, but EXTREMELY messy. So yeah, not every erection is arousal. And not every oxytocin blast is arousal. And not every nipple erection is arousal.
2) Yes, because children are teached to do this things, it's not instinctive reaction.
3) We actually do know mechanism. It's high-speed package exchange.
4) Continuity error: It was directly declared that Pintsize program and Bubble program was running parallel, and Pintsize's one was closed for humanitarian reasons.
5) Definitely possible, and I believe was done. But then it's the same thing with robotic drunkenness. In a nutshell, as far it was shown, it's a reaction that AI summons on himself consciously. "I want to be drunk for social reasons, so I'm downgrading processor cycles and apps I have would initiate "drunk" behavior".
What do you believe to be true? My amateur thoughts about consciousness? Your prior thoughts about consciousness? //Both. :) I meant yes, by no means consciousness is merely a 'review' system.
I don't know if consciousness is faster or slower or more distracted than any other parts of our mindsYou can't actually distract non-consciousness reactions. Well, you can (very powerful physical pain can break appetite, for instance), but it's should be something really powerful.
I am not sure what you mean by 'consciousness approach' - what little I know of learning suggests that we get faster the more parts of the problem-solving skill become automated and thereby unconscious. //Consciousness approach to learning is a situation where you know you're learning and know what are you learning. There is, for instance, gaming learning, which works well on little children who can't sustain attention span for "traditional" approaches.
I am not sure what you mean by 'shortcuts'Shortcuts is simplifications and skipping turns. I mean, it require a hard training to intuitively operate astronomical distances or geological times - because subconscious always trying to short it into "very far" or "long ago". Consciousness do it as well, but it's quite faster to teach consciousness to operate such data.
Forgive my asking - Do you have any formal training in neurosciences, psychiatry, behavioural science or similar?Microsociology, basic specialization - subcultures, thesis theme - USSR subculture building.
1) Informative and we are agreed -> "Biochemistry is fun, but EXTREMELY messy. So yeah, not every erection is arousal. And not every oxytocin blast is arousal. And not every nipple erection is arousal." Not every physical sign of arousal in humans is a reliable indicator that the mind in the body experiences sexual arousal. I don't see why this should be different in AIs? Or should it?It actually shouldn't, as I said somewhere before. Question is then, if it isn't arousal Bubbles shows, what is it, and why do her reaction so mirroring human reaction about arousal display?
(Again my question: Formal training in Biochem? Sounds a bit like it.)
2) Not sure about the 'they are taught to do those things'. I'm not a parent, but I've heard e.g. fathers reporting "My daughter was 5 (6, whatever) when she banned me from the bathroom", implying very much that it was not the parent teaching the child to be ashamed, but the child telling the parent "Go!". I remember being younger than ten years of age when my parents being naked in front of me-, or my being naked in front of them, started to bother me. I do not recall anybody teaching me to feel that way, it just felt that way.No, it's not "parents actually demands from their children to do it". But the most neglected thing in pedagogic is ignoring a fact that a child is a sapient being capable to self-learning and self-changing. :)
Do you think that Bubbles has learned her 'shame of (Faye's partial) nakedness'? If so/if not, why do you think so? Asked jocularly: "What is the problem here?"I'd say it's not a shame of nakedness, but shame of showing emotions. She got X (arousal or some substitute reaction), such display is shunned, she is not well, she asking Faye to remove source of emotion (and appeal to social norm, by the way, because it's a safe way to dodge responsibility).
3) Uhmmmhyes. Does that make a difference to my point 3) What did you think of my point 3), if anything?Oh sorry.
If AI's can consciously simulate the effects of drunkeness, how does it make the internal experience different from the human one - other than probably being cheaper, and having less adverse health effects.Human can't choose. For human state of drunkeness is a inevitable state happens because they're drinking alcohol. They can want drunkeness (as Faye or Marten after "The Talk"), they can like a taste of spirits, they can drink for a company. They can't became drunk or sober with a snap of fingers.
Jeph is SUCH a tease. :laugh: :lol:
Quote2) Not sure about the 'they are taught to do those things'. I'm not a parent, but I've heard e.g. fathers reporting "My daughter was 5 (6, whatever) when she banned me from the bathroom", implying very much that it was not the parent teaching the child to be ashamed, but the child telling the parent "Go!". I remember being younger than ten years of age when my parents being naked in front of me-, or my being naked in front of them, started to bother me. I do not recall anybody teaching me to feel that way, it just felt that way.
No, it's not "parents actually demands from their children to do it". But the most neglected thing in pedagogic is ignoring a fact that a child is a sapient being capable to self-learning and self-changing. :)
First of all, at 6-7 years child already learned that nudity isn't exactly always ok. They were explained about it, and they noticing that parents (and other grown-ups) don't actually going around nude.
Second, and even more difficult thing is that 6-year child have a crisis, not so different as teenage crisis. That's when personal space need and recalculating of relationships happens. Being nude, especially in the bathroom, is ringing "it's not safe".
I'm not sure what to offer as a source - this theme is quite nicely developed in Russian psychology, started by Lev Vygotsky, but I don't know English sources or even how this stage is correctly named in English.
As far as I can tell, robosex is actually exchange of packages about personal info and code, and we know it's quite intimate theme for AI. They called it "robotic sex" not because it's including sensual stimulation, but because it has a place in their society that resembling a place sex has in our.
Human can't choose. For human state of drunkeness is a inevitable state happens because they're drinking alcohol. They can want drunkeness (as Faye or Marten after "The Talk"), they can like a taste of spirits, they can drink for a company. They can't became drunk or sober with a snap of fingers.
Do you read "Good Omens" by Prattchet and Gaiman? There is an episode there, where angel and demon drinking.
"A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.
"I can't cope with this while 'm drunk," he said. "I'm going to sober up."
"Me too.""
That's something AI can do, and human can't.
So if for human being drunk is an uncontrollable consequence of some activity, for AI it's a game - it's voluntarily, conscious and optional rule they impose on themselves and can drop it any second.
I think this is a fine place to end this story arc, at least for now. I hope to see a new storyline in the next comic. And/or shenanigans.
Thanks to you folks, I am now imagining a love lorn toaster. Who is very proud of the toast it makes. But is there something more? And now plush chairs enter the picture...That's not my fault!
Am I on the verge of understanding Pintsize? (backs away hurriedly)
OH MY GOD THEY ARE ADORABLE!!!!
*Ahem*
I mean, nice muscovid. Kudos.
Around and around and around and around and around and around we go.
This whole discussion is just sinking into the depths of infinity and ad nauseum.
A moment of silence for Dale's scraggly-beard-thing.
A moment of silence for Dale's scraggly-beard-thing.
I smiled a whole lot at the new comic today and I just want to establish that I liked it a whole lot before I pick on one little thing.
Has Dora... lost her look? I'm not sure what makes her Dora anymore. In the first panel I thought she was Emily, until Emily showed up.
The last time I checked, the U.S. consensus is that the ideally sexually arousing woman has the face of a twelve-year-old girl, the breasts of a nursing mother, and the body of a boy athlete.
The last time I checked, the U.S. consensus is that the ideally sexually arousing woman has the face of a twelve-year-old girl, the breasts of a nursing mother, and the body of a boy athlete.
Please include source citations when making such claims.
I am glad I am not alone in squeaking about stoats. As a former ferret owner, any and all mustelidae fill me with glee.
I am glad I am not alone in squeaking about stoats. As a former ferret owner, any and all mustelidae fill me with glee.
I am glad I am not alone in squeaking about stoats. As a former ferret owner, any and all mustelidae fill me with glee.
Stoat? Dralm da**it, I read that as Stout, and was wondering which beer it was. :roll:
It turns out that Emily is a fan of UW-Stoat's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wisconsin%E2%80%93Stout) athletic teams. :clairedoge:
OH MY GOD THEY ARE ADORABLE!!!!
*Ahem*
I mean, nice muscovid. Kudos.
I, too, would like to report that I made various polite and dignified sounds of approval while viewing the stoats.
I am glad I am not alone in squeaking about stoats. As a former ferret owner, any and all mustelidae fill me with glee.
Stoat? Dralm da**it, I read that as Stout, and was wondering which beer it was. :roll:
It's really more of a mustelid ale..
situated halfway between Racine and Kenosha.