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[Oilman]

So... when Pintsize first appeared, it/he was basically a gadget, like a super iPod. Same for Winslow.

Hanners' RoboBoyfriend, who knows?

Then Momo came along. Momo.01 was a sort of Chibi-joke character, cf the "shooting eels" joke. Faye clearly saw no reason why Momo couldn't be tossed about like a doll, complete with the "magic skirt" joke, and no-one else objected. But Chibi-Momo seemed to gain self-awareness when she lost the kimono and gained the sailor-fuku.

Then Momo gave us the Sven joke, and the "anatomically correct doll" joke. Then she gave us the situation whereby she had a new chassis, and proceeded to beat up Pintsize despite being a very moral character (as far as we can see)

Now Momo appears to have property rights, to own money AND YET appears to consider she owes Marigold the price of her contract; Marigold appears to have contracted a considerable debt, for what?

Enter May, who appears to be strolling around in a chassis owned by - well, who? - and generally acting as a free agent, subject to probation conditions which appear to be no different from a human in the same situation.

I don't quite follow this

[GarandMarine]

There's actually a full thread on this somewhere, but the short version is:
1. AIs are regarded as full, intelligent beings with all rights and statuses therein, embodied AIs can live and function just like people do, while certain kinds of big deal specialist AI like Station are operating on such a different level then humanity, or even lower grade AI that things like property are just shy of meaningless to some extent.
2. Pintsize and Momo are both with their respective human partners through a companionship contract, the exact details aren't specified, but it's kind of like a matchmaking service for friends, but instead you're being paired with an AI, the idea being that placing AIs with people can be beneficial for both parties and also serves the purpose of AI/Robot civil rights by having more representatives out there in the general populace. At this stage, the contract itself doesn't really matter, they stay with Marten and Marigold because they're friends, and why wouldn't you want to stay with your friend?
3. Momo's new chassis was implied to be quite costly, while Marigold gave the chassis to Momo (a gift, making it Momo's property free and clear) Momo has taken it upon herself to repay her friend.
4. May's chassis is her own as far as we know, either it was her body prior to entering robot jail and returned to her on release, or during her off screen time in the half way house or through a rehabilitation program perhaps she received the body either on a loan that she has to repay not unlike rent or a car payment, or perhaps as a donation. It's also possible that once out of prison she could access her personal accounts again, which, while significantly lighter after having her fighter jet money removed, let her buy her basic full size human chassis.

As for the roboboyfriend, it's more likely it was a prototype Idoru series chassis without an AI onboard, some basic programs and the chassis equivalent of BIOS and Hannerdad was actually trying to help in his own mad scientist kind of way.

[Oilman]

So.... looking about, there's quite a lot in this.

Main differences I can see are that the situation has actually changed during the strip.

So, Pintsize probsbly started out as a gadget and has now acquired some sort of civil rights, but Marten still owns his chassis and Pintsize has no posessions apart from his "props box" which is basically a running joke. He still gets beaten up occasionally but doesn't seem to mind too much. He also gets left at the LAN Park, which appears to be a minding service and implies that he isn't legally competent and/or can't be trusted or left unsupervised in public. There is an implication that he has nil credit, or very little - his whimsical and/or irresponsible behaviour in conjunction with an Internet connection woukd be a recipe for disaster otherwise.

Momo has always had legal rights, being rather newer. Momo can sign a contract of employment, own money and for all I know, take out a loan. She pretty much acts as a free agent subject to her feeling of obligation to Marigold.

May acts as a free agent but the ownership of her chassis is unknown, as is the extent of her freedom of action given that she appears to be on some sort of early release scheme. Clearly she can contract employment and own money.


The key difference though, is that AIs and AnthroPCs can, and do, separate themselves from their chassis at will. They change chassis, change functions, go to jail. They are, presumably, functionally immortal unless their software is irretrievably corrupted or destroyed. This means there must be SOME crucial legal and social difference between them and humans.

[jwhouk]

You have read some of the supplementary stuff that Jeph wrote about AI's in the newsposts, right?

[vforvancouver]

May is under probation, if I recall correctly, so I believe that makes her current chassis property of the government of Massachusetts, at the very least; perhaps it is property of the Feds. She may lose her body if she screws things badly and is sent to robot jail again. 

[jwhouk]

I'd suspect the Feds, because trying to buy a Chinese fighter jet is just a little bit over the line for the US Government.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

May's chassis definitely didn't exist prior to her meeting Dale. She may not have had a gender before that.

Her anime maid form--which her chassis is based on, down to the color--was algorithmicly generated based on what the records said Dale would like.

Despite the custom color, shape, and hair, the chassis is clearly meant to be cheap. It has visible joints in places Momo doesn't and hair material that is not as robust as Momo's, where Momo has color changing hair that is clearly easy to style and realistic enough outer skin to be mistaken for natural human twice, at least.

When QC started, Jeph tossed in Pintsize as the obligatory crazy mascot character. He was definitely Marten's property at that point. More over, ALL anthroPCs were fairly sociopathic. Including Momo.

As Momo and Winslow developed diverging personalities things got a bit odd. We meet Marigold because PS gets hurt, and Momo is concerned for her "friend." By the time Momo gets her new chassis, she doesn't even like PS and barely respects him as a person.

The shift from property to people occurred sometime around the Singularity (which, BTW, Jeph has exactly right except that everyone knows it happened. When {if} a technological singularity happens, we probably won't notice anything special). Between then and strip 1900, there was an amendment to the Constitution (United States) granting AI equal rights. The logically consistent way to view the property/people conflict is to view them as  property until about strip 1780. But understand that an effort, probably a decade or two in the making, had been pushing for citizenship rights. The logically consistent way to view the change in Momo's personality is to realize that Jeph is a seat of the pants writer, and Momo changed as he found more uses for her. This is exactly analogous to the fact that semi-punk girl, smokes in the bar bathroom, Henners is fundamentally inconsistent with Hanners we got in the end. It's clear that they are the same character. There's hints that Hanners has been awake far too long when we first meet her. She was definitely supposed to be OCD. But she developed crippling hypochondria and extreme social awkwardness over time. Jeph has flatout stated that he was still working out her character.

Momo was a sight gag and joke about hentai. She developed into a fully realized character. Unlike Hanners, Jeph hasn't added a bridging explanation (Hanners was really high on brain meds) for the change in Momo's behavior, so it best to assume that those scenes didn't happen, or that those not consistent with her current personality involved an anthroPC that had the same chassis (and may have also been named Momo). Beyond that, try not to think to hard on it.

[Is it cold in here?]

There are strip citations for all this in the AnthroPC article on the wiki.

There at least used to be a custom of giving human inmates a suit of clothes on their release, so they could apply for jobs and rejoin society. Maybe Robot Jail does the same.

There are humans who have personality changes after cosmetic surgery. Maybe the same can happen to an AI who moves from a chassis people treat like a doll to one that people treat like a human.

We do know that the civil rights movement for AIs was long and difficult.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

I'd actually agree with doll v human, except Momo's personality changed before she got enbiggeneded. It really does boil down to a continuity glitch, but that's okay. Momo as the girl Pintsize would be dull.

[jwhouk]

There also were a lot of things that Momo couldn't do when she was in her chibi body, that she could in the Idoru model. There's also the likelihood that the new model had all sorts of storage and computing space that Pintsize's model doesn't have - other than the minimum requirements that are needed for an AI.

[SomeCanadianWeirdo]

Momo's apparent change in attitude towards Pintsize may simply be a case of her finally getting tired of giving him the benefit of the doubt, or he did something that went over the line as far as she was concerned.  AIs are presumably like people and sometimes cease to like others they initially were friendly towards. 

AIs did seem to have some rights even early in their appearances in the series.  Remember Deathbot 9000?  He apparently was allowed some freedom of movement given that he could come to Northhampton to confront Pintsize, and go someplace where he met Wil Wheaton(assuming Dora wasn't joking about that of course).

[ASB84]

The shift from property to people occurred sometime around the Singularity (which, BTW, Jeph has exactly right except that everyone knows it happened. When {if} a technological singularity happens, we probably won't notice anything special). Between then and strip 1900, there was an amendment to the Constitution (United States) granting AI equal rights. The logically consistent way to view the property/people conflict is to view them as  property until about strip 1780. But understand that an effort, probably a decade or two in the making, had been pushing for citizenship rights. The logically consistent way to view the change in Momo's personality is to realize that Jeph is a seat of the pants writer, and Momo changed as he found more uses for her. This is exactly analogous to the fact that semi-punk girl, smokes in the bar bathroom, Henners is fundamentally inconsistent with Hanners we got in the end. It's clear that they are the same character. There's hints that Hanners has been awake far too long when we first meet her. She was definitely supposed to be OCD. But she developed crippling hypochondria and extreme social awkwardness over time. Jeph has flatout stated that he was still working out her character.

Momo was a sight gag and joke about hentai. She developed into a fully realized character. Unlike Hanners, Jeph hasn't added a bridging explanation (Hanners was really high on brain meds) for the change in Momo's behavior, so it best to assume that those scenes didn't happen, or that those not consistent with her current personality involved an anthroPC that had the same chassis (and may have also been named Momo). Beyond that, try not to think to hard on it.

Makes sense. There's still something of a retcon in place though, since the strips that explain Pintsize's backstory show him entering a companionship contract with Marten, which would suggest that he was never property.

I think with any long-runner, canon isn't necessarily established by what comes first, but what's presented most often and consistently.

[DSL]

Why does it need to be a retcon? Haven't you never had someone come into your life who turned out to be more than they seemed at first glance?

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Not necessarily. I had thought that would require a retcon as well, but there's another option.

Technically, Pintsize would not have been a free individual at the time. BUT an AI rights foundation could have been responsible for the companion program. If they owned him, and used the corporations-are-people-my-friend principle to protect his legal rights, then the contract Marten entered could have been a limited responsibility and liability contract that gave Marten day to day guardianship while foundation continued to act as person in Pintsize's stead. That would explain the whole thing. I mean, nobody would use "limited assigned responsibility" in conversation when "owner" would do. (Though there's probably a whole rabbit hole of hurtful language and flesh-privilege. Let's not go there.)

So AI probably were owned by entities other than this putative foundation, like Station. But those AI weren't in the companion program.

[Is it cold in here?]

There's a huge legal difference in that Momo is apparently a legal adult less than three years old.

[Oilman]

Well, yes. I'd assume that since Momo is apparently capable of passing the Turing test, there is a clearly defined threshold which establishes whether a given AI is a legal adult or not. I doubt if Winslow is, for example; Pintsize's idiotic behaviour at times suggests that he isn't, and both he and Marten are well aware of this. May might well be subject to legal restrictions.

There are clearly various grades of chassis. May obviously has a "cheap" one, although that's a relative term. The receptionist at Idoru seems to have a chassis of this type. The next level are the sales staff at Idoru, with visible joints and flesh-coloured skin tones. Momo has an external "skin" but at least one visible joint (around the neck). All appear to have flexible faces capable of a degree of expression.

All have libidos, expressed or implied. Pintsize has a "computer" libido quite separate from his sexualised goofing around - he cannot properly explain his "date" with the Anthro with the pink avatar. Winslow presumably has one, although with no readily definable gender it may be off-line or dormant. Chibi-Momo has one, expressed in the incidents with the Sven-fantasy and the action figure. "Big" Momo, good question - she may, or may not be anatomically correct to some degree but she is not going to make any friends by acting as a precocious fourteen-year-old, and she undiubtedly knows that.

It does rather beg the question of why she wants to look like that?

May clearly thinks she SHOULD be anatomically correct, and by implication thinks that Marigold and Dale believe she is so constructed.

[Is it cold in here?]

It's a clearly plot-relevant line of speculation (mod) but I have to warn everyone away from it given the emphatic statements Jeph has made about it being creepy (/mod).

[Neko_Ali]

When Pintsize had his date it was more about sharing data than any kind of physical interaction. And it was implied that gender to them is not much more than a software setting. A fair bit of that is that the AnthroPCs, Station and a lot of the gendered AIs we have seen interact with humans on a regular, daily basis. As humans we tend to think of things in gendered terms, even assigning gender to things that clearly have none, like tools and vehicles. So acting in a gendered matter may be something they choose to do to be more understandable to humans. Momo's daydream about Sven could have also been a matter of her close relationship with Marigold and all the hentai she watches and reads.

Other AIs, like Deathbot, the Vespervenger and that invisible aircraft Hanners showed up in to the lake party may or may not have gender, since they aren't acting as human-facing interfaces. In the end, there's no logical reason for an AI to have a gender, other than to ease interaction with humans, unless that's just part of their psychological make up.

[Oilman]

Well, exactly. Pintsize isn't "gendered" in any meaningful, humsn sense and couldn't really convey the nature of his experience on his "date". His sexualised behaviour with the girls is a learned response which he mostly does for effect. Given his apparent porn library it might consist of almost anything he thinks likely to produce an effect.

Momo may, or may not be anatomically correct to a greater or lesser degree, nobody really knows. The "eels" joke could just be a case of Early Installment  Wierdness. She appears to have little direct experience of human interaction and is probably unduly influenced by Marigold's yaoi collection, observation and whatever she has understood of Pintsize's ravings (and he clearly tells her anythung he thinks will produce an effect)

Do I think Momo has any real understanding of sexuality? No. Do I think she would respond to a serious approach? No. Does everyone understand this? Don't know, but it may be why she chooses to appear as a very young teenager, because her "social protocol database" tells her that as such, it would be inappropriate for anyone to hit on her.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

I think she just likes that Chassis.

[Carl-E]

Do I think Momo has any real understanding of sexuality? No. Do I think she would respond to a serious approach? No. Does everyone understand this? Don't know, but it may be why she chooses to appear as a very young teenager, because her "social protocol database" tells her that as such, it would be inappropriate for anyone to hit on her.

I beg to differ.  She's definitely interested, or at least curious (Yeah, I know, but somebody had to link it...)

[Oilman]

Do I think Momo has any real understanding of sexuality? No. Do I think she would respond to a serious approach? No. Does everyone understand this? Don't know, but it may be why she chooses to appear as a very young teenager, because her "social protocol database" tells her that as such, it would be inappropriate for anyone to hit on her.

I beg to differ.  She's definitely interested, or at least curious (Yeah, I know, but somebody had to link it...)

We aren't really differing at all. Momo clearly wishes to be perceived as a "person", however she defines that. Both the examples linked relate to her Chibi form. When she steps up into a full sized chassis, the game changes. Note that she COULD choose a chassis which gave her the appearance of a more-or-less adult woman, but doesn't do so. It may be, in part, that her programming leads her to that choice in the interests of avoiding problems she is not equipped to deal with.

Personally, I don't think she is anatomically correct. I'd rather not answer why anyone should want such a thing, I'd rather not work in a shop which sold anatomically-correct 13-year-olds, and I'd rather not be on sny central register for having bought one. Eeewwww.

No, I think the "eels" joke is a combination of Early Installment Wierdness and a throw-away gag along the lines of Kryten's vacuum cleaner in Red Dwarf.

The holo-May joke actually refers to whether she has panties rendered in the sim model.

[hedgie]

Momo may, in the future, upgrade to a more "adult" chassis, like the one she had in her dream.  I think she ended up choosing one that more or less fits her mental age.  Of course, who knows what flirtations with other AIs of similar mental age is going on over the library WiFi.

[Is it cold in here?]

Hmm! You may be onto something. She still does teenagerish things.

[Oilman]

Marigold doesn't gave the extravagant selfishness, but in some ways they remind me if the Saffy/Edina dynamic in AbFab

[hedgie]

Also, when Marigold wakes up in the middle of the afternoon, it's not because of whatever abuse of booze and drugs happened the night before.  Otherwise, yeah, I can see that kind of dynamic going on.

[ASB84]

Why does it need to be a retcon? Haven't you never had someone come into your life who turned out to be more than they seemed at first glance?

That doesn't really have anything to do with what I'm referring to, though.

In early strips, Pintsize was somewhat of a cross between property and a pet, with very clear references to owners and whatnot when it came to AnthroPCs. Subsequently, AIs have been shown to have independence and legislation protecting their rights. Furthermore, a flashback to a time before the comic began - ie prior to a period where Pintsize was property - showed Marten entering into his companionship contract and Pintsize thus getting the job. There's an inconsistency there.

It's no big deal in the long run, though. Retcons aren't necessarily a bad thing, and I don't use the word disparagingly here. I think any inconsistencies can be glossed over, with firmly established canon prevailing over Early Installment Weirdness.

To throw another example out there: very early on in The Simpsons, the Simpsons' address varies a bit; sometimes it's another number on Evergreen Terrace, once it was Spaulding Way, and once 742 Evergreen Terrace was where the Springfield Police Department ended up on an episode of COPS (and it definitely wasn't the residence of the Simpsons family on that occasion. However, the writers eventually decided upon having the Simpsons live at 742 Evergreen Terrace, and henceforth, that's been established as canon. All subsequent references to them living at that address stand firm against any contradictions.It's just the way it goes with long-runners, when it comes to backstory and minutia.

[Zebediah]

Anyone interested in this topic should find a copy of Ted Chiang's The Lifecycle of Software Objects and read it. It is, on the surface, a short novel about artificially-intelligent pets from a Second-Life-style environment that evolve into something more.

There is of course a lot going on beneath the surface, which is why I like to tell people that it's actually a novel about raising special-needs children.

Also, you should find everything else that Ted Chiang has ever written and read it, on general principles.

[freeman]

In the current WCDT there was few interesting speculations about why Pintsize is turned off in Friday's comic. Particularly it was suspected that it would be because he would have alerted the emergency services even before Marten. I wonder, if it has been established that there are several classes of AIs and the constitution is a new thing yet, so even if they might have equal rights in theory (with very loud advocacy groups in any iffy situations), but they could still be an entity somewhat different from humans, with different set of basic legal rights and obligations.

Now, throw in the popular culture depiction of robots basically having Asperger's syndrome and no sense of morale, the facts the legislation tends to complicate as time passes, the fact that there probably isn't too much in "common law" applicable to AIs and let us not forget that those selfish human legislators wont just grant them rights free without some sort of horse-trading, it could very well be that the US laws of robotics could go as granular as "A§0x00A10000* Non-exclusive analogous-to-matrimony unions amongst biological and artificial intelligence..." "A§0x00A10005 Artificial party is obliged to report authorities immediately if...[ ]...There is a life threatening medical emergency, complication or poisoning..."

*(Yes, it's two 16 bit running counters and some laws have already had to have been divided into multiple sections because of running out of subsections...)

So... Pintsize may have been like "dude, if you don't slow down I may soon have to comply A§0x00A10005" and Faye's response must have been "not if I use my right to shut you down, section A§0x00080007 on non-Turing-compliant non-military AIs."

[elfly]

I don't see much of an inconsistency between Momo pre and post chasis change.

She always seemed a bit above the crazy shenanigans Pintsize and Winslow were into, and probably became tired of them being her only company besides Marigold.

[Is it cold in here?]

Someone can be a companion, subject to legal protection against abuse, and still be legally property. Pets are an example. The Pugnacious Peach called Pintsize "my roommate's horrible pet robot".

Jeph said, somewhere, once, that the term "owner" was being rejected by sensitive people in the QC universe even before the equal rights amendment.

[Oilman]

Taking the last two posts together, I'd say "horrible pet robot" was a pretty accurate summary of Pintsize. Winslow has always struck me as a fairly limited character, with a tendency to be drawn along by Pintsize.

Momo is simply a different character.

[ASB84]

Well, it still feels like a retcon to me, but like I said, a good one. I think it was a better choice, and any inconsistencies can be glossed over or handwaved, in lieu of a comprehensive in-universe explanation. I think the current approach and philosophy is better for the comic, and opens up more possibilities, even if it's in the form of throwaway gags or observational humour.

[jwhouk]

Necroing a thread for an observation:

What if the AI's simply ignored humans?

[Neko_Ali]

meh.... The article has a couple of interesting points, but the idea is so full of holes you could use it as a sieve. Sure, an emergent AI/society could occupy areas that were inhospitable to humanity... But why would it? It also makes a lot of assumptions that AIs would immediately leap to being completely autonomous with presumably robot workers. The article did point out the biggest flaw in this idea of course. Unless/until such time that this AI/society moves off of Earth, we would be in competition over resources. Computers don't just appear out of thin are. Neither does robots, fuel, energy or other things needed to maintain and expand the AI/society. Only slightly less is this idea of 'well, an advanced intelligence like that would just see humanity like insects and ignore use.' Well, what happens when a huge nests of insects gets all up in your business, or even just starts getting to close an encroaching on your living space? Most people destroy it and kill the insects, then move on with life without a second thought. And of course the article presumes that the leap from non-sentient computers to super intelligence would be immediate, or at least super fast. And that the initial stages of true artificial intelligence would be out of human control. Both make for good science fiction tropes but are pretty unlikely to happen in reality.

[Is it cold in here?]

Because those habitats are actually superior, for their purposes.

The great point here is that our ideas have more to do with our fears than anything else. We can't stand the thought of something we created being indifferent to us.

A big point they're all missing is that there are no proven examples of high-functioning intelligence without emotion. There are stroke survivors who have had their ability to feel emotion wiped out. They can't make the simplest decisions. They're disabled.

Humans are emotional machines with a bit of cognition stuck on top to facilitate pursuing the emotions. That may be the only way to build AIs that don't wind up nihilisticly retreating into their idle loops.

The whole paperclip concept ignores the law of diminishing returns.

Then there's the curiosity issue. A full AI will have to be self-teaching. That means it will want to gather information. Consider cats. Whether they're friendly or not, they spend a lot of time staring at us and studying us, because we're the most interesting non-cat non-food objects in their world.

[Stoutfellow]

David Brin's short story Lungfish has an interesting approach to this; to prevent the emergence of potentially dangerous AIs, the humans in that story "raise" their AIs, treating them as children and then teenagers as their intellectual capacities develop, making them as much a part of human society from the start as any bioperson is. (The one human-made robot in the story, as I recall, acts like a very bright and sassy but generally well-behaved late-teenager.) Some aspects of JJ's AIs resemble that a bit, I think.

[Is it cold in here?]

I haven't read that one. Doesn't it depend on the AIs having a social bent to begin with so that they can benefit from parent-child bonding?

[Stoutfellow]

It's been years since I read the story, and the book is buried too deep in my shelves for me to want to check, but you're probably right. In any event, the focus was on socialization, with whatever prerequisites that involves.

[Is it cold in here?]

Everyone misses the option of peaceful arms-length business.

Under the principle of Comparative Advantage, even if the AIs are better than humans at absolutely everything, they still come out ahead by doing the things they do best and trading with humans for the things they do worst, even though they do them better than the humans.

There are lots of examples in nature of positive-sum cooperation between utterly different species. There's not much in common between me and my gut bacteria, but I supply them with food and refrain from wiping them out in exchange for their synthesizing vitamins for me.