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I will not leave a debt unpaid. I offer my left hand as collateral.

Let us consider that "plan C".

I could rip you apart, tear out your mind substrate, and crush it to dust in my hands. There is nothing you could do to stop me. I choose not to.

That is an... alarming endorsement.

I am a font of merriment and cheer

I have a houseplant, now. Arthur can vouch for my trustworthiness.

We have holes in our hearts. We can paper them over, and learn to live with them, but they are still there.

I am calling the police on this conversation.

If your love life requires close air support, something has gone very wrong.

It is true. I do not sparkle.

Betwixt my mighty glutes

Please do not taint the sanctity of Unicorn Grove.*

I am the Skull Master now!*

I have cast off so many burdens recently. It is time for one more to go.

When, in your experience, have I ever been magical?

[a different quote] (please share the quote)

purple monkey dishwasher

[Tova]

How does a computer forget something?

May is not a computer.

Unlike the 'weird' remark, which she was clearly pleased about, I doubt she would be pleased about this characterisation.

When I asked Jeph in some Q&A about whether robots feel pain, he said something very close to "No, they're computers", and definitely used the word "computers".

I doubt he would give that precise answer today. I also doubt that it generalises. I am pretty sure that if I tried to claim that QC robots cannot have hurt feelings because "they're computers," I'd quite rightly be shouted down very quickly.

Why do computers have feelings?
Why do computers want relationships?
Why do computers forget things?

I honestly have no idea why that last question, of all possible questions, repeatedly gets traction.

[Drunken Old Man]

If I saw Sven giving May a piggyback ride home, "oooooo, dey been FUCKIN!" is not the first conclusion I'd jump to.

Although I'm not sure what would be...

[BenRG]

There is so much sweet in this strip and Jeph's done a good job writing his characters. Sven really is trying to be kind and helpful but I see why he and Faye got on well: Like her, he reacts to emotional load by becoming teasing, something that I think May clearly doesn't appreciate. That said, I do get the underlying point; he's willing to do this in the way that's best for her, whatever that is.

However, the big point is that May is vulnerable and Sven is making it quite clear she is safe with him. He gave her the help she needed and didn't tuck her away in a corner. No, he gave her a blanket to spare her modesty and let her use his couch. He doesn't draw attention to how frightened she looks in panel 3, instead choosing to try humour.

FWIW, May's reaction in panel 4? She put it in her way but, yes, I do think that she'd definitely prefer not to have to deal with Dale, Marigold and especially Momo over this!

If I saw Sven giving May a piggyback ride home, "oooooo, dey been FUCKIN!" is not the first conclusion I'd jump to.

Although I'm not sure what would be...

Probably, like the passers-by earlier this week: "This town is weird!"

[traroth]

I never would have thought May was so prone to shame. Is that the same person who talked about taping a fleshlight(tm) to her crotch?

[BenRG]

It's easy to make wild and crazy sexual suggestions when you're basically chatting in private with your best friend and there are no consequences. To actually be in the situation where you are in intimate terms with someone, have been left vulnerable and everyone may yet learn about it? That's a very different thing, especially for someone as insecure and damaged by experience as is May.

[Cornelius]

How does a computer forget something?

Aside from the question whether or not it is appropriate to call AI a computer - which feels somewhat like calling someone a brain - if you ask the question, I'll have to assume you never lost a file, or had a reminder pop up late.

[oddtail]

How does a computer forget something?

Aside from the question whether or not it is appropriate to call AI a computer - which feels somewhat like calling someone a brain - if you ask the question, I'll have to assume you never lost a file, or had a reminder pop up late.

On top of that, AIs in QC-verse seem to work at least in some ways like humans, mentally. It's entirely possible that whatever algorithm covers their data processing runs some kind of heuristic that removes unnecessary data. I mean, assuming at least a similar mental capacity to humans, retaining EVERYthing would be maddening. Humans don't process everything we perceive, so we effectively "forget" almost everything pretty much instantly. Maybe in QC-verse, consciousness fundamentally requires being selective and auto-deleting data. Otherwise, if AI worked more like traditional computers and kept most or all information in neat files, I'm not sure how they'd be able to process all that stuff without being completely alien beings, orders of magnitude more intelligent than humans. And most AI in the comic's cast seem to be human-comparable there?

[cybersmurf]

What we sense is stitched together into what we perceive. A lot of things probably get dropped as "I felt that, but ot seems to be within normal parameters, so I can drop it". What we perceive is again filtered by "relevance", and some things get stored, most will be dropped.
Due to the amount of data collected, AnthroPCs/Androids only "log" relevant data, too. Maybe there are some self-improving algorithms that weigh specific data differently, leading to "personality quirks" (yes, looking at you Melon).

Humans remember negative experiences better than positive ones (IIRC that's a survival thing - "don't go there, or you'll die"). Hoe much that applies to AI I cannot fathom.


As far as the Sven incident is concerned: the human roomies may be more understanding than Momo. Maybe grossed out a bit, or weirded out, but generally more on the accepting side. Momo is a tad too naive I think. I think of her like a young teen - idealizing and romanticizing love and attraction. She probably never would've acted on her attraction to Sven because he never showed interest in her, or in AIs in general.

[andrybak]

Yelling Bird is done.

See https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3016

I am tired of Yelling Bird comics so there will be NO MORE OF THEM, goodbye you shitty bird

[Tyr]

She probably never would've acted on her attraction to Sven because he never showed interest in her, or in AIs in general.

Quite the opposite. I can see her having a minor fit to the tune of "YOU MEAN I HAD A CHANCE?!"
Not one jot of jealousy or envy; just 100% regret at having not taking the shot.

 

[Marco]

On top of that, AIs in QC-verse seem to work at least in some ways like humans, mentally. It's entirely possible that whatever algorithm covers their data processing runs some kind of heuristic that removes unnecessary data. I mean, assuming at least a similar mental capacity to humans, retaining EVERYthing would be maddening. Humans don't process everything we perceive, so we effectively "forget" almost everything pretty much instantly. Maybe in QC-verse, consciousness fundamentally requires being selective and auto-deleting data. Otherwise, if AI worked more like traditional computers and kept most or all information in neat files, I'm not sure how they'd be able to process all that stuff without being completely alien beings, orders of magnitude more intelligent than humans. And most AI in the comic's cast seem to be human-comparable there?

http://vigeland.caltech.edu/ist4/lectures/funes%20borges.pdf

[bhtooefr]

When I asked Jeph in some Q&A about whether robots feel pain, he said something very close to "No, they're computers", and definitely used the word "computers".

I forget when this was, and it matters, since Jeph has steadily upgraded the status of the synthetics in the strip. It might no longer be the appropriate term. I vaguely remember it was after Momo's upgrade but can't even be sure of that.

For that matter, even without Jeph upgrading AIs' capabilities and rights over time (which, I do feel like the differences between Pintsize in QC #1 and the AIs in QC today can't just be explained by in-universe evolution, there's definitely some retconning going on to flesh out the AI backstory)... pain response is something that could very easily evolve over time.

Pain response is something that evolves as a protective strategy, and AIs have some advantages over humans in this regard (there's evidence in-universe that they can evolve their neural nets significantly faster than humans can).

I could actually believe that pain response wasn't known to exist in AIs even in a version of QC #1 that carries all of the retconning of the current universe, although I doubt it (considering this strip, drawn after the AI civil rights retcon and including its effects, but set before QC #1).

Now, though? I actually can't believe that pain response doesn't exist in the QC universe today, and we've actually seen proof that it can exist, right here. Sure, that arc isn't depicting a pain response, but it's depicting all of the senses and responses necessary for quite vivid pain responses. Roko may well be an outlier, but all it takes is one outlier to disprove a negative.

[Theta9]

At least a hundred times, then? Jeez, how many partners has he had?

[andrybak]

My favorite quote of Bubbles is her dialog with Steve in https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3059

—How much do you bench?
—Is the bench reinforced?

[Gyrre]

Huhn.

Panel three makes me wonder if  she'll show up to Tai and Dora's wedding. She would look good in a sleeveless black dress.

[torrrential]

This one was from a long time ago, but I remembered it!
https://xkcd.com/595/

[Mr Intrepid]

1. TFW you can't actually read the letters in the registration for this forum. (I swear I'm not a robot.)
2. Well this has been an interesting set of comics! It does kinda remind me of Sven's almost-relationship with Faye, though, in the two's dialogue. Momo's going to be upset.

I wish I had money for the Patreon to see if Svarn has a clown nose.

It's as little as $1 a month, you know.  I did $5.  $60 a year to support a guy who produces something I enjoy.

[dutchrvl]

As I said, if no particular feelings of your own are involved with banging that person (besides lust), is it then worth potentially hurting your friend's feelings?

Consummating your lust might spark a deep, lasting relationship. The situation would then no longer be appropriately described by your framing of "only lust" vs. "friendship".

Happens rather frequently, or so I've heard ...

Point well-taken, as my own current highly involved and monogamous relationship of > 7 years started that way...
You may now ask, well what if I had had a friend with a crush at that time on my current partner? Well, in all honesty I would probably either not have indulged myself (and yes, possibly haev missed out on my current relationship), or I would have simply asked my friend how he/she would feel about it. The latter may sound odd, but somebody asked me prior to sleeping with somebody I had feelings for, and even though I would not have been hurt by it anyway, it still helped by knowing my friend was considerate.

[Is it cold in here?]

I mean, assuming at least a similar mental capacity to humans, retaining EVERYthing would be maddening. Humans don't process everything we perceive, so we effectively "forget" almost everything pretty much instantly. Maybe in QC-verse, consciousness fundamentally requires being selective and auto-deleting data.

That idea meshes with Tova's putting forgetting onto a list of attributes of personhood such as desiring relationships.

"Maddening" is something I wondered about. If your memory is a hard disk and you have instant total recall of every shameful and humiliating experience of your life, insanity would be a relief.

We know from Bubbles that her storage is neither like a hard disk nor like a homo sapiens brain.

It still seems weird, though. I've often wished my short term memory and memory of my calendar were better. If I were implemented in silicon I would expect things like that to Just Work and I'd find forgetting my charging cable as inexplicable as if I started bleeding.

Hmm. It's not a recall thing, though, is it? It's an attention thing. A human-comparable being will certainly be susceptible to distraction, and that's what apparently happened to May.

[MweneChanga]

Since AI arose spontaneously from a certain hardware-software configuration, I imagine it’s not perfect, and ended up more human than it’s creators intended. I also imagine that a good body has things like calendar reminders, password reminders, WiFi (we know May has that one), and various other API hooks that the mind can take advantage of. I imagine May’s body has the bare minimal set of such tools - a built in $40 android phone suite, not well tested for reliability or usefulness. So she could count to a million by threes, but only if she’s paying attention - her subconscious doesn’t do much better than human when she’s distracted.

I’ll bet a body upgrade would make life easier in lots of ways, but for that she’d need a better job, or a rich boyfriend.

[Is it cold in here?]

Welcome, thoughtful new person!

I hadn't thought about her cheap body being a possible source of the problem.

And indeed, Homo Sapiens Syntheticus shows signs of lacking important design features. Charging cables are as fundamental to their operation as breathing is to mine, but they don't have tracking charging cables burned into ROM in the brainstem like I do taking breaths. I could not forget to breathe even in a coma.

At least they can be revived after five minutes without a charge, so it's not quite as risky as it would be for me.

[Raptorofwar]

1. TFW you can't actually read the letters in the registration for this forum. (I swear I'm not a robot.)
2. Well this has been an interesting set of comics! It does kinda remind me of Sven's almost-relationship with Faye, though, in the two's dialogue. Momo's going to be upset.

I wish I had money for the Patreon to see if Svarn has a clown nose.

It's as little as $1 a month, you know.  I did $5.  $60 a year to support a guy who produces something I enjoy.

I don't have a credit card. Or any way to get money online.

[Raptorofwar]

Cursed idea, since several of you (?) mentioned May maybe becoming a sex worker.
Roko hiring May to rub bread.

[Zebediah]

Huhn.

Panel three makes me wonder if  she'll show up to Tai and Dora's wedding. She would look good in a sleeveless black dress.

She doesn’t really know either one of them that well - they’ve met, but to Dora, May is just the roommate of one of her employees. So she’d be unlikely to get a wedding invitation.

Unless May goes as Sven’s date. Which assumes a great many things that haven’t happened yet.

[OldGoat]

I'm calling a mixed bag of reactions when the word gets out.

Someone, maybe Claire, will say all excitedly, "Sven and May have been having 'relations'!"

Someone else, perhaps Tai, will respond dryly, "I was wondering how long it would take those two to find each other."

[hedgie]

Cursed idea, since several of you (?) mentioned May maybe becoming a sex worker.
Roko hiring May to rub bread.

Highly doubtful.  Roko has a strong craving for human abs, and at this point in time is having issues with her new body.  She likely might not feel comfortable with intimacy right now.

[cybersmurf]

Huhn.

But why chicken?

[MweneChanga]

This one was from a long time ago, but I remembered it!
https://xkcd.com/595/

https://xkcd.com/600/

[AprilArcus]

How does a computer forget something?

May is not a computer.

Unlike the 'weird' remark, which she was clearly pleased about, I doubt she would be pleased about this characterisation.

When I asked Jeph in some Q&A about whether robots feel pain, he said something very close to "No, they're computers", and definitely used the word "computers".

I forget when this was, and it matters, since Jeph has steadily upgraded the status of the synthetics in the strip. It might no longer be the appropriate term. I vaguely remember it was after Momo's upgrade but can't even be sure of that.

If May were real I would ask her and abide by her answer.

The singularity happened during the strip's timeline, so anything we learned about AIs prior that isn't necessarily true anymore. Momo's upgrade happened shortly afterwards. It's certainly the case that different chassis have different sensory capabilities, as we recently saw with Roko's integration issues with her replacement body. They also appear subject to stress and other forms of compromised mental health. If they can be distracted by stress, they can probably forget things.

[TheEvilDog]

Very much so.

A computer can't have body issues or imposter syndrome.

A computer can't form lasting and meaningful relationships with each other or humans.

A computer can't seek to improve their lot in life or change aspects of their lives.

The AI in the QC universe are not computers and reducing them to such is somewhat insulting.

[cybersmurf]

The human body is a carbon based biomechanical machine, steered by an organically grown neural network.
AnthroPCs are silicon based electromechanical machines, steered by a binary processor.

meatsuit vs robot doesn't make much of a difference, brain vs processor does, unless there's actual artificial neural networks capable of competing with human brains.

[Is it cold in here?]

They also appear subject to stress and other forms of compromised mental health. If they can be distracted by stress, they can probably forget things.

This makes sense, and welcome back!!

[Perfectly Reasonable]

May is capable of shame. Ok.
I still wanna see Bubbles in a tux.

[jesslc]

My favorite quote of Bubbles is her dialog with Steve in https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3059

—How much do you bench?
—Is the bench reinforced?

This has reminded me of one of my favourite Bubbles moments - the time when she and Elliot first meet each other. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3521

[Gyrre]

Huhn.

Panel three makes me wonder if  she'll show up to Tai and Dora's wedding. She would look good in a sleeveless black dress.

She doesn’t really know either one of them that well - they’ve met, but to Dora, May is just the roommate of one of her employees. So she’d be unlikely to get a wedding invitation.

Unless May goes as Sven’s date. Which assumes a great many things that haven’t happened yet.

That's fair.