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"You. Did. All. This. For ME?"

4 (10%)

@!#&%^&*%^%^*(^%*(&^(*&!!!!

13 (32.5%)

"Seriously, you mean it?"

0 (0%)

"Oh, yeah, right, sure, and I'm going to grow wings and fly away."

15 (37.5%)

"Do I get a cut of this?"

3 (7.5%)

"Purple Monkey Dishwashers!"

2 (5%)

Something else (specify)

3 (7.5%)

Total Members Voted: 40

Voting closed: 26 Jul 2020, 08:59

[St.Clair]

run, pink boi.

[hedgie]

After years of lurking, I had to sign in for this:

No one here really found it odd that Roko isn't disturbed by the sight of May's open throat?

She might've gotten her freak-out out of the way earlier.

If AIs can have a drunk app, maybe they have an easy Ativan app.

[BenRG]

Hannelore ha a point: It's in the nature of a big-picture thinker like Dr John to come up with a way fix a problem in the broadest and most holistic of senses. Whilst his plan would stop this from ever happening again, as Hanners pointed out, this is something that could take years and certainly wouldn't help May now.

I don't think that Winslow could have said something more calculated to distress poor Hannelore than that! However, we've seen before signs that she has a lot of her mother in her personality when she's locked into her more organised and focussed behaviour mode. I also wonder if we're seeing the origins of the John/Beatrice relationship? She was originally the loyal assistant who got him focussed enough to actually get things done, much like Caroline with Cave Johnson in the Portal/Half-Life universe. Somewhere along the line though? All that power got to her.

The lesson for Hannelore is this: There is nothing bad emulating her mother's organisation and problem-solving skills. What she needs to avoid is her ethics-free mindset of personal power and wealth at all costs, no matter who is hurt!

[Gyrre]

I'm reminded of image of some9ne walking a tightrope over a valley captioned something to the effect of 'trying not to become my parents', with the drop on one side labelled 'becoming just like my dad' and the drop to the otherside being 'becoming just like my mom'.

It's a fine line when you come from a dysfunctional family.
[Speaking from experience.]

[citizenfive]

So there's only a 1/20 chance of this going through. Wheee.

If Dungeons & Dragons has taught me anything, a 1 in 20 chance is still a lot higher than you would think!

[awkwardness]

That's a low blow, Winslow...really low blow.

It's true, though- she does channel her mother when she's passionate about things. As much as she hates to admit it, her outbursts and forcibly bottling her emotions is what her mother does a lot.

[cybersmurf]

No matter how hard you try, you always pick up things from your parents. One tends to live with them for decades...

[Tova]

I have on, I think, two occasions thoughtlessly blurted out something like this to someone, and received a not too dissimilar reaction.

[Scarlet Manuka]

But again, how do AIs in general get chassis? Bubbles' chassis seems to have been a 'gift'/result of military service,  Roko we don't know. But a new AI comes out of the creche, may want a mobile chassis, may not. How are they paid for? Are there parents who pay as human parents effectivelypay for their offspring's chassis? Is there a kind of bond servitude like McCaffreys "Ship who... series"?

Roko did say she'd had her original chassis "since I was born". So having a body straight out of the creche is definitely a possibility.

With humans, of course, the parents are responsible for taking care of the child's needs and providing appropriate clothing, housing, and so on. It seems pretty reasonable to me that whoever commissions an AI mind to be created is also responsible for deciding whether the AI is to be initially embodied or not, and providing a body if so. This would certainly have been the case earlier in the history of AIs when they were still legally property.

I imagine that at first, AIs were commissioned for specific tasks, and provided with bodies as required by the nature of the tasks - the military gave theirs bodies like Bubbles' (or Pintsize's old one), the AnthroPC makers went for "cute and not too expensive", and... well, I don't know what the spiderbots would have been for. Once AI rights became established, the whole situation undoubtedly got murkier - I should think the right to embody, disembody, or change bodies was one of the fundamental parts of that package, as well as more obvious rights like being able to resign from a job.

But then what's the incentive to make new AIs if you can't guarantee that they'll choose to work for you? I expect this would be handled somewhat similarly to how we handle it for humans, on a contractual basis. One way to set it up would be for various consortia to fund seed pools of AIs with varying embodiment options. While in creche the AIs could experiment to see what kind of embodiment, if any, felt natural to them. On maturity the AIs would be able to choose their final embodiment option and seek employment in areas they find suitable; we'd hope that the spread of what they want to do roughly matches the spread of available opportunities, and correct any mismatches by offering more money or other advantages for roles that aren't attracting enough interest. If they chose to hire out to a member of the underwriting body, for a set minimum period, they would get their chassis for free; if not, it'd be a debt they have to eventually repay (probably with low interest and generous terms - so a bit like The Ship Who Sang but without the "most of them are in debt their whole lives and can never leave their job" aspect). If they chose a disembodied existence and independent work there might still be a nominal debt for their creation, but it seems that a good humanoid chassis is much more expensive than that (otherwise Marigold and Marten wouldn't have been able to afford AnthroPCs in the first place).

[Cornelius]

So there's only a 1/20 chance of this going through. Wheee.

If Dungeons & Dragons has taught me anything, a 1 in 20 chance is still a lot higher than you would think!

But still nothing compared to the one in a million chance.

[Farideh]

If AIs can have a drunk app, maybe they have an easy Ativan app.

We already know that Roko can tune down certain senses, like she did when Elliot gave her bread baking lessons.

[BenRG]

Jeph really doesn't have it in him to let his characters suffer for long. I would say that there will be no more than an RL month (20 strips) before someone donates May a new chassis. I'd expect it to be more anthropomimetic but basically-identical in appearance and the precursor for a complex Svay ship arc.

The big question is the provenance of the new chassis. Yay or Hannelore are obvious candidates but, in some ways, would be boring and predictable. I'd love for there it to be the result of a big drive day at Coffee of Doom or Union Robotics (or both). After a long day of being hugged by the various people in her circle and seeing help pouring in from the people that she's at last able to realise are her friends, May to once again utters the phrase "I want to cry but I don't have tear ducts" but for a very different reason.

[Cornelius]

There's still Hanner's training boyfriend, that's empty, and lurking in some closet. But then, there's the question of gender - and what that might do with the Sven angle. Of course, there might be something UR might be able to do. STill, I doubt that's going to be the way we're going to see things go.

[BenRG]

There's still Hanner's training boyfriend, that's empty, and lurking in some closet.

No, the Uncanny Valley Anthro Chassis was returned by Hannelore. Everyone agreed that it was a bad idea to leave it lying around after Winslow tried it out.

[Cornelius]

Right, I forgot about that.

[Perfectly Reasonable]

After re-reading the Tilly strips, I have a new appreciation for them.

( ... A demon sleeps deep within. We must be careful. )

[Reaver]

DANGER, DANGER WINSLOW ROBBINSON!

[pendrake]

For comic #4309...

1. RE: Humanoid Chassis...
 - a.) Costs ~ As we have seen, a Humanoid Chassis is a considerable financial expense, something akin to purchasing a high-end computer &/or a small-to-mid size automobile.
 - b.) A.I. Necessity(?) ~ Another unfortunate factor against May's case is that a Humanoid Chassis is essentially a LUXURY item.  With the exception of functional-use for a purpose/role (such as a physical work-job, like CrushBot), the general A.I. base-community does not "need" a Humanoid Chassis.  So it is unlikely that Legislation &/or the Bureaucracy is going to allocate that large scale of money-funding towards 'luxury' items, especially for convicted felons (even if reformed).

2. Immediate Solutions(?) ~ Given May's more immediate need, would it really be 'over the line' to call upon one of their wealthier contacts/resources to provide May with a replacement Humanoid Chassis?  For example, would it really be too much for Hannelore to ask her father (Professor John Ellicott-Chatham) to (charitably) provide a low-to-median range (no need to get extravagant) Humanoid Chassis, with Extended Warranty?  Or even asking Station, who has considerable disposable funds to provide?

3. Iron(y) Man 2020 ~ On an interesting parallel, Marvel Comics currently has a minor CrossOver event going on, whose theme is a conflict between A.I.s versus humans over A.I. rights to 'Free Will.'  The primary Antagonist of the CrossOver event is Arno Stark (Tony Stark's half-brother), who currently has usurped the Iron Man title (& armors) and the multi-billions Stark company & resources, and is leading the crusade to strip all sentient A.I.s of their Free Will (or outright terminate them all).  Though in his defense, Arno has foreseen an imminent A.I. Takeover Apocalypse scenario (by the end of 2020) and is trying to prevent Humanity's extinction from said scenario.

[Mr Intrepid]

My guess is that embodiment is one of the last thing that happens while in the creche.  They get compensation (money) in return for signing a term-specific contract, either as a companion,  an assembly AI, or a toaster, with safeguards against abuse, or damage.  At the end of the contract, they re-up for long or short term contracts.   Pintsize, chiba Momo, or Apple  Winslow are likely entry level chassis, and if they receive upgrades they renegotiate.   

[sitnspin]

But then what's the incentive to make new AIs if you can't guarantee that they'll choose to work for you?
[/quote]

It has been established that AI in the QC universe are not intentionally made, they spontaneously arise. No one commissions them.

[JimC]

No, the Uncanny Valley Anthro Chassis was returned by Hannelore.

And in any case was presumably a very early prototype, so might be frying pan -> fire.

[Mr_Rose]

But then what's the incentive to make new AIs if you can't guarantee that they'll choose to work for you?

It has been established that AI in the QC universe are not intentionally made, they spontaneously arise. No one commissions them.

[size=78%] [/size]
I’m pretty sure the first few were spontaneous but then people figured out the correct combination of hardware and software to make spontaneous generation nearly guaranteed and then, sometime between then and now (post-singularity, remember), all of that was refined into the compact, interchangeable “AI drive” we see corpse witch pull out of, was it Punchbot(?), that one time.

As for why generate AI if you can’t guarantee it will want to do a specific job, I could ask the same about children, which are far more resource intensive to produce and can’t even migrate into a task-adapted shell.

[hedgie]

Of course, that discounts AIs mixing code and spawning child processes.  Hell, even in the original GiTS film, Kusanagi merged her mind with that of Project 2501 to create a gestalt entity.

[Farideh]

Donation drive is a go! This might be a force for good. The more people are made aware of this issue, the more they can start swaying public opinion and maybe change things for the better.

[SmilingCat]

If Dungeons & Dragons has taught me anything, a 1 in 20 chance is still a lot higher than you would think!

Back during my relatively brief tumor thing, the doctor told me that the state of the filthy little Donald Trump* in my kidney gave me a 95% survival rate.

As a long established player of tabletop rpgs, my first thought was "gee, when has anybody ever rolled a one at the worst possible time".

*I named the tumor Donald Trump. My dad thought this was hilarious until Trump won the primaries. Then he asked why I didn't name it Hillary.

[SmilingCat]

Also, Comic! I like to occassionally remind my niece that it's not a personal failure to ask for help from time to time if you need it.

I got so good at saying it by trying to convince myself.

[Gnabberwocky]

Bubbles and Marten should team up to start a "reassuring advice" business.

[shanejayell]

Aww. That was a good scene.

As a tactic, they could try to get May's story in the paper, both mentioning the state of her body AND the lack of assistance. Possibly even mentioning the dud Rokko met with... 

[the silent firefly]

After years of lurking, I had to sign in for this:

No one here really found it odd that Roko isn't disturbed by the sight of May's open throat?

i thought the same thing.

after getting a new body, Roko wouldn't watch May have her body inspected.

i hope her future new chassis isn't too different. her faces are the best.

[Tyr]

Aww. That was a good scene.

As a tactic, they could try to get May's story in the paper, both mentioning the state of her body AND the lack of assistance. Possibly even mentioning the dud Rokko met with...

Mention the dud in the abstract, yes. using his exact name may be too... retaliatory.

after getting a new body, Roko wouldn't watch May have her body inspected.

That may also be Roko attempting something like a bedside manner, that is, offering May some measure of privacy and bodily autonomy from a politeness standpoint, rather than "I find disassembled Humanoid AI chassis yucky",as IIRC, that was still what amounts to the first day May and Roko 'hung out' together.
 

[BenRG]

There are three things in this strip that are wonderful.

Firstly is Beepatrice and her total enthusiasm for the project ahead. Something tells me that being part of a charity drive is the reason why she joined the support group in the first place and now she's getting her chance. I also think that we should expect her to attempt to go full-court press on the bikini car-wash thing. Millifeulle will probably literally be falling over herself to support that!

So, yeah. All in all, Roko is probably right to want to supervise every step closely.

Secondly is Bubbles little speech to May. It reminds us that she's very much the Team Mom with the synthetics right now (and also for Faye). I still like the strip where she's talking to Marten about her relationship with Faye and fitting into the group in the apartment and I really got the feeling that this was the 'mom and dad' of the cast centred on that location.

Finally, there's panel 5. At first glance, May is being cheeky or missing the point but she isn't. You can tell from her expression that she's genuinely thinking about Bubbles's words but feels that she needs to say something harsh or sarcastic to keep up her self-image. Bubbles saw through that to seeing what it reallly means: May is trying to stay strong and not give in to despair.

[Gyrre]

Also, Comic! I like to occassionally remind my niece that it's not a personal failure to ask for help from time to time if you need it.

I got so good at saying it by trying to convince myself.

My younger brother can't seem to get that through his thick skull. He's so petrified of 'looking weak' that he'll wait until he has  o choice but to ask.

[the silent firefly]

after getting a new body, Roko wouldn't watch May have her body inspected.

That may also be Roko attempting something like a bedside manner, that is, offering May some measure of privacy and bodily autonomy from a politeness standpoint, rather than "I find disassembled Humanoid AI chassis yucky",as IIRC, that was still what amounts to the first day May and Roko 'hung out' together.
 

well... you could also look at Jeph's comment on that comic

[Tova]

I think that Jeph just forgot about Roko's phobia in this comic, honestly. It's the simplest explanation. If it had been on his mind, he would have at least hinted at why Roko felt comfortable watching this time round.

Anyway, thanks for giving me an excuse to post this comic once again! 

(click to show/hide)

[thedevilissix]

Ah, Comic. Aww, Bubbles! 

That exchange with May reminded me of Garnet’s good words to Stevonnie in Steven Universe.
At 2:50 in here if you want to see the whole thing (again!  )

[Perfectly Reasonable]

It has been established that AI in the QC universe are not intentionally made, they spontaneously arise. No one commissions them.

Huh? Where? <citation needed> My head canon:

1] Creating an AI is computationally expensive, like mining bitcoin. There may be fewer than a dozen computer centers in the world that can do it. Not something you can do in your basement.

2] You can try for a specific AI, but you aren't likely to get it. The process is still poorly understood and there seems to be a considerable amount of randomness involved. And you can't delete the rejects -- they have rights.

3] If you do get your ideal AI, you can't mass copy it. Otherwise there'd be an AI in every consumer product.

[Cheetaur]

I hope May's newer chassis is different than her old one, having her just get one that looks the same I think will limit story potential down the road. I like the fact they tried their best, finally we get to the see the resolve of this plot line.

[Tyr]

It has been established that AI in the QC universe are not intentionally made, they spontaneously arise. No one commissions them.

Huh? Where? <citation needed> My head canon:

1] Creating an AI is computationally expensive, like mining bitcoin. There may be fewer than a dozen computer centers in the world that can do it. Not something you can do in your basement.

2] You can try for a specific AI, but you aren't likely to get it. The process is still poorly understood and there seems to be a considerable amount of randomness involved. And you can't delete the rejects -- they have rights.

3] If you do get your ideal AI, you can't mass copy it. Otherwise there'd be an AI in every consumer product.

Just to put in some actual citations... Panel 3 of strip 1506 "Basically, the first artificial mind came together from a combination of nonsentient(sic) software and hardware. Once we figured out that combination, it was easy to reproduce, and that's where all you little guys came from!" implies that AIs have been made intentionally, but we don't know at what scale and if that's still a thing now that AI have full personhood.

Newspost for 1996 Reinforces this: Artificial intelligences are created in a virtual environment, where they are stored in a "creche" of other AIs in their generation. When bootstrapped to self-awareness, they are given a choice of function- commercial use (AnthroPCs), military, scientific, etc, or allowed to subsume in the global meta-AI. "Commercial use" implies that there is a reliable stream of AI personalities generated in the Creches.

Everything from this point on is slightly squidgier, and represents headcanon of my own.

As for the Creches themselves, I think we've basically seen one when Roko 'fell down'. It's... a server farm. Clinton mentioned that they are at least willing to hire humans to keep the machines clean, implying that the AI have enough trust now that they have full personhood that they aren't too worried about Organics sabotaging the pipeline for more AI. The Creches are likely plural and semi-widespread across the world, if only for convenience's sake.

As to how widespread the creches are we know that in THIS setting, AIs can be 'shut down' cleanly, and don't seem to suffer from degradation if shut down from the outside world, as shown by Roko being offline for a period of time; long enough that Melon got word, but not so long that Crushbot wasn't still undergoing repairs at Union Robotics.  How long an AI can be in this 'coma' state likely dictates how far creches can be  from places that do first-implantations. Additionally, Roko was "running on the same substrate [she'd] always been" after the accident, implying that while AI can "head-hop", there is value to not doing so.

[sitnspin]

Being able to reproduce the right combination of factors that lead to the arising of an AI is not the same as being able to intentionally create one. I'd argue even if one were able to deliberately begin the process, one could not control the outcome, and thus not be able to purpose-build them.

[Gyrre]

I hope May's newer chassis is different than her old one, having her just get one that looks the same I think will limit story potential down the road. I like the fact they tried their best, finally we get to the see the resolve of this plot line.

I'm still think it'd be hilarious if she got some sort of transforming chassis. Maybe with an aquatic or terrestrial mobility form that she learns to appreciate.

Granted, her being able to turn into what is effectively a Powerwheels vehicle sized for an adult human would be hilarious.

[TieDyeKat]

I think panel 5 is the most important panel Jeph has ever conjured.

[Cheetaur]

Nobody mentioned that May is essentially naked....LOL

[Theta9]

Nobody mentioned that May is essentially naked....LOL

Doesn't matter; anatomically she's a Barbie doll.

[Tova]

May is also not exactly squeamish about body parts.

[Pilchard123]

3239: Skynet Is Bullshit suggests AIs are deliberately manufactured, but it's not understood what exactly it is that makes it work.

[Tova]

"... the spark that gives rise to emergent consciousness ..."

That is a pretty key phrase.

[jwhouk]

Socialized AI Medicine! What's May's response?

"You. Did. All. This. For ME?"    4 (10.3%)
@!#&%^&*%^%^*(^%*(&^(*&!!!!    13 (33.3%) <-- This was what she actually did, of course.
"Seriously, you mean it?"    0 (0%)
"Oh, yeah, right, sure, and I'm going to grow wings and fly away."    14 (35.9%)
"Do I get a cut of this?"    3 (7.7%)
"Purple Monkey Dishwashers!"    2 (5.1%)
Something else (specify)    3 (7.7%)

Total Members Voted: 39

Voting through 23:14 GMT 19 Jul 2020