Questionable Content 12: Artificial Unintelligence

[SaintRidley]

You never enjoyed anything?

Not much to say about today.. Weird, a little bit funny, but mostly random.
I'm slightly curious what melons shirt refers to but if I search for it I probably better do it later...

Let's just say that if you find what I'm thinking of you're going to find it the most charmingly weird porno ever, or you'll be absolutely disgusted.

[eee]

Strange robot girl shows up in your home and joins you in eating cereal with no explaination. Steve's cool with that.

But he, a former - maybe - spy, doesn't know there's a tunnel in his basement?

[Kato]

Let's just say that if you find what I'm thinking of you're going to find it the most charmingly weird porno ever, or you'll be absolutely disgusted.

I.. Wasn't exactly asking you but now I'm curious.

Also, in Steve's defense.. I haven't been in my basement for months. I never use it for anything except to store stuff I don't need.

[Ibrinar]

The bonus comics are a bit weird.^^ But I guess they can't advance the plot and must be mainly self contained.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ever ridden in a roller coaster and enjoyed it?

It was OK, certainly not a "rush" or a "thrill".

You never enjoyed anything?

There's more to the purported "endorphin rush" than simply enjoying things.

And based on some reading I've been doing since yesterday on this subject regarding the "runner's high" and related experiences, it's probably not endorphins at all, since the elevated levels are found in the blood, and don't appear to cross the blood-brain barrier.

E: either way, it was just a side-comment, no need to derail the thread over it.

[SaintRidley]

I.. Wasn't exactly asking you but now I'm curious.

Search the shirt's text, add porn to your search, first link, second video (first video is a 5 second clip from the second).

[Wraith]

Strange robot girl shows up in your home and joins you in eating cereal with no explanation. Steve's cool with that.

Ah, but she isn't! Note the very small detail: AI's can't eat food, they have no digestive tract. As such, Melon has an empty bowl and a clean spoon, then she pretends to pour from the box, and has an empty bowl again as she pretends to eat breakfast.

She broke into his house to specifically NOT eat breakfast. I thought that was a lovely little reference.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ah, but she isn't! Note the very small detail: AI's can't eat food, they have no digestive tract. As such, Melon has an empty bowl and a clean spoon, then she pretends to pour from the box, and has an empty bowl again as she pretends to eat breakfast.

She broke into his house to specifically NOT eat breakfast. I thought that was a lovely little reference.

Is she numming the box in the last panel?

[Mith]

ass.golf is a url for Questionable content that Jeph uses on Twitter.

[Fawkes]

On the subject of endorphins

Spoiler

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[Vinyadan]

Today's comic made me think again about Claire's answer, and I have to say that it was exceptionally weird. The problem with Pintsize's behaviour wasn't that he has a kink, it's that he was actively imposing this kink on another person.

[John Cribati]

Huh. Turns out that Pintsize was actually quite upfront about the toast thing...

[VoxRationis]

Yeah, I think the author caught on to criticism in this forum or the one on his own site. There have been several (I might even say 'many') instances through the comic where he exhibits a change of apparent opinion on a matter between subsequent comics; I suspect that these moments are in response to criticism found in certain segments of the internet.

[Kato]

Hm... A quick look at the (official) forum doesn't seem like there was serious criticism. Maybe he had planned this from the beginning.. or maybe it is a reaction to something. Either way, it softens my opinion. It's still stupid and rude of Pintsize to do this in public and on the first date but... He was honest about it.
And if Jeph reconsidered his opinion after reading others.. Good for him. That's the way you should act if you realize you made a mistake.

[Vinyadan]

Eh... unless we are to imagine that Claire and Faye have different info available, it's still a very odd approach by Claire. It looks like Claire doesn't give squat about Roko and finds the whole episode to be just something to crack jokes about. Or maybe it's "Poor Robocop! But I'll still be supportive of my friend and his behaviour, which made her evening miserable". Which is a philosophy I don't get: I'm sorry for your victim, but I'm supportive of you creating one?

I mean, I think that there is a disconnect between panel 1 and the last panel. That, or Claire is sorry about Roko's worst date, but not about her second-to-worst one.

Actually, what is weird is that this is a bonus strip, if I understand correctly. Claire has received almost no characterization until now. Finally portraying an important aspect of the world view of a character in a bonus comic that may or may not be canon is odd.

I don't think that Jeph actually has changed his mind about the views his characters had during a then-current storyline. If I think of the "Check yo privilege, Winslow!" storyline, we have different characters expressing different aspects of a common view. The foreseeable reprimand/explanation to Bluebot was needed, because, otherwise, it would have looked like the world was bending over backwards to justify Bluebot in her excessively expressed statements. But the point of the little morality tale, of course, was that people who are not disadvantaged should be mindful of the sensibilities of the disadvantaged, and also work to improve their condition. May being a robowan_ was just a dramatic way to introduce the concept, and May had to do the delivery because #1 she doesn't care about other people's sensibilities when getting a point across, and #2 she is the only disadvantaged character in the comic.

But he has occasionally adapted to new info, like that pigeons don't taste chili. Which was expressed as Winslow informing May after (presumably) an off-panel google search.

[Max_Killjoy]

Claire can't help cracking puns, that's an aspect of the character that's been long established. She doesn't mean anything by it at all.

The character who should be insulted by this strip is Roko, as Jeph has now asserted that she's stupid or desperate enough that she didn't immediately move on from Pintsize's pathetic profile -- between the name and the toast thing and the image, it's the sort of thing a goofbot like Melon should fall for.

[Keltest]

I choose to believe that it was a system glitch where Roko was originally set up with somebody... not Pintsize, but then it freaked out for whatever reason and told Pintsize about the date instead of her match.

[Vinyadan]

Spoiler

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[Spojaz]

When a comic has been going on as long as this one has, there gets to be combinations of jokes that seem really weird together. This is one of those times.

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=979

The recent toaster joke is a lot more disturbing now huh?

[Cizak]

Claire has received almost no characterization until now.

??

She's a bit of a dork. She gets easily flustered when in love. She loves books to the point of casually reading a few while re-arraging bookshelves. She values professionalism highly and tries to live up to that as a librarian. She adores puns and cracks them pretty much whenever. She's open minded when it comes to other people's sex lives and likes to make that known. Sometimes she recites books she's read instead of coming from a more personal angle. One of her biggest flaws is always trying to nudge people in the direction she feels would be the best for them without pausing to consider whether or not she's actually helping or just meddling. She's trans, and while I probably wouldn't count that as character aspect by itself, it is an [gender] identity marker that influence other things such as her expressed views on bodily autonomy and self image.

Sure, Jeff's characterization are often incredibly slow burning and built up over a long period of time, and sometimes he simply throws a new character at the wall to see if they stick and puts them on a bus if they don't. That's the way he works. But to say that any long running character has recieved almost no characterization seems just plain false.

[Vinyadan]

Compare that to Martin, Faye, and Dora. They have a place they come from, a situation in which they are now, and a direction towards which they are moving (although Marten objectively may have lost this last trait). This is what makes a character.

In other words, a character isn't just a collection of random facts. It is an entity in movement. I don't see this in Claire.

Claire isn't the weakest character, of course. Raven and Emily are much worse, since their role is just being unrealistically odd/borderline insane. Clinton and Claire are more or less at each other's level, although Clinton is a bit weaker.

One of her biggest flaws is always trying to nudge people in the direction she feels would be the best for them without pausing to consider whether or not she's actually helping or just meddling.

Of all the details you mentioned, this is the only one that I consider characterization, because it's the only one that, in this comic, could bring to action/objectives/conflicts/growth/change.

[Lethologica]

I think it would be more accurate to say that Claire's doesn't have much of a character arc. Her character isn't going anywhere because it hasn't been challenged by the story. But it's definitely there.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I feel like Roko might not be telling us anything...

[Keltest]

Somehow, I managed to leave with more questions than when I started.

[Kato]

Just to throw in my two cents.. I also don't see much truth in the complaint about Claire. She may not be the most fleshed out but she has plenty of character.

Why yesterday made me softer on Pintsize was... Well, he was honest. Roko could have known what she got into, assuming he was as honest on the rest of his profile. He still acted odd but not quite as offensive as I thought.

I liked today. Really nice, even if not laughing out loud funny.

[Wraith]

I kind of liked today's comic, because in context with the date it tells us one of two very important things about Roko.

One is that she is so very deeply integrated with her platform that she feels acute loneliness; for an AI constantly in IM range of every other AI on the planet and beyond, that suggests something about her that we haven't see in Pintsize, Winslow, Momo, May or Bubbles (though the latter may or may not be coming around to the idea). So lonely in fact that after having one date catastrophically crashed by a rhino, she still felt inclined to try again with Pintsize. She's possibly the most 'human' AI that we've so far seen, and that's intriguing.

Alternatively, she read a Tinder profile from someone who wanted to shoot bread products at her boobs and decide that she might actually be down for that. That's kind of interesting, right?

[Vinyadan]

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2908

[Dukkai]

??

She's a bit of a dork. She gets easily flustered when in love. She loves books to the point of casually reading a few while re-arraging bookshelves. She values professionalism highly and tries to live up to that as a librarian. She adores puns and cracks them pretty much whenever. She's open minded when it comes to other people's sex lives and likes to make that known. Sometimes she recites books she's read instead of coming from a more personal angle. One of her biggest flaws is always trying to nudge people in the direction she feels would be the best for them without pausing to consider whether or not she's actually helping or just meddling. She's trans, and while I probably wouldn't count that as character aspect by itself, it is an [gender] identity marker that influence other things such as her expressed views on bodily autonomy and self image.

Sure, Jeff's characterization are often incredibly slow burning and built up over a long period of time, and sometimes he simply throws a new character at the wall to see if they stick and puts them on a bus if they don't. That's the way he works. But to say that any long running character has recieved almost no characterization seems just plain false.

She did so little librarian stuff lately that I for one can't actually look at her as a librarian. Which brings me to the professionalism part: she has a nose ring and has her earlobes out of shape with plugs. That doesn't actually scream professionalism to me.

Alternatively, she read a Tinder profile from someone who wanted to shoot bread products at her boobs and decide that she might actually be down for that. That's kind of interesting, right?

I'm sure she thought that was either a joke or an innuendo.

[Morquard]

Why yesterday made me softer on Pintsize was... Well, he was honest. Roko could have known what she got into, assuming he was as honest on the rest of his profile. He still acted odd but not quite as offensive as I thought.

Well, I see it as an analogy to Human Tinder. Guy writes in there "I like you to suck my d*ck" and she's "Alright, I'm into blowjobs, no problem lets meet." She still wouldn't expect him to pull it out in the restaurant and try to put it in her mouth there, now would she?

[Kato]

She did so little librarian stuff lately that I for one can't actually look at her as a librarian. Which brings me to the professionalism part: she has a nose ring and has her earlobes out of shape with plugs. That doesn't actually scream professionalism to me.

It's been a while since we were in the library and when we were she seemed the most passionate about working there, as far as I can remember. Jeph not writing any more in the setting to me doesn't mean she doesn't like working there, to me at least. Yeah, there could be a reminder once in a while but I don't need it.
The other thing.. Well, that's your opinion I guess.

Well, I see it as an analogy to Human Tinder. Guy writes in there "I like you to suck my d*ck" and she's "Alright, I'm into blowjobs, no problem lets meet." She still wouldn't expect him to pull it out in the restaurant and try to put it in her mouth there, now would she?

I would not quite put it like that, more along the lines of "I like to listen to xxx at max volume". Yes, it's still inappropriate but not on the same level as I thought before.