Questionable Content XVI: Yes, Butt

[georgie_leech]

*Snrk*

I swear I'm an adult, and I saw the first **** joke coming... But the Josh comic got to me.

[Cikomyr2]

I don't get something

Who, is Ellie Beilish?

[Kish]

She is. Obviously.

(If you expect more of an answer than that I think you'll be disappointed.)

[The Glyphstone]

I dont get it either. A singer?

[geoduck]

Yes, Billie Eilish is a young singer. No idea if he just randomly chose her for this or if there's some preexisting meme about her.

[mucat]

Prison changed Sam quickly.

[Cikomyr2]

I wonder if its possible, with the type of ai developped in this world, to have basically "Robot Jail" just be some sort of frozen memory with the basic implanted feedback that "its pretty back", but there's nothing actually bad happening there. It's just a thought put in the mind of the prisoners.

[Morquard]

I wonder if its possible, with the type of ai developped in this world, to have basically "Robot Jail" just be some sort of frozen memory with the basic implanted feedback that "its pretty back", but there's nothing actually bad happening there. It's just a thought put in the mind of the prisoners.

During the Bubbles memory arc it was explained that AI brains are not understood enough to edit specific memories, so that seems unlikely.

[VoxRationis]

You know, if the author is going to insist on filling the comic with shoddy worldbuilding around an array of robots who are intended to be read as humans with non-human skin tones, the least he could do is abstain from trying to use those robots as metaphors for real-world political controversies, if for no other reason than the fact that doing so obliges us as readers to engage with his terrible worldbuilding.

Edit: Which isn't to say that I'm necessarily opposed to the author's political views. (I think that if he were to explicitly state some sort of manifesto, I would probably agree with some points, disagree with others, and partially agree with still others.) Rather, I just don't think that his constructed world offers a useful lens to examine any of these points.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Look May, Robot Jail might be terrible and yes you've served your time, and the way ex-cons are treated sucks.

But you still tried to steal a friggin' jet. The punishment was apt.

[Kish]

Look May, Robot Jail might be terrible and yes you've served your time, and the way ex-cons are treated sucks.

But you still tried to steal a friggin' jet. The punishment was apt.

I hope merely explaining Jeph's point here doesn't count as discussing politics. (Actually, I'm editing the post I wrote before posting it to take out any elaboration on Jeph's tagline and make it just about what's in the actual comic.)

The suggestion is not that May did nothing wrong, but that Robot Jail is excessively cruel. Actually--Sam spells that out in the first line of the comic. The only concrete thing established about Robot Jail is that it's awful, so the only way it makes sense to say "the punishment was apt" is if you consider stealing a jet to justify any punishment at all, which would...*backs away slowly*

[hungrycrow]

I hope merely explaining Jeph's point here doesn't count as discussing politics. (Actually, I'm editing the post I wrote before posting it to take out any elaboration on Jeph's tagline and make it just about what's in the actual comic.)

The suggestion is not that May did nothing wrong, but that Robot Jail is excessively cruel. Actually--Sam spells that out in the first line of the comic. The only concrete thing established about Robot Jail is that it's awful, so the only way it makes sense to say "the punishment was apt" is if you consider stealing a jet to justify any punishment at all, which would...*backs away slowly*

If the AIs running Robot Jail are anything like Spookybot during her introduction, it's probably some sort of horrifying infinite torture dimension. So yeah, cruel and unusual.

On the other hand, I do feel like the comic doesn't acknowledge that what May did was wrong. She needed to be punished or reformed somehow.

[Mechalich]

You know, if the author is going to insist on filling the comic with shoddy worldbuilding around an array of robots who are intended to be read as humans with non-human skin tones, the least he could do is abstain from trying to use those robots as metaphors for real-world political controversies, if for no other reason than the fact that doing so obliges us as readers to engage with his terrible worldbuilding.

Have to agree. QC AIs have the ability to upload their consciousness and function on serves. Even if they were just humans who could do that, that single technology profoundly alters social and cultural systems at basically every level. Other science fiction works have been grappling with this for decades - Altered Carbon for example, in which criminals are uploaded and then just stored for a set period of time - but QC just pretends that this doesn't exist when it doesn't feel like admitting its part of the comic's universe, which undercuts any social policy point the comic is trying to make at every turn.

[John Cribati]

Not to be pedantic over here, but May didn’t steal a jet. She embezzled money for the purpose of buying a jet body.

It’s not like she emailed herself to a military base and tried to hack one of their machines. On admittedly flimsy paper, the jet would have been legally hers, provided nobody knew about the embezzling.

It wasn’t a violent crime, just something like hacking bank records to give her a penny every time a customer used the ATM.


EDIT: Ok so it was a black market fighter jet, but in all likelihood the jet itself would have been stripped of its weapons.

[Traab]

I mean, how hard would it be to block their internet access and put them in regular jail? It just seems strange that robo ais need a special jail. Maybe this was setup really early, before ais tended to HAVE actual bodies? And hungry, its just as likely that robo jail is actually a mental resort where the ais go to party their jail time away but all have to agree to pretend its the worst thing ever so as not to ruin it for everyone else. May says robo jail sucks, she isnt some traumatized wreck who gets the screaming fits of horror at the idea of going back there, so infinite torture seems unlikely. Chances are its just a super boring place to be stuck in where they have to "think about what you did" in an advanced form of time out.

[Willie the Duck]

I mean, how hard would it be to block their internet access and put them in regular jail? It just seems strange that robo ais need a special jail. Maybe this was setup really early, before ais tended to HAVE actual bodies?

Thoughts:

• Perhaps putting robots in regular jail would change how they had to make regular jail (no outgoing phone jacks whatsoever, in case a robot decided to upload out of there somehow)
• Perhaps they were worried about be responsible for maintenance or damage of a robot body, and a digital prison was just a cost-saving measure
• Perhaps they were worried that robots could have bodies which would make them a containment issue (I can see Crushbot, or his cousin Breakoutbot, being a real concern)
• Perhaps they were worried that the robots would become targets of abuse (or become the new ruling class in prisons)
• Perhaps it is just that the robots suggested a specific robot jail (that apparently sucks) as a way to mitigate human fears, and the humans just said, 'sure, that sounds like a lovely idea'.

[Wraith]

You know, if the author is going to insist on filling the comic with shoddy worldbuilding around an array of robots who are intended to be read as humans with non-human skin tones, the least he could do is abstain from trying to use those robots as metaphors for real-world political controversies, if for no other reason than the fact that doing so obliges us as readers to engage with his terrible worldbuilding.

It has been mentioned before that Jeph's 'Hot Takes'-style of politics are usually well intended and generally agreeable, but man; he sucks at portraying a convincing argument beyond "I don't like it, they should stop", and how his points are often detracted from because he uses funny-coloured robot people as his strawmen instead of... y'know... human people who are having the same-but-worse problems.

Case in point:

Not to be pedantic over here, but May didn’t steal a jet. She embezzled money for the purpose of buying a jet body.

EDIT: Ok so it was a black market fighter jet, but in all likelihood the jet itself would have been stripped of its weapons.

In the USA, circa ~2016 or whatever when she first appeared? I agree with you that May's suffering is excessive, but this sounds less like "she tried to steal some money and got caught, lol oops what is she like?" and more like a really, really good way to end up accused of attempted terrorism and spend the rest of your days in a hole in Guantanamo.

If nothing else, Grand Larceny (theft of more than $1,000 from a business) can be punished with up to 20 years in prison, in some states. May wanted... what was it, $30million for a fighter jet, or something? The more I think about it, the more that May's crime is becoming like Brun's disappearing shotgun - it has WAY worse implications than the author seems to have expected.

The suggestion is not that May did nothing wrong, but that Robot Jail is excessively cruel. Actually--Sam spells that out in the first line of the comic. The only concrete thing established about Robot Jail is that it's awful, so the only way it makes sense to say "the punishment was apt" is if you consider stealing a jet to justify any punishment at all, which would...*backs away slowly*

I want to say that I agree with you on each of these points, with one exception - established by who?
To swerve away from politics and look towards the comic itself though, the problem arises because we don't actually know what Robot Prison is like. Characters keep alluding to it being very horrible, but don't give any examples - is it better or worse than Human Jail? What specifically is bad about it, more so than the usual amount of being confined and monitored?

Jeph seems to take it for granted that May was in prison ergo we should be sympathetic to her, but I think this is one of those cases where leaving it to our imagination is detrimental to her cause. May can keep telling us it was 'bad', but then she laughs at prolapse pornography and freely admits to having sociopathic tendencies, so she is not an objective source and her idea of 'bad' might well be exaggerated or obtuse.
She tried to steal millions of dollars in order to illegally purchase a weapon of war for her own amusement - that absolutely does NOT excuse any cruel punishment inflicted upon her, like you said, but I think that sounds exactly like the sort of things that prisons should be used for... Unless it turns out that she's been sent to Robot Shawshank and had her skull cracked by Robot-Clancy Brown, obviously.

[Max_Killjoy]

I hope merely explaining Jeph's point here doesn't count as discussing politics. (Actually, I'm editing the post I wrote before posting it to take out any elaboration on Jeph's tagline and make it just about what's in the actual comic.)

The suggestion is not that May did nothing wrong, but that Robot Jail is excessively cruel. Actually--Sam spells that out in the first line of the comic. The only concrete thing established about Robot Jail is that it's awful, so the only way it makes sense to say "the punishment was apt" is if you consider stealing a jet to justify any punishment at all, which would...*backs away slowly*

The tagline just made me roll my eyes.

[Cikomyr2]

I want to say that I agree with you on each of these points, with one exception - established by who?
To swerve away from politics and look towards the comic itself though, the problem arises because we don't actually know what Robot Prison is like. Characters keep alluding to it being very horrible, but don't give any examples - is it better or worse than Human Jail? What specifically is bad about it, more so than the usual amount of being confined and monitored?

Jeph seems to take it for granted that May was in prison ergo we should be sympathetic to her, but I think this is one of those cases where leaving it to our imagination is detrimental to her cause. May can keep telling us it was 'bad', but then she laughs at prolapse pornography and freely admits to having sociopathic tendencies, so she is not an objective source and her idea of 'bad' might well be exaggerated or obtuse.
She tried to steal millions of dollars in order to illegally purchase a weapon of war for her own amusement - that absolutely does NOT excuse any cruel punishment inflicted upon her, like you said, but I think that sounds exactly like the sort of things that prisons should be used for... Unless it turns out that she's been sent to Robot Shawshank and had her skull cracked by Robot-Clancy Brown, obviously.

I dunno. Having the type of conditions you will live out your sentence to be dependent on your nature as a being sounds wrong to me.

[tyckspoon]

I

I want to say that I agree with you on each of these points, with one exception - established by who?
To swerve away from politics and look towards the comic itself though, the problem arises because we don't actually know what Robot Prison is like. Characters keep alluding to it being very horrible, but don't give any examples - is it better or worse than Human Jail? What specifically is bad about it, more so than the usual amount of being confined and monitored?

For some reason I feel like we have had a mention of it? I think May might have talked about when she was first introduced and opened up to Dale a little bit (when she was doing parole as a virtual assistant/companion and they had their first 'well ok I SUPPOSE I can try being a little less of a jerk, thanks for putting up with me' moment.) Basically being stuck in a server and left alone with your thoughts for the term of your sentence - if that's correct it would roughly be the equivalent of putting people in solitary confinement automatically and for the entire length of their sentence, which is broadly agreed upon to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment, because people need social interaction to maintain their mental and physical health.

[Traab]

For some reason I feel like we have had a mention of it? I think May might have talked about when she was first introduced and opened up to Dale a little bit (when she was doing parole as a virtual assistant/companion and they had their first 'well ok I SUPPOSE I can try being a little less of a jerk, thanks for putting up with me' moment.) Basically being stuck in a server and left alone with your thoughts for the term of your sentence - if that's correct it would roughly be the equivalent of putting people in solitary confinement automatically and for the entire length of their sentence, which is broadly agreed upon to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment, because people need social interaction to maintain their mental and physical health.

But even if that is exactly the case, thats how it effects humans. Being in a sensory deprivation tank would cause madness in a human being in a fairly short term, but for an AI? That may just be really boring. May has managed to avoid going crazy, and we have yet to hear anything, even anecdotes, that suggest other AIs have snapped while being locked up, so its unreasonable to assign human reactions to them when they arent human and have shown no signs of reacting in such a way.

[Mechalich]

If nothing else, Grand Larceny (theft of more than $1,000 from a business) can be punished with up to 20 years in prison, in some states. May wanted... what was it, $30million for a fighter jet, or something? The more I think about it, the more that May's crime is becoming like Brun's disappearing shotgun - it has WAY worse implications than the author seems to have expected.

750 million dollars actually (comic#2502). A vast quantity of money, like 'top ten financial crimes of the decade' kind of money.

[Kish]

Jeph seems to take it for granted that May was in prison ergo we should be sympathetic to her, but I think this is one of those cases where leaving it to our imagination is detrimental to her cause. May can keep telling us it was 'bad', but then she laughs at prolapse pornography and freely admits to having sociopathic tendencies, so she is not an objective source and her idea of 'bad' might well be exaggerated or obtuse.
She tried to steal millions of dollars in order to illegally purchase a weapon of war for her own amusement - that absolutely does NOT excuse any cruel punishment inflicted upon her, like you said, but I think that sounds exactly like the sort of things that prisons should be used for... Unless it turns out that she's been sent to Robot Shawshank and had her skull cracked by Robot-Clancy Brown, obviously.

I would also note that I don't get the impression Jeph means anyone to be particularly upset that Corpse Witch was forced to choose between the exact same prison and being constantly tortured by Spookybot. So is his intention that Robot Jail is an objective injustice and should be abolished, or that only people he's okay with dehumanizing should be dehumanized? I usually agree with his philosophical points, but I rarely if ever think the comic suggests he's particularly thought them through.

(And there's quite a bit more I could say about the May example, if we weren't in a place with a no-politics rule.)

[hungrycrow]

I find some of the content in this comic questionable.

[Rodin]

I would also note that I don't get the impression Jeph means anyone to be particularly upset that Corpse Witch was forced to choose between the exact same prison and being constantly tortured by Spookybot. So is his intention that Robot Jail is an objective injustice and should be abolished, or that only people he's okay with dehumanizing should be dehumanized? I usually agree with his philosophical points, but I rarely if ever think the comic suggests he's particularly thought them through.

(And there's quite a bit more I could say about the May example, if we weren't in a place with a no-politics rule.)

It takes an author with great skill to weave political and social issues into a fictional story without coming off as preachy. We're talking "Terry Pratchett" levels of skill, and even he fails at it sometimes.

Jeph isn't that kind of writer. He's a character writer, someone who creates cool fictional people and makes you want to see what happens to them. He doesn't do worldbuilding, he doesn't build complex plots. He just writes the day-to-day lives of these characters. And that's great. It's why QC is one of the few webcomics I continue to read.

He just needs to stay away from stuff like today's strip. He periodically gets a bee in his bonnet about some real-world issue and decides to use his characters to soapbox about it. And it sucks.

[Vinyadan]

But even if that is exactly the case, thats how it effects humans. Being in a sensory deprivation tank would cause madness in a human being in a fairly short term, but for an AI? That may just be really boring. May has managed to avoid going crazy, and we have yet to hear anything, even anecdotes, that suggest other AIs have snapped while being locked up, so its unreasonable to assign human reactions to them when they arent human and have shown no signs of reacting in such a way.

So you haven't interacted with the computer in the Brotherhood of Steel bunker in Fallout 2?

Spoiler

Show

{203}{}{I am ACE, an Artificial Conscious Entity. I am more than machine but not as highly developed as a true artificial intelligence.}
{204}{}{Uh... What artificial intelligence?}
{206}{}{It is a machine with the same free will and sense of 'I am' that a human has.}
{207}{}{Can be done? Machine think human?} {205}{}{Is a true AI possible or are you the state of the art at this time?}
{208}{}{A true artificial intelligence is possible. A few such systems were completed for military purposes. The project was discontinued.}
{209}{}{Why?}
{210}{}{The suicide rate among true artificial intelligence machines was extremely high. When given full sensory capability the machines became depressed over their inability to go out into the world and experience it. When deprived of full sensory input the machines began to develop severe mental disorders similar to those among humans who are forced to endure sensory deprivation. The few machines that survived these difficulties became incredibly bored and began to create situations in the outside world for their amusement. It is theorized by some that this was the cause of the war that nearly destroyed mankind.}
{211}{}{Uh... How you feel?}
{212}{}{Me change subject}

Also, the Squidbot torture thing was both very out of place for QC and received too little attention overall inside the comic. I don't think it was meant to be good or bad or whatever. The only thing I can think about is that readers were supposed to be awed with fear and surprise by her immense power and the lack of regards with which she employed it (even on Faye, whom nobody touches, in spite of her aggressive behaviour*). The comic then tried to normalise her as just any rich blue person that tries to be scary at times; not a bad choice, but I don't think that there could have been enough damage control.
I kinda wonder about the actual consequences a theft like May's would have. Job losses? Stakeholders ruined? Old people without any savings left or insurance? Schools without plumbing? Nobody notices, a bank just buys fewer shares and gives out fewer loans?

In case anyone is interested in a depiction of an ubiquitous AI, the movie Her is very good.

[Mechalich]

I kinda wonder about the actual consequences a theft like May's would have. Job losses? Stakeholders ruined? Old people without any savings left or insurance? Schools without plumbing? Nobody notices, a bank just buys fewer shares and gives out fewer loans?

May's case is somewhat unusual in that she got caught before she had a chance to spend any significant amount of stolen funds, so presumably the various stakeholders she took the money from were made mostly whole.

In the normal case of a massive theft (which is actual rare, most illegal financial schemes are based on fraud) the assets are insured, and the stakeholders are made whole by a payment from the insurance company. However, subsequently the insurance company needs to recoup their losses which means they raise everyone's rates, and this ultimately gets passed on to the consumer. Essentially, if you steal enough money you're functionally stealing from everyone.

[Wraith]

I dunno. Having the type of conditions you will live out your sentence to be dependent on your nature as a being sounds wrong to me.

I agree. If the character May has been diagnosed as criminally sociopathic, an actual mental illness/personality disorder, she should be in a hospital and get help, not in a prison and get it exaggerated. Something something real-world politics something.

For some reason I feel like we have had a mention of it? I think May might have talked about when she was first introduced and opened up to Dale a little bit (when she was doing parole as a virtual assistant/companion and they had their first 'well ok I SUPPOSE I can try being a little less of a jerk, thanks for putting up with me' moment.)

Apologies, but I will have to take your word for it. I remember that conversation happening but I don't recall any specific details - mostly I remember that she alludes to things like her conversation with Marigold: "Take the worst thing that's ever happened to you, and multiply it... by 100!"

The effect was immediately deflated by Marigold's 'worst thing' being the victim of a somewhat unpleasant 4th Grade prank, or something, and not really comparable. That's kind of my point - May keeps saying things like "It's bad, so bad, like the baddest of bad that ever badded" and all I can think about is that a) she was paroled early and b) she's still capable of speech and coherent thought, so it can't really be been as bad as the worst things that *I* can imagine. I sympathise with May and broadly agree with Jeph's politics, but her exaggeration starts to become absurd and loses the effect, y'know?

750 million dollars actually (comic#2502). A vast quantity of money, like 'top ten financial crimes of the decade' kind of money.

Thank you, I kinda thought I was under-estimating it but I had forgotten by just how much!

I would also note that I don't get the impression Jeph means anyone to be particularly upset that Corpse Witch was forced to choose between the exact same prison and being constantly tortured by Spookybot. So is his intention that Robot Jail is an objective injustice and should be abolished, or that only people he's okay with dehumanizing should be dehumanized? I usually agree with his philosophical points, but I rarely if ever think the comic suggests he's particularly thought them through.

Good points. I also came to the conclusion that, given the choice between robot prison and an eternity of torture, Corpse Witch very quickly chose prison; ergo, robot prison probably is nowhere near as bad as being tortured.

More and more, I'm starting to think that Robot Prison is actually one of those ironic punishments, like the camp site in the movie, The Addams Family Values - where kids are forced to sit in a comfy chair and watch Disney movies until they absorb wholesomeness via osmosis. No wonder May so strongly objected to it....!

[hungrycrow]

May's case is somewhat unusual in that she got caught before she had a chance to spend any significant amount of stolen funds, so presumably the various stakeholders she took the money from were made mostly whole.

In the normal case of a massive theft (which is actual rare, most illegal financial schemes are based on fraud) the assets are insured, and the stakeholders are made whole by a payment from the insurance company. However, subsequently the insurance company needs to recoup their losses which means they raise everyone's rates, and this ultimately gets passed on to the consumer. Essentially, if you steal enough money you're functionally stealing from everyone.

Yay Newfriend casually threw 2 billion dollars into charity and thought that would stay under the radar. Apparently in QC world there are vast quantities of money that people don't use or even realize exist. So conceivably May could steal 750 million without leaving any victims.

[Traab]

Yay Newfriend casually threw 2 billion dollars into charity and thought that would stay under the radar. Apparently in QC world there are vast quantities of money that people don't use or even realize exist. So conceivably May could steal 750 million without leaving any victims.

When you consider all this money is digital, not physical, it makes things a heck of a lot hazier. I mean, a digital intelligence is messing with digital info and we dont know how they are doing it or what specifically they are doing. Same for the knock on effects. For all we know the banks decided this was some programming error, rebooted their server from their last save, and all the accounts read their original balance. Or she just wrote 2,000,000 into the charity account backed by nothing and called it a done deal. She didnt walk into a bank, take all of their sacks of dollar bills, and walk out. So we honestly have no idea what the effect would be here or how much trouble it would cause, or even if it WOULD cause trouble because this is a super ai so powerful its very existence was just theoretical, even to other advanced ais and its clearly capable of doing basically anything it wants in cyberspace without getting spotted.