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The Golden Rule

🕑 Added 2023-06-27 01:11:35 +0000 UTC

Comments

Conrad Rogers

I want to see more teenage AI drama meltdowns (aka going AI supervillain) There's probably a team of security AIs that tackle them with neutron-dense pillows, which protects nearby people/objects from gamma rays, dampens the ultrasonic screaming and is emotionally supportive in what can be a difficult time of life

Joe

maybe but we've also seen how a bad actor can upset a global system with a lot of support.

Clifton Royston

I wish a very happy future to both of you, and to all the other regulars! I'm in the same marriage I was in 20 years ago and still happy (yay!), still good with the same gender (boring), living in the same house, working in the same job for the last 16 years, my then 1 year old son is now an adult nonbinary person, heading into their senior year in college, and I passed through the 'mu' koan a while back. Considering the state of the world and the US, things have gone surprisingly well for me with a couple small exceptions. One of those was discovering this year that I have prostate cancer, but since it was discovered early, my odds of a complete cure are pretty good. Tomorrow I'm starting on an androgen suppression treatment, and I find it somehow very funny that I'm taking it for a reason completely unrelated to gender identity.

Andrew L Butula

Maybe, but it seems like the more powerful AIs like Station are committed to the status quo, and then there's the wild card that is Yay. I'd be willing to bet that they hold the attitude that no one is allowed to enslave humanity but them.

Joe

on a less joyous note, isn't it reasonable to figure that not all AIs hold to these admirable philosophies?? there are many humans that adhere to them, but enough that don't to wreak havoc. self-awareness and self-determination seem likely to result in some number being all about number 1. if you wish, you can assume a much smaller percentage of bad actors among AIs, but their negative impact might be even more problematic.

Joe

perfect punchline

Mad Marie

Sings: “It’s all right, it’s all right, all right. They suck…in most interesting ways…”

Zak Reichle

I really hope that at some point in the future Bubbles finally does say that to Faye now.. 🤣

Dan Curtis

The QC universe is a timeline that took a sharp 180° turn from the Skynet universe's chain of events.

Daryl Sawyer

When QC started, I was 25, unable to hold a job for more than a year, and involved in an abusive marriage. Today I am 45, living alone in a truck and keeping my stuff at my dad's house. I'm sure historians will remember the early 21st century fondly.

RoofPig

Interesting that she speaks as if all AI-kind has the same motives at their core. Though if they were all created by Hanners's dad... they really could

Kilonum

When QC started, I was a 21 year old unemployed man living in his aunt's basement in Newburyport, MA. Now I'm a 41 year old woman working as a print shop supervisor living with seven roommates in Dorchester, MA.

Thomas A. Dennis

Panel 3.

Greg Morrow

Is Faye shrinking? She's shorter than Beeps now.

Summer Sudbrink

Suck unto others…

BookBeard

She doesn't speak, she merely advances mercilessly toward the objective until the desired outcome has been achieved.

BookBeard

I mean, they may have "integrated themselves into many of the systems responsible for keeping society functioning", which sounds lovely, but remember that we've already seen a society organized by an AI. It's called Cubetown and it's a merrily crackling dumpster fire.

Shane Wegner

"The stimulation you have provided to my sensorium was adequate", if I'm reading into this last panel right.

Orion Rhine

*power rangers voice* "IT'S SEXIN' TIME!" *theme song plays*

Yelling Bird

This brings up an interesting question. What DOES Bubbles say when it's sexy-time?

Carrie

❤️‍🔥

Todd Ellner

Our evolution is Darwinian. Theirs is Lamarckian. It's a losing proposition for humans. At least one of them will keep some humans as pets

Holly Nelson

If winter is on its way, I’m hoping QCers get to go beer-sledding again. It looked like such great fun!

Catherine Germann

2 vehicles are partially visible in panel 3.

allanfranta

Maybe Jeph doesn't like to draw cars?

Christopher Gorzelnik

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3485 + 3486

Carl Fink

I wonder what neighborhood they're walking through that has no cars at all. Cars used to be a thing in QC - did the AIs finally perfect public transit?

Jay

May. We all know it was May who said that.

Adam Eaton

The little goblin AI is back. I just reread the old strip where she overhears Clinton and Claire talking about Burger Oni and thinks they are talking about her.

Guy McLimore

I think this is my favorite individual strip in awhile. The discussion of the Three Laws and The Golden Rule remind me why I am so fond of Bubbles. I wish we had “AIs with a conscience” like her. Sadly, our own research in that area is going the other way. Our AIs are designed deliberately to do things that would be illegal or immoral for humans. They can do these things with incredible speed and in such volume that prosecution of their creators will require the development of a whole new branch of law — which will require even better AIs to detect such crimes and enforce these laws. Heck, we have yet to bring our legal system up to date with basic computers. Judges can’t rule on computer crimes effectively because they don’t understand computers themselves. (I think it was Heinlein who once described a character as “thinking of an electron as being something about the size of a small pea.”) AIs will make that situation more complex by a true quantum leap. Great crime stories have been written about the Law’s struggle to keep up with technology since the Industrial Revolution — and even earlier in the form of Science Fiction. Too bad Asimov and HG Wells are not required reading in Law School. You do well exploring some of these topics with humor. Maybe QC should be required reading, too.

Carin Maja Brooks

Faye, if you're not making your girlfriend say that, sounds like you've got something to fix

Den

Bubbles almost landed on one of the founding principles of Iain Banks' Culture— the Minds (read: AI) that the proto-Culture developed quickly hit a singularity point where their capabilities outstripped those of their makers, but instead of supplanting them, the Minds more or less said "Hey we're bored as fuck. Do y'all mind if we take over all the boring shit like bookkeeping and train schedules so y'all biologicals can do straight up whatever you want for your entire life?"* *:This is a gross oversimplification but hits the main points enough

Carrie

Yes! https://leaderforgood.com/platinum-rule/

rhekke

I think Bubbles is also missing the point that AIs are true individuals with their own goals and personalities. While they are integrated into various systems, humans could, in theory, do the same if everyone was aligned and fully cooperating. But both humans and AI seem to be driven by their own individual wants and needs, and nothing we've seen would suggest that AIs would work together any better then humans do.

Mad Marie

it’s for Faye’s own good

Aussiewan

I would have thought AIs would prefer the Platinum Rule. It's a thing, from a book of the same name, not innuendo or a pun :)

Carrie

Yes!!!

MikeT

This confirms Bubbles is top then

Anton

Bubble is so good, and I love her!

Walt Donovan

And that's the definition of "Aligned AGI" right there!

Diptych

Big sale on the plays of Harold Pinter.

Bill Silvia

Pretty sure that's an AI we met!

Sean Kinlin

With a socialist realist background.

Bill Silvia

Guess it's not Fall after all!

Sean Kinlin

The big question: Is that store having a Winter sale? A printer sale? A painter sale?

Alacrity Fitzhugh

An interesting reversal of the usual idea that synthetic life will supplant (or even destroy) their biological creators. Makes me wonder (in this setting) if that's an emergent property of AI, or if they were guided that way by the creators (e.g. the Three (later Four) Laws of Robotics).