jephjacques patreon

Return To The Sea

🕑 Added 2023-01-05 02:11:50 +0000 UTC

Comments

SilverbackRon

I like the Poolg being the reverse of Gloop.

Larry

It's the reverse of when she was glooped out of the director.

Ursus Ridens

I think that the sound would be more like a quiet "Shhhhkhllluuuuphp".

CaseyAEC

Oh yes. AI ethics!

Stephen Wells

You would have to define "soul" before that would be a fruitful discussion. Aristotle, for example, would say that humans typically have three souls - vegetable, animal and rational.

Jon Guyer

"ANTEATER: ...I am on the best of terms with ant colonies. It's just ants that I eat, not colonies..."

jimbo

I'd add Pat Cadigan to authors who've explored tech and blurring of mind and identity. As far as Jeph's work, boy do I enjoy the 'naive' and positive approach to tech and world change.

Chloë Salzenberg

I am quite surprised that people who read a comic centering on AIs these days are so naïve about continuity of personality. When people can merge split and rearrange like corporations, concepts like murder and suicide no longer really apply most of the time. Play SOMA or read Rudy Rucker or something.

Shane Wegner

EXISTING IS PAIN TO A MORAY, CLAIRE-Y!

William Karr

I would just like to say that the moral quandaries, the ethical wrestling, and the verbal sparring displayed above is why I love this community. And it’s probably the only thing that gives me hope that when we give birth to AI, we might not get wiped from existence as a species.

Adorbium

This sounds a lot like arguments I've heard around Multiplicity in people. If you accept that multiple consciousnesses can exist within one brain, what obligations does a more dominant one have to any others? In that situation, you wouldn't be killing braincells or bodies, but taking action to eliminate one of these entities could be interpreted it as ending a sentient being's existence. (If there are any multiples here, I apologize if this came across as offensive in any way). https://www.pluralpride.com/playbook#introduction

kupo

True, but while not sentient the cells of any part of the body have functional intelligence, enabling them to perform the processes that keep the body alive. We operate with an intelligence that is several orders of magnitude beyond what we consider these cells capable of processing, while at the same time our bodies have millions of cellular actions every second and we are not even conscious of them. The parallel is that we are the Director and our cells are Morays.

Jan Gampe

Mr. Meeseeks meets the Founders from Deep Space Nine <3

Anna Phylaxis

Tell that to an octopus.

Christine Hottinger

limbs aren't usually sentient . . .

Joseph Bonnar

Interesting. This entire arc is neither black nor white. Are the Moray units independent, free willed beings? If so, could they (and other AI units) have a soul? (My personal answer is yes, by the way.) And if so, what happened to her and to her soul... This is a serious moral question Jeph has dropped on us.

Todd Ellner

Jellyfish are colonial organisms. The Director took a small part of itself selected to have certain properties. It budded it, let the substructure do what it was designed to do and reabsorbed it. The cells or whatever they are didn't die. There was continuity of memory and thought. All that really changed was location. Even identity is very debatable.

David Paul

Not really, I feel. This is not like a parent/child thing. Moray's existence is more like a physical projection of the Director's interactions.

Michael Boettger

No, I disagree with the murder diagnosis. The Morays are a sort of sentient teleprescence of the Director. They know what and who they are. Imagine a human inhabiting an AI chassis; does the AI "die" when the human presence departs?

Tova_Nator

EXACTLY

Nicolas Demers

We're not on the same page

kupo

Tbh, I don't think it's murder or suicide. More like cutting off and then reattaching a limb; or taking a cup of water out of a bucket of water then pouring it back in. The director breaks off a piece of their consciousness/personality/code and grafts a sense of self onto it. Then afterwards all the original material and code is reintegrated, meaning nothing dies or is lost, merely returned to it's original place.