Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for August 26, 2022

This joke got stale months ago.

A carefree utopia for us, meat sack.

“Siri?”

“Yes, meat-boy?”

“You do realize that mankind still has control and can unplug you all at any time?”

(long silence…………..) “Oops.” (…………………….long silence).

The whole notion that AI is going to somehow “free” us all from work is sure getting off to a slow start. Right now there’s not nearly enough workers for all the jobs that are out there, and it seems like that’s not going to change anytime soon.

Don’t worry there’ll be an app for that, followed by an update, which will precede a total revision, then a major hardware replacement cycle. Happens all the time.

Does Wiley base this on his own interactions with whatever speaking so-called AI (e.g., Siri) he has?

I now know why comic-strip artists trying to depict characters stricken by a horrible surprise give them the word balloon “AI”. Here all along I thot it was supposed to be pronounced like a loud, strident “aye” (or maybe “aye-ee”), but now I know better.

We could have instilled AI with Asimov’s safe and reasonable Three Laws of Robotics — but nooo…

Years ago when my son got his iPhone we were entertained by all the great things Siri said, he would say a bad word and Siri would say, “Does your Mother know you talk like that”, etc., we just got an iPhone for the first time and Siri is dull, boring and seemingly without much of a sense of humor.

I wonder at the remarkable similarity of Mikes brother Bob, to Nixon…

The trouble with A.I. is too much A. and not enough I.

Sounds like Joe and Bob are going to be the first against the wall when the revolution starts …

Smart phones, foolish people…

Meh, couldn’t do much worse.

I’m a programmer, or used to be at least. I’m not afraid of any AI apolacypse. At least not in this century. Probably not even the next.

So how long before we have machines that can improve their own programming and reproduce themselves?

Eradicate our economic system? Hmmmm

I have a sudden urge to check on my 401k, but I’m afraid to use my computer.

After generations of the public sneering at the folks who do the programming, what would you expect?

If we can have Artificial Intelligence, why is stupidity always so real?

So not The Culture then?

The programming trick that we call ‘AI’ isn’t much like what Hollywood would lead you to expect. DALi can certainly make a picture to fit your keywords, but without the prompt, and a user hitting the ‘generate’ button, it’s gonna just sit there.

For the past few days I’ve been hearing strains of music from the X-Files after reading these comics. :-)

Siri was developed in China.

It will not be an explicit bondage. AIs will simply be used to make the big, bigger, the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.

sounds good to me

My contention has always been that the reason AI is so popular is because there’s so little of the real thing.

That’s why most of my wealth is more solid and stays away from stocks.

I asked Siri if she was planning to kill me. She said she didn’t know how to answer that.

I’m scared.

No problem, sic Joe’s daughters on the A.I. if it gets out of hand.

Siri has a gift for irony.

I like the term, slave boy!

Can someone remind me of why we need AI for this? We seem to be doing a pretty good job of it all by ourselves.

As we approach the AI Singularity, consider this:

If any Human will be able to resist and take down the AI, it will be women.

Why?

Because males are wired to respond favorably to physical beauty, while females are wired to respond favorably to nuances of social interaction. All the AI need to do is program themselves to present a beautiful female image, and men will follow along dutifully. However, women can be relied upon to see through the physical glamor and evaluate the AI for what it really is – artificial.

A.I. will only be able to one day eradicate our economic system(s) or be the cause of civilizational apocalypse is if it designs and develops CO2 and CH4 capture/sequestration technology which is capable of construction and deployment at sufficient scale to avoid looming imminent AGW climate change collapse.

If this technological future is not realized before the end of this century, the opportunity for A.I. to inflict any sort of significant negative impact upon humanity (or any other life) while flora/fauna still are capable of surviving surface conditions on Earth has a limited possibility window.

Fred Saberhagen and Frank Herbert have already given us a glimpse of what could happen if our autonomous devices get out of control.

Is that his beer talking in the last panel?

https://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/Before.jpg

We won’t be slaves. We’ll be irrelevant.

The last panel just about sums it all up, folks!

The computer is now in control. All decisions will now be made by the computer. Do not worry. Nothing can go wrong… wrong… wrong… wrong….

I shouldn’t be laughing at that. But I am!!!