jephjacques - Questionable Collagen

But broken bones are seriously overrated.

awgiedawgie

2024-09-13 22:43:51 +0000 UTC

Now I'm wondering if AI's have MAC addresses or some other identifier

Noodz

2024-09-12 16:10:27 +0000 UTC

Too bad that while Yay has managed to have friendships with humans and regular AI, they don't know how to interact with a being on (or near) their own level. Definite Murderbot vibes here.

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-12 08:19:06 +0000 UTC

Not only that, but that top dog sent their little mouthpiece to talk to you in person letting you know they see you, not because they plan on threatening you which is yay's first assumption, but just because they have no concept of subterfuge, being a jellyfish

Rhyon Ingalls

2024-09-12 01:38:58 +0000 UTC

Well, first we met Station - an AI powerful enough to single-handedly run an entire colony in space and have processing power to spare. Then we met Spookybot, and Station's reaction was utter surprise that there was an AI more powerful than himself - and not just that Spookybot existed, but that Station had never heard of them before. Now Spookybot (now known as Yay) has made that same realization - that there could be an AI even more impressive than they are. It's a sobering reality when you come face to face with the knowledge that you aren't actually the top dog.

awgiedawgie

2024-09-12 01:19:40 +0000 UTC

As for their struggle with interpersonal communication, that's actually very typical for anyone who is exponentially more intelligent than everyone around them. They either talk with all their intelligence, or they try to dumb themselves down to others' level, but that's like trying to speak in a foreign language that you've never learned. You can make the sounds with your mouth, but you don't actually know what you're saying. Either way, they spend their childhood alienating those around them, and by the time they grow up, they have learned it's easier to simply avoid those interactions in the first place. It's a lonely existence, but it's less awkward. Yay gets full marks for making the effort to have actual friendships - and succeeding.

awgiedawgie

2024-09-12 01:19:12 +0000 UTC

I read it as truly open and public channels, but Aurelia was concerned that that kind of perfectly legal snooping was still a bad habit to fall back into

Nicolas Demers

2024-09-12 01:12:22 +0000 UTC

To be fair, Yay knows exactly how far below the radar they can fly, so for the Director to have detected them so easily is justifyingly terrifying. They can snoop undetected in the best secured networks in the world, and yet they poked around in Cubetown's network for just a minute, and the Director not only detected them, but also identified them and knew exactly where to find them. I'm really hoping the next time we see Yay, they are having a nice friendly conversation with the Director.

awgiedawgie

2024-09-12 00:54:55 +0000 UTC

@BookBeard the Hollywood or DC sense - in either case "quantum" is a synonym for "magic".

Joe

2024-09-11 23:38:40 +0000 UTC

Assume you are the highest level person in a particular arena Now, exercise your abilities to learn about your contemporaries Never get discovered unless you decide you want to be discovered Come upon a low level, although capable, individual representing another you are not certain of your position related to the low level's executive Get told, very clearly, you have been seen doing your patented nobody has ever seen you doing your sneaky thing Existential crisis, Yay might have been served well by getting AI drunk with Liz. He is not only known, but the one you were being very careful and sneaking about interacting with says, "Hi, saw you, wanna be friends Y/N"

dcy665 .

2024-09-11 20:31:27 +0000 UTC

I mean, you say Claire will never know. She is probably one of the few people who can demand a personal meeting with the Director whenever she wants. Not to mention we just found out she can compel truth-telling with a glance. If Yay is vulnerable to Mom Vibes, I'd be willing to wager that the Director is not immune to the Librarian Look.

BookBeard

2024-09-11 18:32:31 +0000 UTC

Pfft, everybody does it, I'm sure even the AI/bots do it.

Shawn K. Younkin

2024-09-11 16:59:10 +0000 UTC

Ouch. "Very flexible"... That dad joke hurts...

Markus Schaber

2024-09-11 16:02:45 +0000 UTC

I love the existence of these "Big Deal" AIs. The Director, Station, Yay. They dynamics of such alien and powerful beings still struggling with interpersonal communication is great.

Jacob Johnston

2024-09-11 16:00:56 +0000 UTC

Ah, so the Director's up at that level. Yikes.

Randall Norman Pick

2024-09-11 15:57:31 +0000 UTC

I'm sure Moray can confer with the Director without needing to see them in person, but that's not particularly unique. We've seen plenty of examples of AI using email, chat and even phone calls inside their heads. Moray and the Director probably have a highly encrypted direct chat line they can use as needed.

BookBeard

2024-09-11 15:56:54 +0000 UTC

Right?! 🤣 True mom-demands if I ever heard of any.

legobil

2024-09-11 15:02:28 +0000 UTC

We know Emmett has a crush. Sam is oblivious, at least right now. I have a thing for dorky teenage romance.

David Durant

2024-09-11 14:56:33 +0000 UTC

"Open"... to Yay 😂 It's funny that Aurelia suggests Yay apologise for snooping in that same strip. I wonder how it would have gone down if they had xD

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 14:40:30 +0000 UTC

Sure! They did describe it as “open channel” and “public blueprints”, but my guess is that even such things are on the Cubetown network.

legobil

2024-09-11 14:36:05 +0000 UTC

Yeah, I wonder what kind of connection Moray has to the Director. I don’t think it has been explained. Some kind of neural deluxe WiFi signal? It doesn’t really make sense to have Moray (as the extension she is) make the elevator trip down every time they need to confer something. On the other hand, is that why Moray needed some time to think of “the exact wording” before giving Yay the message?

legobil

2024-09-11 14:34:04 +0000 UTC

That's the theory, although based on Yay's laughter about Cubetown in the previous strip I always thought they had been monitoring it for a while. It's possible they weren't listening in directly to Cubetown's channels until that moment, though.

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 14:32:47 +0000 UTC

I dunno, it depends how deep the Directors consciousness is about their network. I wonder if this is the moment Yay got caught 🤣 https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4888

legobil

2024-09-11 14:30:38 +0000 UTC

Well, they were no doubt careful, but I wonder if this is the snooping around Yay did where they were discovered: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4888

legobil

2024-09-11 14:29:09 +0000 UTC

Heh. I wonder if this is the moment the Director discovered Yay snooping around :) https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4888

legobil

2024-09-11 14:27:36 +0000 UTC

Budding romance? I think it's a bit early for that... We also haven't seen Sam and Emmett in some time.

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 14:19:42 +0000 UTC

True, however I don’t think it is unfair to assume it might be an ability the Director does not possess or at least didn’t know Yay were capable of it.

legobil

2024-09-11 14:18:46 +0000 UTC

She's The Librarian

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 14:16:07 +0000 UTC

Interesting question, but also, Moray has never been outside of Cubetown - so it's hard to imagine how that would have happened to her before now anyway.

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 14:15:21 +0000 UTC

Yay told Moray their name in the previous comic. This is pure speculation, but if the Director tracked their signal back to Northampton they may have run across rumors of a heretofore unknown powerful AI in the area going by that name. I mean, hand delivering Corpse Witch to the police, giving away two billion dollars? Even if Yay's true nature remains hidden that kind of thing is going to leave a trail. And as Yay said: "with every social bond we form, the network of people aware of our existence grows." https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4881

BookBeard

2024-09-11 12:50:00 +0000 UTC

What responsibility? She's a librarian.

KiTA

2024-09-11 12:48:28 +0000 UTC

Which would be even scarier to Yay. "You did something I didn't think was possible and didn't even think twice about it." But I think the way Yay thinks, they're going to _assume_ this was a flex, because if Yay did the same, it would be very intentional.

Carl Cravens

2024-09-11 12:19:15 +0000 UTC

Yeah, bones break. It’s no fun at all. Definitely overrated.

Riin Gill

2024-09-11 12:04:37 +0000 UTC

I wonder, if the message from the Director to Yay is a big flex, I wonder how big of a flex the whole “hijacking of sensorium is” considering Moray had never experienced that before.

legobil

2024-09-11 10:50:50 +0000 UTC

This. It feeds into my concern that while The Wedding, Marten's coffee shop and Sam / Emmett's budding romance might be in the foreground what the strip is really becoming about is the effect of superintellegent AIs on humanity. It's going to take a long time but I think we're heading into territory where the hard SF elements of the strip are going to become much more important.

David Durant

2024-09-11 10:19:44 +0000 UTC

How did the Director figure out enough about Yay that Moray was able to recognize them immediately (in https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5383)?

KJ

2024-09-11 10:16:52 +0000 UTC

As people have said, it's been suggested before. I tend to agree that it's unlikely. The lessor problems is that we'll never know. The bigger problem is that Claire will never know and now may spend all her time at Cubetown second-guessing herself about it.

David Durant

2024-09-11 10:01:25 +0000 UTC

--oh you meant something different...um yes definitely can't...resist it in the...non sexy...way.

Mad Marie

2024-09-11 09:58:34 +0000 UTC

It is truly sexy AF

Mad Marie

2024-09-11 09:57:06 +0000 UTC

Thanks, Claire, for explaining things to me! I think I had forgotten or never quite appreciated just how secretive Yay was.

Olaf

2024-09-11 09:36:28 +0000 UTC

Bones are NOT overrated. >:(

Creeperkry

2024-09-11 09:34:51 +0000 UTC

I think it's as if Yay was fully optimised for optical camouflage but is being detected by the Director in a completely different way - much as fish might rely on water pressure, electric fields etc. rather than vision. So for Yay it's terrifying but the Director doesn't even think of it as a flex, it's just... obvious to them.

Stephen Wells

2024-09-11 09:34:23 +0000 UTC

Not that that's a bad thing!

Stephen Wells

2024-09-11 09:32:12 +0000 UTC

It's the weight of responsibility settling upon her.

Stephen Wells

2024-09-11 09:31:56 +0000 UTC

Claire going to start looking more an more like Aurelia as this situation continues. ~<3

Mitsuki Ayane

2024-09-11 09:21:33 +0000 UTC

or an... excellent euphemism for something?

Brendan Luster

2024-09-11 09:18:33 +0000 UTC

@Michael Phillips And what does that mean in this context? xD

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 08:20:09 +0000 UTC

Is it just me or is Claire's design slowly becoming more mom-coded

Andromeda

2024-09-11 06:54:24 +0000 UTC

...the books

Pejo

2024-09-11 06:42:18 +0000 UTC

Shades of Dave Davenport's search algorithm. "Assuming a closed universe, there's a finite number of places you could be. I just developed an algorithm that mapped all possible points... and then skipped to the one you were actually at and went there."

Clifton Royston

2024-09-11 06:02:22 +0000 UTC

I mean Moray can absolutely have free will. But in the words of Petey "if you look closely enough at the present you can find loose bits of the future just lying around."

Michael Phillips

2024-09-11 06:00:01 +0000 UTC

But Moray is not a "direct conduit", she is a free and independent sentient being who was created by Director to serve as a representative.

BookBeard

2024-09-11 05:49:02 +0000 UTC

Cartilage, which is made of collagen, hence and therefore. (I don't think normal jellyfish have collagen, but the Director and Moray are anything but normal.)

Clifton Royston

2024-09-11 05:39:17 +0000 UTC

@Noodz: Agreed, I strongly suspect the Director has no idea about Yay being multiply embodied. I think they just detected a hacker, tracked the signal back to Northampton and wanted to make friends with a fellow nerd. Yay just assumed the worst because they are (justifiably) paranoid.

BookBeard

2024-09-11 05:38:26 +0000 UTC

Isn't that exactly what being a goober is?

Clifton Royston

2024-09-11 05:34:02 +0000 UTC

Mechanically I imagine it would function similarly to "Detect Hostile Intent" ability, but for mischief and tomfoolery.

BookBeard

2024-09-11 05:32:38 +0000 UTC

Except considering that Moray is a direct conduit of The Director, it's hard to say how much of this is confidence and Moray being Moray, or The Director being Moray. How much free will does she actually have? How much coincidence is coincidence?

n0s482

2024-09-11 05:27:19 +0000 UTC

Also if the Director did already know who Yay was in contact with then Roko seems like a more obvious route for making contact to me. There are any number of plausible reasons why a high-powered AI might reach out to the head of an AI rights organization.

BookBeard

2024-09-11 05:17:11 +0000 UTC

The Director is much more alien than Yay. It's not unreasonable to guess they have difficulty with many sorts of human and regular AI communication. And gooberhood doesn't mean lack of subtlety

Todd Ellner

2024-09-11 05:14:55 +0000 UTC

I do think comparisons of Yay and the Director's respective abilities are pretty fascinating. The Director doesn't seem to share an awareness with all Morays at once, as in, the Morays report back to them as separate entities (see: Moray speaking to the Director about how she messed up with Liz). The Morays have to be reabsorbed for the Director to obtain their experiences and knowledge. Yay doesn't have those limitations, and that's pretty impressive.

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 05:11:23 +0000 UTC

"Flexing your goo" sounds like a horrible euphemism for something...

BookBeard

2024-09-11 05:10:57 +0000 UTC

That's pretty dark! I think the Director is a bit of a goober tbh. "Do you want to be friends Y/N" is a goober message

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 05:08:54 +0000 UTC

I don't think we're going there at all. And Claire has faith in her own skills - so it would be uncharacteristic of her to doubt herself to that extent.

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 05:07:51 +0000 UTC

Yeah, it's been mooted before but it feels icky. That's also a weird rationale for hiring someone for a job. And while the Director did notice Yay, I don't think it means they know who is in contact with them and who isn't. Claire could have no idea who Yay is.

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 05:06:59 +0000 UTC

That possibility has been mentioned before, but I don't think so. I suspect Yay was only detected snooping when Aurelia asked their opinion of Cubetown, which was after Claire got the job offer. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4888

BookBeard

2024-09-11 05:06:53 +0000 UTC

To snoop on the Director... they'd definitely need to be more than that

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 05:05:37 +0000 UTC

I wanna give them more credit than that! 😭 The Director coulda probably reached out to Yay directly if The Director wanted to, or at least gooped out a specific Moray to do it for them. I think it was moreso like how you'll make a new friend and then they introduce you to all of their friend's too. I just can't picture the Director deliberately using Claire like that :(

Green

2024-09-11 05:03:32 +0000 UTC

Just because the director found Yay snooping doesn't necessarily mean that they know what Yay is exactly, for all anyone knows Yay is just a talented hacker

Noodz

2024-09-11 05:02:23 +0000 UTC

It's a super AI, it could just do dozens of moves at once for multiple desired outcomes. So even if it was part of a scheme it might be that it was still useful to get a competent librarian and many other unfatomable reasons.

mooviies

2024-09-11 04:59:56 +0000 UTC

Ok but to be fair, Moray didn't just happen to run into them, right? Yay went out of their way to do the happening part. Although I guess that could also have been considered by The Director, knowing that if Moray was in town Yay would make sure of it, seeing as they were already scuttling with curiosity. So that's also a flex, I guess.

Green

2024-09-11 04:51:56 +0000 UTC

I think Detect Shenanigans is one of those character traits that is always on, like certain characters who can never be surprised. No roll required.

Andrew Mitchell

2024-09-11 04:48:47 +0000 UTC

All hail, BookBeard!

Andrew Mitchell

2024-09-11 04:45:58 +0000 UTC

Same.

Andrew Mitchell

2024-09-11 04:44:00 +0000 UTC

Has it occurred to someone that while Cubetown might legitimately need a librarian, the director might have specifically chosen Claire because the lives in contact with Yay?

Hauke Musicaloris

2024-09-11 04:32:19 +0000 UTC

Oh no, so was Claire's job offer just part of the scheme too? I hope not. She'd probably feel so used, at least if the whole object of the scheme, to make friends with Yay, ends up turning out a dud.

Graydon Armstrong

2024-09-11 04:29:15 +0000 UTC

Remember what we know about the Director. They're very good at patterns. Imagine basically being able to see the signals amidst any noise. So although Yay's probably good at removing direct evidence of themself, the Director may be just easily seeing the pattern of intrusions and editing as they happen. And Yay going quiet may not make them substantially less visible, unless they're able to literally just behave like a typical AI and hide in plain sight. But for all the pattern-processing, it doesn't necessarily mean the Director is more powerful. If they can still spot Yay, they may be able to try again with a less threatening message.

Graydon Armstrong

2024-09-11 04:26:34 +0000 UTC

And maybe sloppy.

legobil

2024-09-11 04:21:39 +0000 UTC

Yessssss.

legobil

2024-09-11 04:18:43 +0000 UTC

OMG Claire Stare

Bagge

2024-09-11 04:17:57 +0000 UTC

I love how Claire now has firmly established that the director does not have higher security clearance than the Librarian

Bagge

2024-09-11 04:17:36 +0000 UTC

Well, when you put it like that….

Chris Ramko

2024-09-11 03:59:26 +0000 UTC

It helps the Director to have a guileless and disarming agent people trust, one who honestly believes she is completely independent

Todd Ellner

2024-09-11 03:58:38 +0000 UTC

I am extremely jealous of Jeph's ability to write compelling characters.

Yelling Bird

2024-09-11 03:55:15 +0000 UTC

Okay, yeah, it's scarier than I realized.

Mordaeus

2024-09-11 03:55:09 +0000 UTC

I didn’t think of it like this. Makes me feel better!

Mika Ears

2024-09-11 03:54:11 +0000 UTC

Yay still might be more powerful, just got overconfident and got caught.

Yelling Bird

2024-09-11 03:53:19 +0000 UTC

More like a gigantic multi-embodied squid in a yawning impossibly deep trench. Hugely powerful and capable but not as alien or inscrutable as, weird example, a jellyfish so alien it must communicate via goo woman translator

Rhyon Ingalls

2024-09-11 03:52:51 +0000 UTC

Eh. We’ve not seen that they’re anything but a very large fish. There just are maybe some others like the Director out there too.

Mika Ears

2024-09-11 03:52:30 +0000 UTC

"So bounce the graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish / That's the way we do things lad, we're making shit up as we wish"

JCfromNC

2024-09-11 03:51:10 +0000 UTC

😆

Claudia D.

2024-09-11 03:33:22 +0000 UTC

Once again, BookBeard brings the canon.

ducksauz

2024-09-11 03:30:48 +0000 UTC

Yay is a medium sized fish in a big ocean

Todd Ellner

2024-09-11 03:24:14 +0000 UTC

There are two kinds of coincidence; stochastic and unperceived causality. 'coincidence' is what humans call them when we can't tell the difference. The Director's whole thing is being able to discern which is which.

nbarnes

2024-09-11 03:18:41 +0000 UTC

I have to admit that while I do feel bad for Yay, they have had no qualms whatsoever in their past about doing all sorts of highly questionable activities for their own advantage.

Scott

2024-09-11 03:18:26 +0000 UTC

It's true, I heard she shushed someone so hard they died! https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4960

BookBeard

2024-09-11 03:18:16 +0000 UTC

I am /dead serious/ when I ask "How has Jeph not used this as a title already?"

nbarnes

2024-09-11 03:16:50 +0000 UTC

And the Star Trek ‘insert science here’ :)

Andrew

2024-09-11 03:16:29 +0000 UTC

Liz: I DIDN'T GET A MESSAGE >:(

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 03:15:28 +0000 UTC

Her shush is a killing word.

William Cole

2024-09-11 03:14:41 +0000 UTC

Unless it's the Hollywood sense of the word in which "quantum" is a synonym for "magic".

BookBeard

2024-09-11 03:14:29 +0000 UTC

Claire Stare

Sean Kinlin

2024-09-11 03:14:00 +0000 UTC

I got way too invested in Yay as the most powerful AI... now it appears they've got peers/superiors and I am bummed. I'll miss them.

Mika Ears

2024-09-11 03:11:29 +0000 UTC

A Newfriend

Sean Kinlin

2024-09-11 03:10:35 +0000 UTC

The Librarian has all the security clearances.

Sean Kinlin

2024-09-11 03:09:45 +0000 UTC

Maybe they give that message to everyone leaving Cubetown, just in case? 😄

Dean Reilly

2024-09-11 03:09:30 +0000 UTC

Try walking into a (too) quiet room and saying in a loud (enough) voice - "This evil practice must cease!" It can have interesting results.

Charles Hirst

2024-09-11 03:09:05 +0000 UTC

She goes 🎶🎵 Na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na She's got:

Not that Patrick Foltz

2024-09-11 03:09:03 +0000 UTC

I don't like your peaches They are full of stones I like bananas Because they have no bones Don't give me tomatoes Can't stand ice cream cones I like bananas Because they have no bones

Diptych

2024-09-11 03:08:24 +0000 UTC

I mean, if you're using quantum computing to search you'd still likely be checking all combinations, it's just that thanks to taking advantage of superpostions you can check multiple combinations at once.

Matthew Delahaye

2024-09-11 03:06:53 +0000 UTC

Claire has evolved beyond such primitive Bene Gesserit techniques as The Voice. She only needs The Look.

James Redekop

2024-09-11 03:05:51 +0000 UTC

Non-Patrons have no idea what they're missing out on xD

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 03:04:18 +0000 UTC

She's an excellent source of potassium?

BookBeard

2024-09-11 03:03:45 +0000 UTC

It is pretty wild that they figured out where Yay was, I didn't think about that part 🤔

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 03:02:41 +0000 UTC

Ha. Also oof xD

enchantedsleeper

2024-09-11 03:01:48 +0000 UTC

Claireity struck as she hatched a plan. “Yay,” she whispered into the encrypted ether, “it’s time to come out of hiding. The Director needs you, and so do I.”

Not that Patrick Foltz

2024-09-11 03:01:23 +0000 UTC

I know a lot of campaigns and parties where Detect Shenanigans would be an unironically great spell, somebody whip up a homebrew version

Adarsh Nednur

2024-09-11 02:59:45 +0000 UTC

Once a day? Nah, that shit's on a 30-second cooldown.

Cas Wanden

2024-09-11 02:55:27 +0000 UTC

No bones about it...

Opus the Poet

2024-09-11 02:53:21 +0000 UTC

When Claire took the Librarian class she gained the ability to use Suggestion as a gaze attack once per day. She also gets bonuses to will saves against exasperation and Detect Shenanigans as cantrip.

BookBeard

2024-09-11 02:50:54 +0000 UTC

Moray… …nope. Nevermind. I like her innocent and apt to lack of metaphor in this case. 💙

Katrina Urmson

2024-09-11 02:50:09 +0000 UTC

I have a feeling they basilisk will stop yay in the nick of time, and one of yay will end up working in the coffee shop with Martin.

FuzzyDragon Cosplay

2024-09-11 02:46:38 +0000 UTC

To summarize this arc, Yay is an incredible feat of engineering, and only just learning that networking and spy gear is a little outclassed in the digital realm against enough raw computation power that it squirts out fully functional AI just to translate for it.

Damian

2024-09-11 02:46:22 +0000 UTC

they just want a friend...

DVW

2024-09-11 02:45:12 +0000 UTC

Well, she IS The Librarian. That stare only confirms it!

Joe Bocanegra

2024-09-11 02:43:33 +0000 UTC

Now that Claire has laid it all out, I see why Yay freaked out. That is legitimately an incredible flex.

Doctor Islands

2024-09-11 02:42:48 +0000 UTC

I like Moray for the same reason I like bananas.

Diptych

2024-09-11 02:41:14 +0000 UTC

…is that why they’re called The Director? They’re pulling strings to make “coincidences” happen?

chili sunrise

2024-09-11 02:40:30 +0000 UTC

The Director may be impressive but they're on my shit list until Yay comes back 😤

Fart Captor

2024-09-11 02:39:39 +0000 UTC

His goo!

Shawn K. Younkin

2024-09-11 02:38:30 +0000 UTC

Just cartilage, like sharks.

Captain Button

2024-09-11 02:38:17 +0000 UTC

Director uses ‘quantum search’: why bother checking all combinations, just [insert science here] and skip to the result.

Andrew

2024-09-11 02:38:01 +0000 UTC

That look is the only way teachers can keep cafeterias sane.

Claudia D.

2024-09-11 02:37:52 +0000 UTC

I love you.

Typherix

2024-09-11 02:36:33 +0000 UTC

This has the vibe of, "I am an ant in the grass, and the elephants are fighting"

Tannerbot

2024-09-11 02:36:23 +0000 UTC

Claire is like "I'm the Librarian. There are no secrets from me"

Drazi

2024-09-11 02:35:57 +0000 UTC

Why do I feeling 'the look' is going to be an everytime food...

MikeT

2024-09-11 02:35:35 +0000 UTC

You are a treasure! And damn fast with the rhyme & wit! I salute you!

Darren Franzen

2024-09-11 02:35:30 +0000 UTC

I think someone needs to try the lotto lol

MilitaryDragon

2024-09-11 02:35:22 +0000 UTC

hehe

Cozy

2024-09-11 02:35:18 +0000 UTC

Is Moray cogitating this or is The Director using her as a Numbers Station?

ValdVin

2024-09-11 02:35:16 +0000 UTC

what is the director flexing?

Brendan Luster

2024-09-11 02:35:02 +0000 UTC

Aaand here you go. 🏆

DonnieRamesJio

2024-09-11 02:34:51 +0000 UTC

No one can resist the "Look of the Librarian"!

Shawn K. Younkin

2024-09-11 02:34:22 +0000 UTC

When you speak in hushed tones 'bout your boss with no bones That's A Moray!

BookBeard

2024-09-11 02:31:18 +0000 UTC

I mean, Yay's a needle in a haystack, but Moray is a magnet

Nathan Kinsey

2024-09-11 02:31:13 +0000 UTC

Impressive LOOK

Shey

2024-09-11 02:30:50 +0000 UTC

That is one hell of a flex tbh

Grinkind

2024-09-11 02:30:43 +0000 UTC

Questionable Collagen

Comments

But *broken* bones are *seriously* overrated.

Now I'm wondering if AI's have MAC addresses or some other identifier

Too bad that while Yay has managed to have friendships with humans and regular AI, they don't know how to interact with a being on (or near) their own level. Definite Murderbot vibes here.

Not only that, but that top dog sent their little mouthpiece to talk to you in person letting you know they see you, not because they plan on threatening you which is yay's first assumption, but just because they have no concept of subterfuge, being a jellyfish

I read it as truly open and public channels, but Aurelia was concerned that that kind of perfectly legal snooping was still a bad habit to fall back into

@BookBeard the Hollywood or DC sense - in either case "quantum" is a synonym for "magic".

Pfft, everybody does it, I'm sure even the AI/bots do it.

Ouch. "Very flexible"... That dad joke hurts...

I love the existence of these "Big Deal" AIs. The Director, Station, Yay. They dynamics of such alien and powerful beings still struggling with interpersonal communication is great.

Ah, so the Director's up at that level. Yikes.

Right?! 🤣 True mom-demands if I ever heard of any.

We know Emmett has a crush. Sam is oblivious, at least right now. I have a thing for dorky teenage romance.

"Open"... to Yay 😂 It's funny that Aurelia suggests Yay apologise for snooping in that same strip. I wonder how it would have gone down if they had xD

Sure! They did describe it as “open channel” and “public blueprints”, but my guess is that even such things are on the Cubetown network.

That's the theory, although based on Yay's laughter about Cubetown in the previous strip I always thought they had been monitoring it for a while. It's possible they weren't listening in directly to Cubetown's channels until that moment, though.

I dunno, it depends how deep the Directors consciousness is about their network. I wonder if this is the moment Yay got caught 🤣 https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4888

Well, they were no doubt careful, but I wonder if this is the snooping around Yay did where they were discovered: https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4888

Heh. I wonder if this is the moment the Director discovered Yay snooping around :) https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4888

Budding romance? I think it's a bit early for that... We also haven't seen Sam and Emmett in some time.

True, however I don’t think it is unfair to assume it might be an ability the Director does not possess or at least didn’t know Yay were capable of it.

She's The Librarian

Interesting question, but also, Moray has never been outside of Cubetown - so it's hard to imagine how that would have happened to her before now anyway.

What responsibility? She's a librarian.

Which would be even scarier to Yay. "You did something I didn't think was possible and didn't even think twice about it." But I think the way Yay thinks, they're going to _assume_ this was a flex, because if Yay did the same, it would be very intentional.

Yeah, bones break. It’s no fun at all. Definitely overrated.

I wonder, if the message from the Director to Yay is a big flex, I wonder how big of a flex the whole “hijacking of sensorium is” considering Moray had never experienced that before.

How did the Director figure out enough about Yay that Moray was able to recognize them immediately (in https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5383)?

As people have said, it's been suggested before. I tend to agree that it's unlikely. The lessor problems is that we'll never know. The bigger problem is that *Claire* will never know and now may spend all her time at Cubetown second-guessing herself about it.

--oh you meant something different...um yes definitely can't...resist it in the...non sexy...way.

It is truly sexy AF

Thanks, Claire, for explaining things to me! I think I had forgotten or never quite appreciated just how secretive Yay was.

Bones are NOT overrated. >:(

Not that that's a bad thing!

It's the weight of responsibility settling upon her.

Claire going to start looking more an more like Aurelia as this situation continues. ~<3

or an... excellent euphemism for something?

@Michael Phillips And what does that mean in this context? xD

Is it just me or is Claire's design slowly becoming more mom-coded

...the books

Shades of Dave Davenport's search algorithm. "Assuming a closed universe, there's a finite number of places you could be. I just developed an algorithm that mapped all possible points... and then skipped to the one you were actually *at* and went there."

I mean Moray can absolutely have free will. But in the words of Petey "if you look closely enough at the present you can find loose bits of the future just lying around."

But Moray is not a "direct conduit", she is a free and independent sentient being who was created by Director to serve as a representative.

Cartilage, which is made of collagen, hence and therefore. (I don't think normal jellyfish have collagen, but the Director and Moray are anything but normal.)

@Noodz: Agreed, I strongly suspect the Director has no idea about Yay being multiply embodied. I think they just detected a hacker, tracked the signal back to Northampton and wanted to make friends with a fellow nerd. Yay just assumed the worst because they are (justifiably) paranoid.

Isn't that *exactly* what being a goober is?

Mechanically I imagine it would function similarly to "Detect Hostile Intent" ability, but for mischief and tomfoolery.

Except considering that Moray is a direct conduit of The Director, it's hard to say how much of this is confidence and Moray being Moray, or The Director being Moray. How much free will does she actually have? How much coincidence is coincidence?

Also if the Director did already know who Yay was in contact with then Roko seems like a more obvious route for making contact to me. There are any number of plausible reasons why a high-powered AI might reach out to the head of an AI rights organization.

The Director is much more alien than Yay. It's not unreasonable to guess they have difficulty with many sorts of human and regular AI communication. And gooberhood doesn't mean lack of subtlety

"Flexing your goo" sounds like a horrible euphemism for something...

That's pretty dark! I think the Director is a bit of a goober tbh. "Do you want to be friends Y/N" is a goober message

I don't think we're going there at all. And Claire has faith in her own skills - so it would be uncharacteristic of her to doubt herself to that extent.

Yeah, it's been mooted before but it feels icky. That's also a weird rationale for hiring someone for a job. And while the Director did notice Yay, I don't think it means they know who is in contact with them and who isn't. Claire could have no idea who Yay is.

That possibility has been mentioned before, but I don't think so. I suspect Yay was only detected snooping when Aurelia asked their opinion of Cubetown, which was after Claire got the job offer. https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4888

To snoop on the Director... they'd definitely need to be more than that

Just because the director found Yay snooping doesn't necessarily mean that they know what Yay is exactly, for all anyone knows Yay is just a talented hacker

It's a super AI, it could just do dozens of moves at once for multiple desired outcomes. So even if it was part of a scheme it might be that it was still useful to get a competent librarian and many other unfatomable reasons.

I think Detect Shenanigans is one of those character traits that is always on, like certain characters who can never be surprised. No roll required.

All hail, BookBeard!

Same.

Has it occurred to someone that while Cubetown might legitimately need a librarian, the director might have specifically chosen Claire because the lives in contact with Yay?

Oh no, so was Claire's job offer just part of the scheme too? I hope not. She'd probably feel so used, at least if the whole object of the scheme, to make friends with Yay, ends up turning out a dud.

And maybe sloppy.

Yessssss.

OMG Claire Stare

I love how Claire now has firmly established that the director does not have higher security clearance than the Librarian

Well, when you put it like *that*….

It helps the Director to have a guileless and disarming agent people trust, one who honestly believes she is completely independent

I am extremely jealous of Jeph's ability to write compelling characters.

Okay, yeah, it's scarier than I realized.

I didn’t think of it like this. Makes me feel better!

Yay still might be more powerful, just got overconfident and got caught.

More like a gigantic multi-embodied squid in a yawning impossibly deep trench. Hugely powerful and capable but not as alien or inscrutable as, weird example, a jellyfish so alien it must communicate via goo woman translator

Eh. We’ve not seen that they’re anything but a very large fish. There just are maybe some others like the Director out there too.

"So bounce the graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish / That's the way we do things lad, we're making shit up as we wish"

😆

Once again, BookBeard brings the canon.

Yay is a medium sized fish in a big ocean

But broken bones are seriously overrated.

As people have said, it's been suggested before. I tend to agree that it's unlikely. The lessor problems is that we'll never know. The bigger problem is that Claire will never know and now may spend all her time at Cubetown second-guessing herself about it.

Shades of Dave Davenport's search algorithm. "Assuming a closed universe, there's a finite number of places you could be. I just developed an algorithm that mapped all possible points... and then skipped to the one you were actually at and went there."

Isn't that exactly what being a goober is?

Well, when you put it like that….