Return To The Sea
Added 2023-01-05 02:11:50 +0000 UTCpoolg
Comments
I like the Poolg being the reverse of Gloop.
SilverbackRon
2023-01-14 01:43:17 +0000 UTCIt's the reverse of when she was glooped out of the director.
Larry
2023-01-09 04:59:05 +0000 UTCI think that the sound would be more like a quiet "Shhhhkhllluuuuphp".
Ursus Ridens
2023-01-09 03:09:22 +0000 UTCOh yes. AI ethics!
CaseyAEC
2023-01-08 22:22:18 +0000 UTCYou 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.
Stephen Wells
2023-01-07 18:28:43 +0000 UTC"ANTEATER: ...I am on the best of terms with ant colonies. It's just ants that I eat, not colonies..."
Jon Guyer
2023-01-07 16:10:52 +0000 UTCI'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.
jimbo
2023-01-07 12:24:54 +0000 UTCI 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.
Chloë Salzenberg
2023-01-06 18:14:40 +0000 UTCEXISTING IS PAIN TO A MORAY, CLAIRE-Y!
Shane Wegner
2023-01-06 15:17:50 +0000 UTCI 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.
William Karr
2023-01-06 13:56:38 +0000 UTCThis 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
Adorbium
2023-01-06 12:14:17 +0000 UTCTrue, 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.
kupo
2023-01-06 10:45:01 +0000 UTCMr. Meeseeks meets the Founders from Deep Space Nine <3
Jan Gampe
2023-01-06 07:52:25 +0000 UTCTell that to an octopus.
Anna Phylaxis
2023-01-06 07:29:07 +0000 UTClimbs aren't usually sentient . . .
Christine Hottinger
2023-01-06 06:28:05 +0000 UTCInteresting. 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.
Joseph Bonnar
2023-01-06 05:35:19 +0000 UTCJellyfish 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.
Todd Ellner
2023-01-06 05:04:10 +0000 UTCNot 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.
David Paul
2023-01-06 04:36:40 +0000 UTCNo, 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?
Michael Boettger
2023-01-06 04:02:03 +0000 UTCEXACTLY
Tova_Nator
2023-01-06 02:48:35 +0000 UTCWe're not on the same page
Nicolas Demers
2023-01-06 02:26:44 +0000 UTCTbh, 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.
kupo
2023-01-06 02:26:09 +0000 UTCIt is at worst suicide, and even that is debatable.
Connor Wilson
2023-01-06 01:38:29 +0000 UTCOh please.
Daryl Sawyer
2023-01-06 01:33:35 +0000 UTCJust so we're all on the same page here... This is murder. What the Director just did was murder.
KiTA
2023-01-06 01:26:08 +0000 UTCI'm going to have an existential crisis over jelly bots.
Dylan T
2023-01-06 01:20:06 +0000 UTCThis is simply the best arc I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Thank you Jeph!
Michael Boettger
2023-01-06 00:09:19 +0000 UTC
