Just Imagine

@ Glen Blake. Is it really that personal of a question especially when May mentioned robot jail? It's not like she asked May if she dropped the soap. Besides May says enough irreverent and off color remarks one might think that she wouldn't have a problem talking about it.

Brent Catherman

May and marigold aren't friends and she asked a really obviously overly personal question. May doesn't owe anyone her forbearance. She didn't assault or insult marigold, just told her to fuck off, and that's honestly fair enough.

Blakey

@ Milo and Adam Garrison. That would be true if Marigold was pestering May about it and she repeatedly told her she didn't wan't to talk about it. She didn't. May mentioned she was in Robot Jail and Marigold asked out of curiosity. This is why we have such communication breakdowns because it's like walking on egg shells. Knowing what I know of May I'd minimize conversation as much as possible with her.

Brent Catherman

Corpse Witch enjoys that comment. :)

@Stellan if you mean that light pink stripe across the head, she has had that a long time. Here it is in 3730: <a href="https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3730" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3730</a>

Ross

She was pretty 'disembodied' when she was serving as an AI companion for Dale...

Ian McDonald

Huh?

Bagge

By the way, another interesting approach to preserving personalities is to be found in the wonderful book “Engine Summer,” by John Crowley.

Holly Nelson

I think that the individuals in robot jail would have to be in some sort of “chassis“ if only a hard drive or something. And I think there would have to be some sort of I/O, or else how would the rehabilitation process be monitored or pursued? QC world seems pretty decent compared to our world, I think the Spooky Clan would interfere if human jailers went too far.

Holly Nelson

Worse yet, drop you into a system with no sensory input and ramp up the clock speed. Six months feels like six hundred years of sensory deprivation.

Ted Van Roekel

I realise now that's pretty much what Holly was suggesting above.

Andrew Rubotham

Robot jail suggests a load of robots physically trapped in an enclosed area. But May didn't have a chassis at that point so maybe it's more like a server with disembodied AIs subjected to God knows what sensory inputs. Or worse, no sensory inputs at all. Basically an intelligent being in a prolonged state of sensory deprivation. No wonder she doesn't want to talk about it.

Andrew Rubotham

I’ve given a little thought to what robot jail might be like. Imagine if your self could be forcibly decanted into almost any framework, with external parties determining your RAM, your I/O options, the information bandwidth, the content you can see, what other selves you can engage with, and a host of other restrictions I would rather not contemplate. Now, also imagine that you are effectively immortal. Scared yet?

Holly Nelson

Don't be; she's had a notch in her hair for the last four strips...

@Milo, if that was in response to me saying that May can throw harder, remember that ever since she went to Faye &amp; Bubbles to get her shoulder fixed, her arm is working better than ever.

awgiedawgie

Pintsize discussed at one point <b>why</b> he didn’t want a more humanoid chassis. I am not where I can easily look up the relevant strip, but I seem to recall it had something to do with the fact that in his current form, he looks enough like a toy that he can get away with all the crap he pulls.

awgiedawgie

Imagine if you had some experience that you never wanted to talk about, and really didn’t want to have anyone dragging back into the forefront of your memories... Her reaction to Marigold is perfectly understandable. As Momo pointed out here, May is not the particularly forebearing type. Someone with a little more tact might have said something like “I really, <b>really</b> don’t want to talk about that, so please don’t ask me again.”

awgiedawgie

May has issues. This is known.

Gary Walker

"Hey, out of curiosity, how was it when you were running from life-threatening horrors and detained at the border when you were 5, then had been given to a new family, with a strong possibility to never see your real parents again? You can tell me, I changed my Twitter handle for a couple of days to support immigrants." I think May's reaction is justified and even somewhat restrained, given the circumstances.

Evgeniy Semyonov

Especially since he is about the only antroPC we know who hasn't jumped on the "human chassis" trend

Bagge

Some sort of low-achieving goof-ball, as far as I can tell

Bagge

Some things are universal

Bagge

Machine learning!

Bagge

I'm just sad there isn't a visual gag, like a little dent in Momo's chassi or something like that.

Bagge

Like all of us fleshy types, in fact

Ben Russell-Gough

The fact is that Pintsize actually seems to like his chassis. The questions isn't 'why doesn't he complain?' it's 'just what is his self-image that he likes that chassis?'

Ben Russell-Gough

That's something that Momo is having to learn; she had to learn it with Bubbles and I'm guessing that she'll have to learn it with May: No matter how good your intentions, it is very, very easy to be condescending if you don't think through the difference between theoretical attitudes and the actual experience that some people have. Additionally, this strip reminds us just how BAD Marigold is at empathy and social interactions.

Ben Russell-Gough

We need to remember that May was *THAT CLOSE* to getting her jet fighter chassis. That she views Robot Jail as being far worse than her current chassis (which she complains about endlessly), says volumes. I'm still wondering why Pintsize doesn't complain more about his chassis. Then I remember the Laser, and Thumb Lord. He seems to be content with his limitations, so long as he can use them for leverage.

BobC

its amazing that the cast can be so diverse in personality, yet they are all so unanimously adorable.

runrin

...so Momo's social protocol database is built at least partially from experience, then.

Eric Rucker

Well May is not quite adapted to sociality. And robot jail is one of the worst experience she has, It makes sense that she gets defensive about it.

Milo

with sh*tty body she has? I doubt it ^^;;;

Milo

I might understand May's reaction if Marigold was claiming to understand her experience except she never said anything like that. She just asked what it was out of curiosity only to have May lash out at her.

Brent Catherman

"If you can dodge a book, you can dodge a giant purple dildo"

MikeT

Fortunately, Momo can take a harder blow to the head than the average human. Then again, May can probably also <i>throw</i> harder than the average human.

awgiedawgie

Depends on the size of the book. Hardcover encyclopedia might brain someone.

MikeT

Yeah, May got a point.

Bagge

💯

Emma Humphries

I've been trying to figure out if there was a "Jurassic Momo" joke I was too dumb to pick up on.

Marc Kevin Hall

Is it just me or is Momo doing a Steve Irwin cosplay?

Gary Walker

Poor Marigold... Getting laid may have made you less innocent, but it didn't make you any less naïve.

awgiedawgie

Ooof. Trying to understand someone else's trauma is a hard task. Maybe ask Faye for tips.

Ted Van Roekel