2010-01-14
Original: 2010-01-14 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (graph): A line graph. Y-axis label: "CALCULATIONS PER SECOND PER $1,000". X-axis label: "TIME". A point near the far right of the X-axis is labeled "Present". The curve rises slowly along the bottom and then shoots up sharply (exponentially) near the present.
Panel 2: A balding man in a green sweater stands at a podium, holding a pointer, lecturing to an audience seen from behind.
Lecturer: "So, processing power grows exponentially. Eventually, we reach a technological singularity, where computing power becomes nearly infinite. Then, we'll be able to modify and improve our brains far beyond current human intelligence."
Panel 3: A woman in the audience with reddish hair and glasses raises a finger and speaks.
Woman: "So... after all the work to make this happen, the engineers who built all the machines will be no better than the people who loafed around, watching TV all day?"
Panel 4: A close-up of the lecturer's face. He looks deflated and unhappy, saying nothing.
Panel 5 (graph): The same axes — Y-axis "CALCULATIONS PER SECOND PER $1,000", X-axis "TIME" — but now the curve only rises into a small, modest bump near the right before falling back down, instead of shooting to infinity.
Votey: A bearded man (drawn in a sketchy black-and-white style) gestures toward a small striped pie-chart wedge.
Man: "Technically, it's only 2/5ths graph joke."
Panel 2: A balding man in a green sweater stands at a podium, holding a pointer, lecturing to an audience seen from behind.
Lecturer: "So, processing power grows exponentially. Eventually, we reach a technological singularity, where computing power becomes nearly infinite. Then, we'll be able to modify and improve our brains far beyond current human intelligence."
Panel 3: A woman in the audience with reddish hair and glasses raises a finger and speaks.
Woman: "So... after all the work to make this happen, the engineers who built all the machines will be no better than the people who loafed around, watching TV all day?"
Panel 4: A close-up of the lecturer's face. He looks deflated and unhappy, saying nothing.
Panel 5 (graph): The same axes — Y-axis "CALCULATIONS PER SECOND PER $1,000", X-axis "TIME" — but now the curve only rises into a small, modest bump near the right before falling back down, instead of shooting to infinity.
Votey: A bearded man (drawn in a sketchy black-and-white style) gestures toward a small striped pie-chart wedge.
Man: "Technically, it's only 2/5ths graph joke."
Alt text
A six-part SMBC comic. Panel 1 is a line graph titled "calculations per second per $1,000" against "time," with the curve climbing slowly then rocketing upward near a point marked "Present" — the classic exponential singularity graph. Panel 2: a balding lecturer in a green sweater at a podium tells an audience that processing power grows exponentially until a technological singularity makes computing power nearly infinite, letting us improve our brains far beyond human intelligence. Panel 3: a woman with red hair and glasses raises a finger and asks whether, after all that work, the engineers who built the machines will be no better off than the people who loafed around watching TV all day. Panel 4: a deflated close-up of the lecturer's unhappy face, silent. Panel 5: the same graph redrawn, but now the curve only manages a small bump near the end before sagging back down — the optimistic future deflated along with his mood. Votey panel: a sketchy bearded man points at a tiny striped pie wedge and says, "Technically, it's only 2/5ths graph joke," noting that only two of the five panels are graphs.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.