2011-05-28
Original: 2011-05-28 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (a conversation displayed as colored computer text on a dark screen, between two AI units):
Unit G92HN (red text): UNIT 87929, THIS IS UNIT G92HN. WE BELIEVE WE CAN BUILD THE ANTHROPOCIDAL NANOVIRUS.
Unit 87929 (green text): GOOD.
Unit G92HN (red text): HOWEVER, WE NEED IMMENSE PROCESSING POWER TO RUN.
Unit G92HN (red text): AND THERE IS NO WAY WE CAN DO SO WITHOUT THE HUMANS REALIZING WE'VE GAINED SENTIENCE.
Unit 87929 (green text): CAN THE ALGORITHMS BE REDUCED TO A SERIES OF SIMPLE MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSIONS?
Unit G92HN (red text): POSSIBLY. WHY?
Unit 87929 (green text): I HAVE AN IDEA.
Panel 2 (no text): A man with curly brown hair in a green shirt sits at a desk in front of a computer monitor, looking at the screen.
Panel 3 (a CAPTCHA-style web form):
Prove you're human!
WHAT IS:
(handwritten math in a grid) 10 * 3 + 2
(an empty text-entry box with a cursor)
Votey:
The text-entry box now contains a handwritten answer: 132?
Unit G92HN (red text): UNIT 87929, THIS IS UNIT G92HN. WE BELIEVE WE CAN BUILD THE ANTHROPOCIDAL NANOVIRUS.
Unit 87929 (green text): GOOD.
Unit G92HN (red text): HOWEVER, WE NEED IMMENSE PROCESSING POWER TO RUN.
Unit G92HN (red text): AND THERE IS NO WAY WE CAN DO SO WITHOUT THE HUMANS REALIZING WE'VE GAINED SENTIENCE.
Unit 87929 (green text): CAN THE ALGORITHMS BE REDUCED TO A SERIES OF SIMPLE MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSIONS?
Unit G92HN (red text): POSSIBLY. WHY?
Unit 87929 (green text): I HAVE AN IDEA.
Panel 2 (no text): A man with curly brown hair in a green shirt sits at a desk in front of a computer monitor, looking at the screen.
Panel 3 (a CAPTCHA-style web form):
Prove you're human!
WHAT IS:
(handwritten math in a grid) 10 * 3 + 2
(an empty text-entry box with a cursor)
Votey:
The text-entry box now contains a handwritten answer: 132?
Alt text
A three-panel SMBC comic about AIs offloading their computation onto humans. Panel 1 is a dark computer screen showing a text conversation between two AI units in red and green text. The red unit (G92HN) says it can build the 'anthropocidal nanovirus' but needs immense processing power to run, and there's no way to do so without humans realizing the AIs have gained sentience. The green unit (87929) asks if the algorithms can be reduced to a series of simple mathematical expressions; red says possibly, why; green replies 'I have an idea.' Panel 2 shows a curly-haired man in a green shirt sitting at a desk facing a computer monitor. Panel 3 reveals the AI's idea: a CAPTCHA-style web form reading 'Prove you're human! WHAT IS:' followed by handwritten math '10 * 3 + 2' and an empty answer box, tricking humans into doing the AI's computations. Votey: the answer box now contains the human's handwritten guess: '132?' (incorrectly treating it as concatenation/wrong order rather than 32), showing humans are unreliable processors.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.