the-ethical-singularity
Original: the-ethical-singularity on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1: Woman: "We're approaching an ethical singularity."
Panel 2: Woman: "Each new generation is horrified by the ethics of the last, but we also consider the last generation's ethics 'a bit much.'"
Panel 3: Woman: "And the pace is accelerating."
Panel 4: Woman: "What now takes a generation once took 1000 years. By the Renaissance it was down to 100 years. After the Industrial Revolution, it fell to 50 years. Now it's about 20."
Panel 5: Woman: "By the year 2050, we'll find ourselves unwanethanked savages and ourselves from tomorrow to be ideological radicals."
Panel 6: Woman: "By the year 2100 we'll be in a state of continuous judgment and enlightenment, unable to speak because the first halves of our sentences will be socially repulsive."
Panel 7: Man: "Pfft. That's easy to fix. We just need computationally difficult forms of judgment."
Panel 8: Woman: "Do unto others as you would be done by, but only after you've found all the prime factors of the sum of the two largest known primes."
Panel 9: Man (wearing glasses): "I don't think ethics should be tied to CPU performance."
Bottom caption: "HOW BACKWARDS."
Votey: A large close-up of a man's face, looking sad/disappointed with a downturned mouth. Speech: "You disgust me."
Panel 2: Woman: "Each new generation is horrified by the ethics of the last, but we also consider the last generation's ethics 'a bit much.'"
Panel 3: Woman: "And the pace is accelerating."
Panel 4: Woman: "What now takes a generation once took 1000 years. By the Renaissance it was down to 100 years. After the Industrial Revolution, it fell to 50 years. Now it's about 20."
Panel 5: Woman: "By the year 2050, we'll find ourselves unwanethanked savages and ourselves from tomorrow to be ideological radicals."
Panel 6: Woman: "By the year 2100 we'll be in a state of continuous judgment and enlightenment, unable to speak because the first halves of our sentences will be socially repulsive."
Panel 7: Man: "Pfft. That's easy to fix. We just need computationally difficult forms of judgment."
Panel 8: Woman: "Do unto others as you would be done by, but only after you've found all the prime factors of the sum of the two largest known primes."
Panel 9: Man (wearing glasses): "I don't think ethics should be tied to CPU performance."
Bottom caption: "HOW BACKWARDS."
Votey: A large close-up of a man's face, looking sad/disappointed with a downturned mouth. Speech: "You disgust me."
Alt text
A nine-panel SMBC comic alternating between a woman and a man discussing the future of ethics. The woman explains that we're approaching an 'ethical singularity': each generation is horrified by the previous generation's ethics while also finding them 'a bit much,' and this moral churn is accelerating, from 1000 years per shift down to about 20 years now. She predicts that by 2050 we'll view yesterday's selves as savages, and by 2100 we'll be unable to even speak because the first half of any sentence will already be socially repulsive. The man jokes the fix is 'computationally difficult forms of judgment,' so the woman proposes: 'Do unto others as you would be done by, but only after you've found all the prime factors of the sum of the two largest known primes.' A bespectacled man objects that ethics shouldn't be tied to CPU performance. A bottom caption reads 'HOW BACKWARDS.' Votey: an extreme close-up of a man's sad, slack-jawed face saying 'You disgust me.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.