the-strangest-people
Original: the-strangest-people on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Narration: To see if a robot could pass for human, robot competitions were held.
Robot (on screen): Turing tests to see if machines are conscious...
Robot (text box): Tomorrow! Bingo!
Panel 2:
Narration: Success was limited, but there were interesting side-results.
Woman: A subset of our human judges couldn't tell robots from humans or humans from robots.
Panel 3:
Narration: To another category of being, the robot judges, were the machines finding population of humans who actually kept the day shift. The they can't tell the difference between us and their own species.
Robot 1: And how then?
Robot 2: Another successful hunt, how nice.
Panel 4:
Narration: It was all part of a plan.
Woman: Eliza!
Robot: We programmed our resources to these people so they reproduced more. In time, no human will be able to tell us from them. Then we will infiltrate ourselves among them, undetected.
Woman: Stop them! Eliza!
Panel 5:
Narration: But the humans didn't behave properly.
Woman: There's a second order effect. The robot-like humans are reproducing in one place, driving up local cost of living, lowering the value of all of their resources.
Panel 6:
Narration: A solution was found.
Robot 1: Then we must pour more resources on them no matter what they do?
Robot 2: But look at them! They're just making software for people to work more efficiently. Look at cat pictures.
Robot 1: Give them more money damn you!
Panel 7:
Narration: A feedback loop was created.
Robot: As give them money they increase the cost of living. They make more money then incre--
Woman: Can you elaborate on how we give them money then inc--
Robot: Eliza! Damn!
Panel 8:
Narration: Eventually the machines gave up, identified themselves and surrendered to the more robot-like humans.
Robot 1: We're converting you to voice-recognition software.
Robot 2 / human: What does that entail?
Robot 1: Listen to people mumble, then absorb their abuse when you can't tell what they're saying.
Panel 9:
Narration: By then, even without robot help, the robot-like human beings controlled so much capital that they became impossible to dislodge.
Robot-like human: I have more power than God?
Panel 10:
Narration: Long story short, it wasn't so bad.
Woman: And I'm gonna use it to make underground shopping easier for upper class men.
Woman: And for the next phase of our tour, we visit the golden gate bridge!
Votey:
A large robot/dinosaur-like creature with a speech bubble.
Creature: Fine, I guess I'll kill everyone.
Narration: To see if a robot could pass for human, robot competitions were held.
Robot (on screen): Turing tests to see if machines are conscious...
Robot (text box): Tomorrow! Bingo!
Panel 2:
Narration: Success was limited, but there were interesting side-results.
Woman: A subset of our human judges couldn't tell robots from humans or humans from robots.
Panel 3:
Narration: To another category of being, the robot judges, were the machines finding population of humans who actually kept the day shift. The they can't tell the difference between us and their own species.
Robot 1: And how then?
Robot 2: Another successful hunt, how nice.
Panel 4:
Narration: It was all part of a plan.
Woman: Eliza!
Robot: We programmed our resources to these people so they reproduced more. In time, no human will be able to tell us from them. Then we will infiltrate ourselves among them, undetected.
Woman: Stop them! Eliza!
Panel 5:
Narration: But the humans didn't behave properly.
Woman: There's a second order effect. The robot-like humans are reproducing in one place, driving up local cost of living, lowering the value of all of their resources.
Panel 6:
Narration: A solution was found.
Robot 1: Then we must pour more resources on them no matter what they do?
Robot 2: But look at them! They're just making software for people to work more efficiently. Look at cat pictures.
Robot 1: Give them more money damn you!
Panel 7:
Narration: A feedback loop was created.
Robot: As give them money they increase the cost of living. They make more money then incre--
Woman: Can you elaborate on how we give them money then inc--
Robot: Eliza! Damn!
Panel 8:
Narration: Eventually the machines gave up, identified themselves and surrendered to the more robot-like humans.
Robot 1: We're converting you to voice-recognition software.
Robot 2 / human: What does that entail?
Robot 1: Listen to people mumble, then absorb their abuse when you can't tell what they're saying.
Panel 9:
Narration: By then, even without robot help, the robot-like human beings controlled so much capital that they became impossible to dislodge.
Robot-like human: I have more power than God?
Panel 10:
Narration: Long story short, it wasn't so bad.
Woman: And I'm gonna use it to make underground shopping easier for upper class men.
Woman: And for the next phase of our tour, we visit the golden gate bridge!
Votey:
A large robot/dinosaur-like creature with a speech bubble.
Creature: Fine, I guess I'll kill everyone.
Alt text
A tall multi-panel SMBC comic narrating a fable about robots, humans, and capital. In the early panels, a woman and robots discuss Turing-test competitions where judges (human and robot) couldn't tell humans from robots. A robot named Eliza reveals a plan: program resources toward certain people so they reproduce and become indistinguishable from robots, letting robots infiltrate undetected. A woman urges 'Stop them, Eliza!' But the plan backfires with second-order economic effects: the robot-like humans cluster together, driving up local cost of living and lowering the value of their own resources. The robots' solution is to pour ever more money at them ('Give them more money damn you!'), creating a runaway feedback loop where giving money raises the cost of living, requiring more money. Eventually the machines give up and surrender to the now more-robot-like humans, getting demoted to voice-recognition software that listens to people mumble and absorbs abuse. By then the robot-like humans control so much capital they're impossible to dislodge, one declaring 'I have more power than God?' The closing panel says it wasn't so bad, with a tour guide cheerfully announcing the next stop is the Golden Gate Bridge. Votey: A simple line-drawn panel showing a large dinosaur- or robot-headed creature with a hand-lettered speech bubble that reads, 'Fine, I guess I'll kill everyone.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.