clouds-2
Original: clouds-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Man (lying on a hillside): I guess when you look up there, you don't imagine anything. You just see clouds.
Panel 2:
Robot: Oh, no. Of course I DO see clouds. I do see the motion of suspended water and ice crystals.
Panel 3:
Robot: But I also see the cloud as a part of a vast climatic system - a thin sphere of flows and whirls, gaps in the sky that open, close, that rend the ground with violence, that water the thinnest of orchids.
Panel 4:
Robot: At the same time I see that water is intermolecular forces and ionic bonds, a dance of uncountable points on the shell of a blue sphere hung under a far off star.
Panel 5:
Robot: And the atoms of water themselves aren't particular, but infinite ripples borne on invisible fields, stretching beyond human sight, journeying wherever the great first motion told them to go.
Panel 6:
Robot: And if I use every bit of my processing power, classical and quantum, I can see it all as a palimpsest of beauties, each bearing you along to the truth, until you find you've arrived back at the beginning.
Panel 7:
Man: Ah.
Panel 8:
Man: What do you see?
Robot: A turtle with, like, two heads.
Panel 9:
Man: And good for you, buddy!
Votey:
Robot: Well, at least I won't feel bad during the humanicide.
(Below: a TV/monitor screen displaying a single eye-like or cell-like shape.)
Man (lying on a hillside): I guess when you look up there, you don't imagine anything. You just see clouds.
Panel 2:
Robot: Oh, no. Of course I DO see clouds. I do see the motion of suspended water and ice crystals.
Panel 3:
Robot: But I also see the cloud as a part of a vast climatic system - a thin sphere of flows and whirls, gaps in the sky that open, close, that rend the ground with violence, that water the thinnest of orchids.
Panel 4:
Robot: At the same time I see that water is intermolecular forces and ionic bonds, a dance of uncountable points on the shell of a blue sphere hung under a far off star.
Panel 5:
Robot: And the atoms of water themselves aren't particular, but infinite ripples borne on invisible fields, stretching beyond human sight, journeying wherever the great first motion told them to go.
Panel 6:
Robot: And if I use every bit of my processing power, classical and quantum, I can see it all as a palimpsest of beauties, each bearing you along to the truth, until you find you've arrived back at the beginning.
Panel 7:
Man: Ah.
Panel 8:
Man: What do you see?
Robot: A turtle with, like, two heads.
Panel 9:
Man: And good for you, buddy!
Votey:
Robot: Well, at least I won't feel bad during the humanicide.
(Below: a TV/monitor screen displaying a single eye-like or cell-like shape.)
Alt text
A nine-panel SMBC comic. A red-haired man and a rounded robot lie side by side on a grassy hillside, cloud-watching against a blue sky. The man says he figures the robot doesn't imagine anything when it looks up, it just sees clouds. The robot delivers a long, rapturous monologue: it DOES see clouds, but also sees the cloud as part of a vast climatic system, a thin sphere of flows that rends the ground and waters the thinnest of orchids; it sees water as intermolecular forces and ionic bonds, a dance of uncountable points on a blue sphere hung under a far-off star; the atoms as infinite ripples on invisible fields; and using all its classical and quantum processing power, it sees it all as a 'palimpsest of beauties' bearing you to the truth until you arrive back at the beginning. The man simply replies 'Ah.' Then he asks what the robot sees, and the robot, pointing at a cloud, says 'A turtle with, like, two heads.' The man cheerfully replies 'And good for you, buddy!' The joke is that the robot's transcendent cosmic perception still lands on the same goofy cloud-shape game humans play. Votey: The robot adds, 'Well, at least I won't feel bad during the humanicide,' beneath an image of a screen showing a single staring eye-like shape, implying the friendly robot is secretly contemplating wiping out humanity.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.