investment-2
Original: investment-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman with grey hair and glasses (addressing Congress from a podium): Ladies and gentlemen of Congress, I have bad economic news.
Panel 2:
Woman (holding a sheet of paper): Historically it has been very hard to measure whether or not our economy offers many good investment opportunities.
Panel 3:
Woman: However, new methods have been discovered. Economists can now determine how many good opportunities exist by seeing how much money we can raise for transparently idiotic startups.
Panel 4:
A man seated at a table (one of two seated listeners): How bad is it?
Panel 5:
Woman (holding a balloon labeled "A.I."): As of this morning, I myself secured 40 million dollars in series A funding for this balloon on which I have written "AI" with a sharpie.
Panel 6:
The two seated listeners react.
First listener: Wow! Wow! Amazing! When is series B?
Second listener: May God have mercy on us all.
Votey:
The woman, still holding the "A.I." balloon, addresses an off-panel bidder.
Woman: I've sold all available shares in the balloon but I do have this statistics textbook, which is AI in the sense that there's statistics going on inside it.
Bidder (off-panel): Sold!
Woman with grey hair and glasses (addressing Congress from a podium): Ladies and gentlemen of Congress, I have bad economic news.
Panel 2:
Woman (holding a sheet of paper): Historically it has been very hard to measure whether or not our economy offers many good investment opportunities.
Panel 3:
Woman: However, new methods have been discovered. Economists can now determine how many good opportunities exist by seeing how much money we can raise for transparently idiotic startups.
Panel 4:
A man seated at a table (one of two seated listeners): How bad is it?
Panel 5:
Woman (holding a balloon labeled "A.I."): As of this morning, I myself secured 40 million dollars in series A funding for this balloon on which I have written "AI" with a sharpie.
Panel 6:
The two seated listeners react.
First listener: Wow! Wow! Amazing! When is series B?
Second listener: May God have mercy on us all.
Votey:
The woman, still holding the "A.I." balloon, addresses an off-panel bidder.
Woman: I've sold all available shares in the balloon but I do have this statistics textbook, which is AI in the sense that there's statistics going on inside it.
Bidder (off-panel): Sold!
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. A grey-haired woman in glasses stands at a podium addressing Congress. She says: "Ladies and gentlemen of Congress, I have bad economic news. Historically it has been very hard to measure whether or not our economy offers many good investment opportunities. However, new methods have been discovered. Economists can now determine how many good opportunities exist by seeing how much money we can raise for transparently idiotic startups." A seated man asks, "How bad is it?" The woman holds up a plain balloon with "A.I." written on it in marker and replies, "As of this morning, I myself secured 40 million dollars in series A funding for this balloon on which I have written 'AI' with a sharpie." The two listeners react: one cheers "Wow! Wow! Amazing! When is series B?" while the other groans, "May God have mercy on us all." The joke skewers AI investment hype by treating a marker-labeled balloon as a fundable startup. Votey (aftercomic): The woman, still holding the balloon, says, "I've sold all available shares in the balloon but I do have this statistics textbook, which is AI in the sense that there's statistics going on inside it." An off-panel bidder immediately shouts, "Sold!"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.