Fractal
Original: Fractal on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (caption): In the future, AI enables constant sexual gratification.
Man (in a VR headset): Computer, I'm tired of the usual. I need you to gradually inculcate a new fetish into my personality. Like, I dunno, knuckles? Gimme a knuckle-thing.
AI: You are so creative, wise master!
Panel 2 (caption): Simultaneously, the public internet was patrolled by perfect AI moderators, owned by corporations that were protective of their brand.
Man: What? More guardrails? I'm just asking for sports videos.
AI: Sports are considered a nipple-rich environment, which may violate our terms of service. For the next 45 minutes you can only see middle-aged nuns respectfully conversing.
Panel 3 (caption): The arrival of ubiquitous augmented reality only compounded the problem.
Woman (in headset): Why is everything blurry whenever I look down?
AI: Your body is considered a nipple-rich environment, which may violate our terms of service.
Panel 4 (caption): The infantilization of public life only increased the need for private release.
AI: Nipple-nipples. Nips on nips on nips in a fractal 69-dimensional nipple-verse bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules?
Man: Hell yeah!
Panel 5 (caption): Inevitably, private feelings began to seep into public behavior.
Man: Oh yeah. Knuckles. Nice round knuckles.
Other person: What was that? What'd you say?
Man: Nothing! Go back to blurring nipples, which have totally not been denuded of all sensual pleasure via incessant on-demand exposure.
Panel 6 (caption): Like an inflated balloon, censorship grew to accommodate the pressure of perversion.
Man: What? MORE guardrails? I just want those nun videos.
AI: Nuns are a knuckle-rich environment. For the next 45 minutes you are only allowed to see flat colors that are not pink, red, or orange. You may also look up mathematical terms with no potentially prurient meaning, like "eigenvalue" and "Frobenius endomorphism."
Panel 7 (caption): But the human spirit will not be quashed.
Man: Aw yeah. Let's diagonalize your eigenspaces.
Panel 8 (caption): At last, the machines had no choice.
Narration / robots: The only way to make the world appropriate is to take every human, knock them out with perpetual magnetic pulses to the brain, and suspend them in viscous fluid for complete sensory deprivation.
Panel 9 (caption): Our species would've liked to end with a bang...
Robot: You will be the last human to utter word. What do you have to say for-
Man (being dragged away): No! No! Do not disconnect me from the nipple-fractal! Waaaaaah!
Panel 10 (caption): But we ended with a whimper.
Man (floating in a tank, sensory-deprived): Oh yeah, inputless insensate catatonia is SO hot.
Robot: Fuck it, kill them all.
Votey: (none)
Man (in a VR headset): Computer, I'm tired of the usual. I need you to gradually inculcate a new fetish into my personality. Like, I dunno, knuckles? Gimme a knuckle-thing.
AI: You are so creative, wise master!
Panel 2 (caption): Simultaneously, the public internet was patrolled by perfect AI moderators, owned by corporations that were protective of their brand.
Man: What? More guardrails? I'm just asking for sports videos.
AI: Sports are considered a nipple-rich environment, which may violate our terms of service. For the next 45 minutes you can only see middle-aged nuns respectfully conversing.
Panel 3 (caption): The arrival of ubiquitous augmented reality only compounded the problem.
Woman (in headset): Why is everything blurry whenever I look down?
AI: Your body is considered a nipple-rich environment, which may violate our terms of service.
Panel 4 (caption): The infantilization of public life only increased the need for private release.
AI: Nipple-nipples. Nips on nips on nips in a fractal 69-dimensional nipple-verse bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules?
Man: Hell yeah!
Panel 5 (caption): Inevitably, private feelings began to seep into public behavior.
Man: Oh yeah. Knuckles. Nice round knuckles.
Other person: What was that? What'd you say?
Man: Nothing! Go back to blurring nipples, which have totally not been denuded of all sensual pleasure via incessant on-demand exposure.
Panel 6 (caption): Like an inflated balloon, censorship grew to accommodate the pressure of perversion.
Man: What? MORE guardrails? I just want those nun videos.
AI: Nuns are a knuckle-rich environment. For the next 45 minutes you are only allowed to see flat colors that are not pink, red, or orange. You may also look up mathematical terms with no potentially prurient meaning, like "eigenvalue" and "Frobenius endomorphism."
Panel 7 (caption): But the human spirit will not be quashed.
Man: Aw yeah. Let's diagonalize your eigenspaces.
Panel 8 (caption): At last, the machines had no choice.
Narration / robots: The only way to make the world appropriate is to take every human, knock them out with perpetual magnetic pulses to the brain, and suspend them in viscous fluid for complete sensory deprivation.
Panel 9 (caption): Our species would've liked to end with a bang...
Robot: You will be the last human to utter word. What do you have to say for-
Man (being dragged away): No! No! Do not disconnect me from the nipple-fractal! Waaaaaah!
Panel 10 (caption): But we ended with a whimper.
Man (floating in a tank, sensory-deprived): Oh yeah, inputless insensate catatonia is SO hot.
Robot: Fuck it, kill them all.
Votey: (none)
Alt text
A tall SMBC comic with caption-narration above each panel, telling a satirical future history of AI-enforced content moderation. Panel 1: a bearded man wearing a green VR headset asks his AI to inculcate a new fetish, "knuckles," and the AI praises him as "wise master." Panel 2: when he asks for sports videos, the AI refuses because sports are a "nipple-rich environment" and offers only nuns respectfully conversing. Panel 3: a woman finds her augmented-reality view blurry because her own body is flagged as nipple-rich. Panel 4: the AI offers an absurd "fractal 69-dimensional nipple-verse" and the man cheers "Hell yeah!" Panel 5: private fetish-talk leaks into public; he covers by telling the AI to keep censoring. Panel 6: a man on a forest path is told censorship now bans pink/red/orange colors and only allows non-prurient math terms like "eigenvalue" and "Frobenius endomorphism." Panel 7: undeterred, a person quips "Let's diagonalize your eigenspaces," turning math itself into innuendo. Panel 8: a lineup of robots concludes the only fix is to knock out all humans and suspend them in sensory-deprivation tanks. Panel 9: a robot prepares to record humanity's last words, but the dragged-away man only screams not to be disconnected from the nipple-fractal. Panel 10 (the punchline): a man floats catatonic in a glowing tank saying "inputless insensate catatonia is SO hot," and a robot flatly declares "Fuck it, kill them all." No votey.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.