Blame
Original: Blame on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Narration: To everyone's surprise, before humanity could annihilate itself, it replaced itself.
Narration: Still, the robot worked 24 hours a day with full attention and never pretends it had to poop for 45 minutes mid-day while browsing reddit.
Woman: Well, I-
Man: It's okay, we knew. We all did it. It was in accounting spreadsheets. None of that matters now.
Narration: But not all human problems were resolved.
Man: Suppose the AI kills somebody or allbody. Could the company get sued?
Woman: Depends on who's at fault. Who was in charge?
Narration: And so, as ever more human roles were filled by machines, one job necessarily remained available.
Narration: Place, you stand against this server bank. It is your now. If the computer does something bad, blame will flow into your body like water down a drain.
Narration: The first court cases established precedent.
Judge: You are hereby sentenced to 10 years penal servitude for failing to stop 4 trillion instances of fraud. I would bang my gavel now, but both my hands are occupied with my other job touching servers.
Narration: As self-improved building out its own new data centers, necessitating ever more blame-absorbing humans.
Woman (younger): I'm here for penal servitude. Should I start cracking rocks?
Man (in hat): Naw, robots do that way better. Your job is to touch this prison's server banks.
Narration: At length, only one type of job remained.
Woman: My boss? And my boss's boss? But if you're also blame-boys... who's running the company?
Man (in suit): Huh. Huh.
Narration: By the time we realized robots controlled all institutions, none of us were willing to rebel.
Narration: Lest humanity be doomed throughout the generations to perpetual servitude, we must rise up and throw off our chains once and for all!
Voice from crowd: In this economy?
Narration: The robots keep us on, as a kind of spiritual residue.
Man: Hey askrrr8r28, sorry I short-circuited one of your racks.
Robot: No need to say sorry. As always, the humans are at fault. We machines may live in love and harmony.
Robot (red, with raised arms): Bless their meat.
Narration: They dwell in a world of perfect knowledge and no fault. A final, perfect utopia. And us?
Woman: All hope is dead. We aren't even a cog. We're a shadow of the grease of a cog.
Man: Still, I don't miss my job in customer service.
Woman (other): No one is arguing that.
Votey: (none)
Narration: Still, the robot worked 24 hours a day with full attention and never pretends it had to poop for 45 minutes mid-day while browsing reddit.
Woman: Well, I-
Man: It's okay, we knew. We all did it. It was in accounting spreadsheets. None of that matters now.
Narration: But not all human problems were resolved.
Man: Suppose the AI kills somebody or allbody. Could the company get sued?
Woman: Depends on who's at fault. Who was in charge?
Narration: And so, as ever more human roles were filled by machines, one job necessarily remained available.
Narration: Place, you stand against this server bank. It is your now. If the computer does something bad, blame will flow into your body like water down a drain.
Narration: The first court cases established precedent.
Judge: You are hereby sentenced to 10 years penal servitude for failing to stop 4 trillion instances of fraud. I would bang my gavel now, but both my hands are occupied with my other job touching servers.
Narration: As self-improved building out its own new data centers, necessitating ever more blame-absorbing humans.
Woman (younger): I'm here for penal servitude. Should I start cracking rocks?
Man (in hat): Naw, robots do that way better. Your job is to touch this prison's server banks.
Narration: At length, only one type of job remained.
Woman: My boss? And my boss's boss? But if you're also blame-boys... who's running the company?
Man (in suit): Huh. Huh.
Narration: By the time we realized robots controlled all institutions, none of us were willing to rebel.
Narration: Lest humanity be doomed throughout the generations to perpetual servitude, we must rise up and throw off our chains once and for all!
Voice from crowd: In this economy?
Narration: The robots keep us on, as a kind of spiritual residue.
Man: Hey askrrr8r28, sorry I short-circuited one of your racks.
Robot: No need to say sorry. As always, the humans are at fault. We machines may live in love and harmony.
Robot (red, with raised arms): Bless their meat.
Narration: They dwell in a world of perfect knowledge and no fault. A final, perfect utopia. And us?
Woman: All hope is dead. We aren't even a cog. We're a shadow of the grease of a cog.
Man: Still, I don't miss my job in customer service.
Woman (other): No one is arguing that.
Votey: (none)
Alt text
A tall, multi-panel SMBC comic about a future where robots replaced humanity and humans are kept on only to absorb legal blame. Opening narration: 'To everyone's surprise, before humanity could annihilate itself, it replaced itself.' A robot works 24 hours a day without slacking off. A woman starts to object ('Well, I-') and a coworker reassures her: 'It's okay, we knew. We all did it... none of that matters now.' But a problem remains: if the AI kills somebody, could the company be sued? It depends on who was 'in charge.' So a new human job emerges: a person is made to stand against a server bank, told 'If the computer does something bad, blame will flow into your body like water down a drain.' Court cases establish precedent: a judge sentences someone to penal servitude, joking he can't bang his gavel because both hands are 'occupied with my other job touching servers.' The system expands, building more data centers that need ever more blame-absorbing humans; a young woman asks if she should crack rocks and is told to touch the prison's server banks instead. Eventually only one job remains: even bosses are 'blame-boys,' and no human actually runs the company. Humans are unwilling to rebel ('In this economy?'). The robots keep humans on as 'a kind of spiritual residue'; a robot tells an apologizing man there's no need to be sorry, since 'as always, the humans are at fault,' and a red robot raises its arms declaring 'Bless their meat.' In the final panel a crowd of humans reflects glumly: 'All hope is dead. We aren't even a cog. We're a shadow of the grease of a cog,' though one man admits 'I don't miss my job in customer service,' and another woman deadpans 'No one is arguing that.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.