Surveil
Original: Surveil on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (wearing a headset/visor and gloves): NO. NO! I am not having a date with someone wearing surveillance gear!
Panel 2:
Woman (the one in surveillance gear): It is NOT surveillance. It is the acquisition of training data for future bots that need to know how to conduct first dates and related services.
Panel 3:
Woman in gear: The data taken during this interaction will be used EXCLUSIVELY for training models, never seen by humans, NOW TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INTERESTS AND BACKGROUND so we can have a NATURAL interaction.
Panel 4:
Man: Are they paying you for this?
Woman in gear: In the sense that they are not firing me from Facebook.
Panel 5:
Man: What about your self-respect?
Woman in gear: We have other people rigged up to measure that.
Panel 6:
Man: Why are you wearing haptic feedback gloves?
Woman in gear: In case things get interesting tonight.
Panel 7:
(No dialogue. The woman's gloved hand reaches toward the man's face.)
Panel 8:
Man (close-up, gritting teeth, looking displeased): Very well.
Votey:
Caption: LATER:
Voice (off-panel): LOOK AT ME, ZUCKERBERG! LOOK AT ME!
(A wide-open screaming mouth fills the panel.)
Woman (wearing a headset/visor and gloves): NO. NO! I am not having a date with someone wearing surveillance gear!
Panel 2:
Woman (the one in surveillance gear): It is NOT surveillance. It is the acquisition of training data for future bots that need to know how to conduct first dates and related services.
Panel 3:
Woman in gear: The data taken during this interaction will be used EXCLUSIVELY for training models, never seen by humans, NOW TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INTERESTS AND BACKGROUND so we can have a NATURAL interaction.
Panel 4:
Man: Are they paying you for this?
Woman in gear: In the sense that they are not firing me from Facebook.
Panel 5:
Man: What about your self-respect?
Woman in gear: We have other people rigged up to measure that.
Panel 6:
Man: Why are you wearing haptic feedback gloves?
Woman in gear: In case things get interesting tonight.
Panel 7:
(No dialogue. The woman's gloved hand reaches toward the man's face.)
Panel 8:
Man (close-up, gritting teeth, looking displeased): Very well.
Votey:
Caption: LATER:
Voice (off-panel): LOOK AT ME, ZUCKERBERG! LOOK AT ME!
(A wide-open screaming mouth fills the panel.)
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic about a date interrupted by corporate data collection. A woman wearing a tech visor/headset and haptic gloves insists to her date that she is NOT wearing surveillance gear, it is just "the acquisition of training data for future bots that need to know how to conduct first dates." She says the data will be used exclusively for training models, never seen by humans, then immediately demands he tell her about his interests so they can have a "natural" interaction. He asks if she's being paid; she says only "in the sense that they are not firing me from Facebook." He asks about her self-respect; she says "we have other people rigged up to measure that." He asks why she's wearing haptic feedback gloves; she says "in case things get interesting tonight." Her gloved hand reaches toward his face, and in a tight close-up he grits his teeth and says "Very well." In the votey, captioned LATER, an extreme close-up of a screaming open mouth shouts "LOOK AT ME, ZUCKERBERG! LOOK AT ME!"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.