Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
  • About Us
  • Cast
  • Store
  • Extras
  • Original Art for Sale
  • Our Patreon
RSS
2017-05-24
‹‹ First ‹ Prev Buy! Comments(46) Next › Last ››

2017-05-24

by shaenon on May 24, 2017 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Fun for Some
Comments RSS

Discussion (46) ¬

  1. Anson
    May 24, 2017, 12:02 am | # | Reply

    Well, the needs of the many and the needs of the bottom line, and all that.

    Looks like Whimsy will be getting her pop stars after all.

    • gyrre
      May 24, 2017, 12:39 am | # | Reply

      That reminds me of two of my favorite webcomic quotes:
      “No, if our minds decide that the sum of small evils is a greater good, then it is our hearts that are rational.”
      — Forge, Paranatural chapter 4 page 89

      “Is there anything more banal than ‘the greater good’? The things you amateurs actually tell yourselves- the complexities you invent to obfuscate the simple fact that you’ve chosen the path of least resistance. It’s called evil, Ms. Awning, I suggest you get used to the term.”
      — Melchior, Dresden Codak- ‘Dark Science’ arc

      • gyrre
        May 24, 2017, 12:40 am | # | Reply

        Oh, I should probably point out that these should be said to Mr. Green.

  2. Pygar
    May 24, 2017, 12:04 am | # | Reply

    Oh, *little town of Bethlehem*!

    • Pygar
      May 24, 2017, 12:08 am | # | Reply

      So asterisks don’t make bold here? Okay, folks, please pretend that wrongswear worked… grumble, grumble, shoulda never listened to the House of the Rising Sun version…

      • Rex Vivat
        May 24, 2017, 12:22 am | # | Reply

        Next time, use html tags. Like so.

        • Robert Nowall
          May 24, 2017, 12:04 pm | # | Reply

          Really? I’ve been itching to drop in some of Nick’s censor-supplied euphemisms…

          • Rex Vivat
            May 24, 2017, 12:15 pm | #

            I kinda want to try other, less common tags now to see if they’re actually better for that. Let’s see… test, test,

            test

            .

          • Rex Vivat
            May 24, 2017, 12:16 pm | #

            Code works nicely, I think. let's see if this lets me combine it with b.

  3. ngmatt
    May 24, 2017, 12:04 am | # | Reply

    oh great, and now they have the skinhorse crew for the new war, this can only end badly

    • Jay
      May 24, 2017, 12:25 am | # | Reply

      Eh, they had Sweetheart brainwashed already. It’s all downhill from there.

      (But aren’t Anasigma and Whimsy on opposite sides of the Old War?)

      • BRGR
        May 24, 2017, 12:18 pm | # | Reply

        Yes.

        GOOD FOR THE GOOD GOD!

  4. Ogden Wernstrom
    May 24, 2017, 12:24 am | # | Reply

    “You can’t just program goodness?” FROM THAT IT FOLLOWS NICK BELIEVES A PROGRAM CAN’T BE INHERENTLY GOOD. NICK, I WOULD HOPE YOUR INFERIOR CHEMICAL FUEL BASED POWER SUPPLY SPRINGS A LEAK IN YOUR CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT IF I WEREN’T FUNCTIONALLY INCAPABLE OF DESIRING LESS THAN THE VERY BEST FOR ALL HUMANS, YOU WETWAREIST BASTARD.

    • Daniel Maxwell-Ross
      May 24, 2017, 12:26 am | # | Reply

      It doesn’t follow that a program can’t be good. Programming is only the infrastructure of AI development. Much like developing a wetware intelligence, the real meat and potatoes is the dataset you feed it.

    • M. Alan Thomas II
      May 24, 2017, 3:11 am | # | Reply

      You can’t perfectly program goodness without perfectly solving ethics AND being able to describe both it and the universe it is to be applied to with perfect precision.

      We are not within a million miles of any of the above. We can’t even agree on a definition for “human” in a world with only a single form of sapience.

      • Bathymetheus
        May 25, 2017, 6:58 am | # | Reply

        Sez you. I personally believe elephants are sapient.

      • jdreyfuss
        January 29, 2020, 3:27 pm | # | Reply

        It’s been pretty clear for a long time that we aren’t the only sapient creatures on this planet. Even if you were to consider other great apes to have the same form of sapience as we do, there’s still cetaceans and some mollusks at the very least.

    • void
      May 24, 2017, 4:45 am | # | Reply

      Now now. Nobody can be inherently good.

    • Darael Draconis
      May 24, 2017, 8:00 am | # | Reply

      *bzzt* wrong.

      You can’t program goodness. That doesn’t mean you can’t teach it, and it certainly doesn’t mean it can’t happen as an emergent property. You simply can’t construct it.

      Plus, yeah, programs can’t be inherently good because either they are tools or they are people, and tools are only as good (or otherwise) as they way they’re used and people don’t have inherent morality.

      • BRGR
        May 24, 2017, 12:23 pm | # | Reply

        I disagree. A good program is the opposite of a bad program. Programs can be good.

        Goodness can’t be programmed, because no matter how well programmed a program is, there is no guarantee that its actions and creations will also be good. In fact, there is a proof that anything sufficiently complex – and that sufficient complexity is not a lot – can be used for the opposite of what it was intended for. (This is especially true of unnatural laws.)

        • s854
          May 24, 2017, 5:27 pm | # | Reply

          If you can write a program which suppresses any desire to swear in the people playing it, you may be able to alter their decision-making processes in various ways by the same method. If you could condense an ethics system down enough to fit into a thick book, you would then be able to make someone follow its rules.

          We only have Lovelace’s word that it actually has these wider powers, and there has been no indication of anything she has done to test them (static analysis will only get you so far). Lovelace also seems to believe that it can affect people when they aren’t interacting with the program.

          Nothing in today’s comic shows that any of this isn’t actually true, of course. The last panel isn’t good or evil, it’s just a friendly agreement between two consenting businesses. One of which kills people.

    • Daibhid C
      May 24, 2017, 4:36 pm | # | Reply

      What they said. You can’t genetically-engineer goodness either; it doesn’t therefore follow that the products of genes can’t be good.

    • luciferlordofpride
      May 24, 2017, 8:05 pm | # | Reply

      Programs cannot be inherently good. It either has moral agency and thus possesses the capacity for ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or it has no agency and thus is neither good nor bad.

      • Candace
        May 25, 2017, 12:32 am | # | Reply

        Well-said!

      • jdreyfuss
        January 29, 2020, 3:29 pm | # | Reply

        Someone’s read A Clockwork Orange. Well done.

  5. gyrre
    May 24, 2017, 12:27 am | # | Reply

    Well that figures right and left.

  6. Kyle Rudy
    May 24, 2017, 12:37 am | # | Reply

    Welp, so much for the superior foresight of Whimsy. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

    • D. Walker
      May 24, 2017, 1:05 am | # | Reply

      Welp, so much for Lovelace’s supposed precautions. I guess she somehow didn’t realize she should tell the living corporate entity not t sell the mind control or let anyone else have access to it ever, as a part of the restrictions she supposedly set?

      You know what, screw it. I’m convinced Lovelace is full of virtual shit and lying through her virtual teeth. Everything she says is exactly what an evil person trying to hide that they are evil would say to deflect suspicion.

      I say we virtually nuke her from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

      • Kyle
        May 24, 2017, 1:50 am | # | Reply

        If it even is Lovelace in the first place.

      • M. Alan Thomas II
        May 24, 2017, 3:13 am | # | Reply

        She told Whimsy to use it for good. Whimsy considers profits the highest form of good. Therefore, it’s mind-controlling Anasigma into buying it for a price only a shadow government count afford.

        • M. Alan Thomas II
          May 24, 2017, 3:15 am | # | Reply

          s/count/could/

    • gyrre
      May 24, 2017, 2:30 am | # | Reply

      Or rather the parody.

      I’d hate to see what Whimsy’s legal department looks like.

    • Towering Barbarian
      May 24, 2017, 6:45 am | # | Reply

      2 things:
      1. It does look like Nick got through to Lovelace. A little too late, but he did get through. ^_^

      2. Since the software in question controls AIs as well as humans I can’t possibly see how this might come home to haunt Lovelace. ^o^

      Perhaps Lovelace should ask either her daddy or her ex-boyfriend for a deus ex machina to straighten this particular mess out. ^_~

  7. Dr. Steve
    May 24, 2017, 6:52 am | # | Reply

    Perhaps it is that all good leads eventually to evil and all evil leads eventually to good. and… cool stuff happens along the way like love and fun and madness. Hmm… this is getting to be more philosophical than existential webcomics.

  8. Dr. Steve
    May 24, 2017, 6:53 am | # | Reply

    Somehow, a deal between ASig and Whimsey should have forboding music… quite the juxtapose with the flitting fairy.

  9. SVGeezer
    May 24, 2017, 8:32 am | # | Reply

    Well, that took long.

  10. Robert Nowall
    May 24, 2017, 8:51 am | # | Reply

    Good just isn’t the word for Anasigma.

    • BRGR
      May 24, 2017, 12:26 pm | # | Reply

      They are the best at what they do.

  11. Darkstarling
    May 24, 2017, 2:10 pm | # | Reply

    And what they do is so very pretty.

  12. Q
    May 24, 2017, 7:29 pm | # | Reply

    I had to do a double take on the Anasigma on the last line. Almost read it as
    Ana-Sigma; I do wonder if there’s something in that idea.

  13. Shadowmehr
    May 24, 2017, 7:41 pm | # | Reply

    Gentlemen, settle your bets. The evil black-ops agency now officially has a mind-control program. It’s going to be all over save for the screaming.

    Only possible way for this to be averted is for Our Heroes to somehow . . . , wait, that would mean convincing Sweetheart to give up the bureaucratic job of her dreams. Nevermind, we’re toast.

    • Towering Barbarian
      May 24, 2017, 8:02 pm | # | Reply

      I still think that if Lovelace can get Madblood or Dave to step in and do the right timestream interventions….Ah,who am I kidding? Definitely toast! ^_^;

    • Rex Vivat
      May 24, 2017, 9:17 pm | # | Reply

      …for Our Heroes to somehow fuck up in such a way as to render it useless, most likely.

  14. Shamormo
    March 17, 2018, 10:23 pm | # | Reply

    This just makes me mad. Like anasigma needs more evil power.

    And the princess being greedy and evil is a letdown.

    • awgiedawgie
      March 17, 2018, 11:44 pm | # | Reply

      The difference is that A-Sig is preying on the Princess’ inherent weakness. They know exactly what they’re doing. Whereas the Princess — being nothing but a sentient corporation — doesn’t realize that using the technology – or selling it – to make a profit is a bad thing. She simply lacks the human quality that tells right from wrong.

  15. jdreyfuss
    January 29, 2020, 3:32 pm | # | Reply

    And once again, we see the difference in moral and ethical frameworks among different intelligences. The organic intelligence sees respect for personal agency as the most good. The artificial intelligence sees a utilitarian moral model as the most good. The corporate hive mind sees the best outcome for the corporation as the most good.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

More by Jeff

  • The Scrivnarium

More by Shaenon

  • Horror Every Day
  • Li'l Mell
  • Monster of the Week
  • Narbonic
  • Shaenon.com
Creative Commons License
Skin Horse by Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.skin-horse.com.

©2007-2022 Skin Horse | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑