[1549] The sum of our parts

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darrin
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by darrin » Mon Feb 18, 2019 3:22 pm

Oh snap I called it. :lol: I said in twitch that the waitress had padded the bill... ok my model was Ashe signalling her to add a lobster or two but the outcome is the same. 8-) (Of course a cafe doesn't serve lobster, but the delivery charges were going to be part of the padding, insult to injury as they say.)
paarfi wrote:
Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:54 am
“Do not meddle in the affairs of foxgirls, for they are subtle and quick to anger.”
"Go not to the foxgirls for counsel, for they will say both 'mou' and 'feh'."
Those were also in twitch, to which my contribution was "Claws of the foxgirls! The foxgirls are upon you!" (Which would sound cooler in Khuzdul of course, but I don't know how to say "fox" let alone "foxgirl". :()
Okashinamaru wrote:
Sun Feb 17, 2019 11:40 pm
A girl threw a TANTRUM guys!
You are im_done, and I claim my five pounds.
Teddy-Werebear wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 12:01 am
I stand by my douche chills for Dr. Feelgood. He is a creeper.
Like I've been trying to get across for the past five threads or so, you "creeper" folks will be wishing he was a garden variety pervert before this plays out, unless I am vastly underestimating Fred's ability and desire to go meta.

Yes, someone who sexually abuses the underage is horrific, and deserves death at least. Someone who is perfectly normal in their personal proclivities, clocks out from Sony and goes home to a nice boring evening with his perfectly normal wife, but professionally has no problem condemning (again to paraphrase Guinan) "generations" of artificial humans to lives of servitude (whether just "emotional" as the EDS pamphlets wax about, or sexual as would inevitably be the case) -- what about them? Imagining an individual (or few) "real" human victims, and directing you ire at the perpetrator, is pretty easy. Working up a similar level of ire on behalf of an unknown (but large if Sony gets their way) number of "fake" people, and directing it at people or organizations who almost certainly aren't even breaking any laws is going to prove much more problematic. Like I said last thread, Ashe did not break her phone just because Fred couldn't come up with anything cool for her to say.

I jokingly called her Teal'c on twitch -- strong silent type, ha ha -- but no. She is The Lorax.
maldrul wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 2:05 pm
So this "creepy" man is designing a playstation accessory (IE *not* a "real" girl) that will actually teach men how to properly date a *real* girl. Why is that a bad thing?
Does the "accessory" have a choice in the matter?

Does the "accessory" deserve a choice in the matter?

I mean a real choice, not a "choice" they have been hard-wired to believe they have (while other hard-wiring completely constrains the outcome of the "choosing").

Who gets to decide that Ping is "*not* a 'real' girl"? By what right and on what grounds do they get to make that decision?

EDIT:
"how to properly date a 'real' girl"

These guys will teach men how to properly date a "real" girl, where "properly" is defined as the guy getting what he wants while convincing the girl she is getting what she wants.

Why is that a bad thing? Is Sony defining "properly" in the original sentence, or do the "''real' girls" in question have any say in that definition?
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by BetaCygnus » Mon Feb 18, 2019 4:25 pm

maldrul wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 2:05 pm
Are you people forgetting about one of the basic tenets of Ping's programming?

If a real girl comes into the life of Ping's end user, she is programed to step aside and disengage the emotional strings that attach them. She is then supposed to help her end user build a "real" relationship.

So this "creepy" man is designing a playstation accessory (IE *not* a "real" girl) that will actually teach men how to properly date a *real* girl. Why is that a bad thing?
Because most people out here seem to have convinced themselves and/or each other that Ping’s main engineer is a creep.
And you’ve got to admit, maldrul, that behaviour in the EDS-units such as the patterns to which you refer simply *cannot but be* devised and programmed by the most thwarted of all minds: that of a creep, in the perverted sense of the word.

;)

Simply put: Ping might not be a bad character by default, but…
…if this man is a creep, then Ping has *got* to be a creep as well.
So far, she doesn’t strike me as such, though.
About just as much as her main engineer.
Which sounds kind of logical to me.
Thanks for pointing that out.

8-)

Oh and… I’d say her mode so far has enabled her to have quite a say in her behaviour.
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by darrin » Mon Feb 18, 2019 6:13 pm

BetaCygnus wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 4:25 pm
Oh and… I’d say her mode so far has enabled her to have quite a say in her behaviour.
Yes, "that" part of her (just to pick one example) "belongs to her, it's not part of any game." She has a say in her own behaviour... provided her user has first paid for the functionality in question. (And if he has paid, and she "chooses" to say yes... just how do we tell how much "say" she had in that, and how much say the Old Man had?)
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Yl33 D4 N00b » Mon Feb 18, 2019 11:43 pm

Ping is also being "reprogrammed" by everyone that has "played" her so far.......

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by darrin » Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:46 am

Yl33 D4 N00b wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 11:43 pm
Ping is also being "reprogrammed" by everyone that has "played" her so far.......
Holy Zarquon, I'd heard that plenty of times before, but never thought to sit down and take it literally. :shock:

Under Piro's initial influence, she was moody and hypersensitive to others' opinions of her.

After a short time with Miho, she became sharp-tongued and manipulative.

When Junko took her in subsequent to everyone else "abandoning" her (at least from Ping''s POV), she became enterprising and self-reliant (arguably to the exclusion of common sense).

Same questions. Does she deserve to be an emotional chameleon like this? Does she have any right to her "own" personality? If she claims to be fine with this situation, that she "wants" to act like this, are we safe in taking that at face value, or does that just mean Sony wanted her to believe she wants it?
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Iceman » Tue Feb 19, 2019 2:06 am

These past couple dozen comics have introduced us to three fresh grey/antagonistic characters: Moeko, Dr. Gero, and Ninja Grandma. Fitting because Largo and Piro have resolved most of their conflicts. Not sure if Gero and Ninja Grandma will create problems long-term but if Megatokyo had a "final boss" to be resolved it'd be Moeko imo.

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by maldrul » Tue Feb 19, 2019 2:17 am

darrin wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:46 am
Yl33 D4 N00b wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 11:43 pm
Ping is also being "reprogrammed" by everyone that has "played" her so far.......
Holy Zarquon, I'd heard that plenty of times before, but never thought to sit down and take it literally. :shock:

Under Piro's initial influence, she was moody and hypersensitive to others' opinions of her.

After a short time with Miho, she became sharp-tongued and manipulative.

When Junko took her in subsequent to everyone else "abandoning" her (at least from Ping''s POV), she became enterprising and self-reliant (arguably to the exclusion of common sense).

Same questions. Does she deserve to be an emotional chameleon like this? Does she have any right to her "own" personality? If she claims to be fine with this situation, that she "wants" to act like this, are we safe in taking that at face value, or does that just mean Sony wanted her to believe she wants it?
Like in the remake of Robocop, where Murphy did not lose his identity after being fitted with the Robocop armor. But when field testing showed that Murphy's humanity was causing him to hesitate just that moment too long, the engineers decided that they would reprogram the interface to the armor such that Murphy believed that he was making autonomous decisions when,in fact the armor had it's own decision tree making them for him before he could.
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by BetaCygnus » Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:12 am

Conclusion, either way:
let's stop building AI / androids / sexbots for real. Whatever way you program them, they're a really BAD idea.

=|
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Tsukai » Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:38 am

Now I'm sure you all are enjoying stroking your own... egos and feeling happy that the doctor got what he deserved here.

I disagree.

In fact, the first thing I felt when I read this comic is 'wow, that's unacceptable'.

In fact, this feels like a shitty notalwaysright.com story, the majority of which are probably made up anyway, where everyone on the bus cried and an eagle swooped down to salute the cafe staff afterwards.

'Dr. Gero' here, as you've all delightfully decided to call him, is not intentionally malicious. And it is obvious here that he does not obviously know that his actions are being perceived as unwholesome. Which is better, here: to get angry at someone and piss all over them, leaving them very much unknowing why this person they have never met before decided to piss on them, or to actually explain to them why you are unhappy with them? I believe that by the gist of what's been going on here that most people would pick A.

'Dr. Gero' here is going to walk away thinking 'wow, that cafe is run by assholes who arbitrarily judge me for reasons I can't understand, I'm never coming here again'; that's all he's going to learn, and that is where the story ends.

And good for him.

You do not deal with people you think are assholes by being equally repugnant assholes right back to them.

I disagree with the way this story arc ended and I'm unhappy with it. That's inconsequential. Nobody cares about my opinion, nobody is going to change the comic for me, and I'm fairly sure that after I post this everyone is going to go 'uh, no, you're wrong, 'Gero' got what he deserved here and this is why'. Go ahead. I'm just going to go on the record to say that I disagree with this ending.

'Gero' is not a good person, subjectively speaking. This is not the correct way for anyone else involved to illustrate their displeasure with that fact. I would like to believe that the waitress here is given a dressing down by her supervisor and is written up for arbitrarily adding 'asshole fees' to her client's bill, as that is probably the correct and appropriate way to respond to a staff member arbitrarily adding services to a restaurant bill you neither asked or expected for (how would you feel if your restaurant server added an arbitrary 'this is the fee you now have to pay me for smiling all the way through serving you even though I'm having a bad day' charge to your bill? Exactly).

But I don't think that's going to happen. I'm going to go keep my eye out for that eagle instead.
Last edited by Tsukai on Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:40 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Roamer » Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:40 am

darrin wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:46 am
Yl33 D4 N00b wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 11:43 pm
Ping is also being "reprogrammed" by everyone that has "played" her so far.......
Holy Zarquon, I'd heard that plenty of times before, but never thought to sit down and take it literally. :shock:

Under Piro's initial influence, she was moody and hypersensitive to others' opinions of her.

After a short time with Miho, she became sharp-tongued and manipulative.

When Junko took her in subsequent to everyone else "abandoning" her (at least from Ping''s POV), she became enterprising and self-reliant (arguably to the exclusion of common sense).

Same questions. Does she deserve to be an emotional chameleon like this? Does she have any right to her "own" personality? If she claims to be fine with this situation, that she "wants" to act like this, are we safe in taking that at face value, or does that just mean Sony wanted her to believe she wants it?
The real question is, does she benefit from the reprogramming and expand her base of information, or does she dump everything each time? If it's the former, then she's learning, exactly as a real girl has to - by making mistakes. If it's the latter, then she'll never grow emotionally, and she's simply what Sony thought they were making, a doll. Given that she's a prototype and not the completed product, I think (hope) it's the former, as that gives them advanced real-world algorithms to incorporate into the production version.

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Roamer » Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:57 am

Tsukai wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:38 am
Now I'm sure you all are enjoying stroking your own... egos and feeling happy that the doctor got what he deserved here.

I disagree.

In fact, the first thing I felt when I read this comic is 'wow, that's unacceptable'.

In fact, this feels like a shitty notalwaysright.com story, the majority of which are probably made up anyway, where everyone on the bus cried and an eagle swooped down to salute the cafe staff afterwards.

'Dr. Gero' here, as you've all delightfully decided to call him, is not intentionally malicious. And it is obvious here that he does not obviously know that his actions are being perceived as unwholesome. Which is better, here: to get angry at someone and piss all over them, leaving them very much unknowing why this person they have never met before decided to piss on them, or to actually explain to them why you are unhappy with them? I believe that by the gist of what's been going on here that most people would pick A.

'Dr. Gero' here is going to walk away thinking 'wow, that cafe is run by assholes who arbitrarily judge me for reasons I can't understand, I'm never coming here again'; that's all he's going to learn, and that is where the story ends.

And good for him.

You do not deal with people you think are assholes by being equally repugnant assholes right back to them.

I disagree with the way this story arc ended and I'm unhappy with it. That's inconsequential. Nobody cares about my opinion, nobody is going to change the comic for me, and I'm fairly sure that after I post this everyone is going to go 'uh, no, you're wrong, 'Gero' got what he deserved here and this is why'. Go ahead. I'm just going to go on the record to say that I disagree with this ending.

'Gero' is not a good person, subjectively speaking. This is not the correct way for anyone else involved to illustrate their displeasure with that fact. I would like to believe that the waitress here is given a dressing down by her supervisor and is written up for arbitrarily adding 'asshole fees' to her client's bill, as that is probably the correct and appropriate way to respond to a staff member arbitrarily adding services to a restaurant bill you neither asked or expected for (how would you feel if your restaurant server added an arbitrary 'this is the fee you now have to pay me for smiling all the way through serving you even though I'm having a bad day' charge to your bill? Exactly).

But I don't think that's going to happen. I'm going to go keep my eye out for that eagle instead.
No, I mostly agree with you. My primary unhappiness with the good doctor currently lies in two areas:

First, the damage he's going to do to Junko once she figures out that she's been used. You can't tell a research subject that they're being used as such, it corrupts the information you get from them. As he's already incorporated the data into his prototype, though, he could have come clean with her. He didn't.

Second, the whole 'avoiding the unpleasant aspects of her personality' thing. Junko's drive and force of personality stem from that unpleasantness, which stem from her terrible family life. You can't isolate these things and create a believable persona in the long term. If you do what he's doing, you don't get personalities. You get bad game NPCs, the kind who do things for inexplicable reasons, or worse, wander off repeatedly during escort missions.

Just a guess, not even a theory, but I suspect the doctor also believes that this sort of thing could be used on people, to make them 'less unpleasant'. This sort of belief in the perfectability of the human race has been used to justify the worst abuses in history. This, I suspect, is the underlying concern that many have about the doctor. I'm not convinced, but the possibility is there.

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Okashinamaru » Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:09 am

Roamer wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:57 am
First, the damage he's going to do to Junko once she figures out that she's been used. You can't tell a research subject that they're being used as such, it corrupts the information you get from them. As he's already incorporated the data into his prototype, though, he could have come clean with her. He didn't.
She got paid for it. Honestly what difference does it make?
Roamer wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:57 am
Second, the whole 'avoiding the unpleasant aspects of her personality' thing. Junko's drive and force of personality stem from that unpleasantness, which stem from her terrible family life. You can't isolate these things and create a believable persona in the long term. If you do what he's doing, you don't get personalities. You get bad game NPCs, the kind who do things for inexplicable reasons, or worse, wander off repeatedly during escort missions.
Are you saying he should have given ping a terrible family life as a background? I think a neurotic ping would be rather terrifying, honestly, given that she's capable of ripping a telephone pole out of the ground and swinging it like a baseball bat..
Roamer wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:57 am
Just a guess, not even a theory, but I suspect the doctor also believes that this sort of thing could be used on people, to make them 'less unpleasant'. This sort of belief in the perfectability of the human race has been used to justify the worst abuses in history. This, I suspect, is the underlying concern that many have about the doctor. I'm not convinced, but the possibility is there.
That's plausible. On the other hand that's also pretty much how the vast majority of real world psychologists go about things, which is why we end up with sickening results like what happened with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment :|
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by paarfi » Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:03 am

Okashinamaru wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:09 am
Roamer wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:57 am
First, the damage he's going to do to Junko once she figures out that she's been used. You can't tell a research subject that they're being used as such, it corrupts the information you get from them. As he's already incorporated the data into his prototype, though, he could have come clean with her. He didn't.
She got paid for it. Honestly what difference does it make?
It would (and I expect shortly will) matter to Junko. We saw her before with one of her "dates" and she was rather dismissive [760]. But she thinks much different of DrGero [1508]. Yes, he's paying her for dates, but from Junko's side there is more there. He's not just another old guy paying her for dates -- she *likes* him and seems to think he likes her back. In spite of her cynical exterior, Junko is going to be hurt if/when she finds out his real attitude toward her. The fact that he's paying her doesn't mitigate that. This was naïve of Junko, but it was also unethical and dickish of DrGero.
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Okashinamaru » Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:36 am

paarfi wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:03 am
It would (and I expect shortly will) matter to Junko. We saw her before with one of her "dates" and she was rather dismissive [760]. But she thinks much different of DrGero [1508]. Yes, he's paying her for dates, but from Junko's side there is more there. He's not just another old guy paying her for dates -- she *likes* him and seems to think he likes her back. In spite of her cynical exterior, Junko is going to be hurt if/when she finds out his real attitude toward her. The fact that he's paying her doesn't mitigate that. This was naïve of Junko, but it was also unethical and dickish of DrGero.
Oi, definitely missed that. Well that's.. awkward.
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Invisigoth » Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:56 am

I suspect that Dr Gero has concerns and feelings toward Junko that he has to keep in check. Not pervy concerns but real concerns regarding her homelife, her future and her safety.

Back years ago when Dr Drew was a show on MTV his co-host Adam Carolla once complained that doing that show had forever ruined strip clubs for him as he could just look at the girls dancing and mentally assemble the traumatic events that had led them to dance naked in front of a bunch of callous men. Dr Gero is likely dealing with that at this moment. No one has mentioned it AFAIK but he started to stand and call out to Junko when Ashe finally had had enough

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Eraden » Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:35 am

I would like to point out that this scientist knows enough about human behavior to allow him to create complex algorithms that enable his androids to mimic it to a rather realistic degree. This man should therefore KNOW what kind of pain he might be subjecting his "test" subjects to, should they ever find out what they were being used for. No, he might not want to cause harm to them but he should damn well KNOW that his actions are potentially harmful to them. He's putting these girls at risk because his primary goal is not their well being but Sony's well being.The fact that he's willing to dent a few pyschyes in order to realize those priorities is what defines him as EVIL. Please note that many of History's villains never considered themselves to be evil and certainly didn't start out wanting to hurt others for the sake of causing pain. They simply had priorities that required that others be sacrificed to achieve the results they desired.

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by darrin » Tue Feb 19, 2019 11:28 am

BetaCygnus wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:12 am
Conclusion, either way:
let's stop building AI / androids / sexbots for real. Whatever way you program them, they're a really BAD idea.

=|
Well... not to sound pollyannaish, but that sounds a bit like folks who say nobody should have children because how could one bring children into this awful world of ours. Which is certainly a plausible choice, but if I'm trying to be a bit less pessimistic, the lesson I try to draw from the SF I've read is that you have to go into it eyes open, be aware of what you're doing so to speak. Cybermen, Borg, Daleks etc. BAD as you say; yeah don't do that. Data, Vision, Ping, HAL (if you don't order him to lie :shock:), even Bender (if you keep his booze supply adequate and your wallet safely secured), then... perhaps a worthy goal to strive for. I'd say it's incumbent on the designer to be aware they might potentially be creating something not just "useful" but alive, and that if they succeed, they need to be willing to take responsibility for that new life.

And then there's this, where BAD idea doesn't begin to sum it up, and which will leave you screaming in horror and wanting to tear down civilization and go back to living in caves just to avoid that bad of an idea.
Tsukai wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:38 am
Now I'm sure you all are enjoying stroking your own... egos [...]

'Dr. Gero' here, as you've all delightfully decided to call him
Uh, no. That was a joke promulgated among the Dragonball Z fans, not "all". I for one have continued to call him the Old Man, and will do so until he is named in-comic. And if "not intentionally malicious" was intended as a big surprise, you clearly haven't been reading the full spectrum of what people have been writing about him. Different "strokings" for different... folkings as they say.
I disagree with the way this story arc ended [...] everyone is going to go 'uh, no, you're wrong, 'Gero' got what he deserved here and this is why
Who says it's ended? And yeah, I will say "no, you're wrong", because that is not what everyone is saying. My own position has been that the scary thing about the Old Man is NOT any "bad action" he's yet taken, it's his ignorance of or indifference to the fact that he's created something alive, something which will be condemned to servitude / slavery by Sony. I'm not saying the Old Man "got what he deserved", I'm saying that the secure bubble he's been sitting in, where all his actions have been perfectly politically correct, not at all amoral, and as an added bonus promise to be quite profitable to his employer, has hopefully been popped for the first time. Best case, he will finally become aware that not everyone will approve of the consequences of what he and Sony have accomplished (or how they accomplished it); worst case, he will double down, secure in his belief that the natterings of a few "assholes" as you put it don't count for much compared to his employer's bottom line. Either way, this will be an interesting character well up to Fred standards, and this is very far from "where [his] story ends."

My view isn't the exteme one in any sense either. maldrul just asked last page what basis there is to claim the Old Man ism't correct in his worldview, or what's bad about what he's doing. Which may have surprised me a bit, but hey, from a legal standpoint that's almost certainly the case: Ping is an accessory, designed and produced entirely by Sony, and thus owned in whole by Sony, to be disposed of as Sony sees fit. (Which I had also said several times was potentially going to be a component of why the Old Man is scary: Sony would have absolutely ensured they hadn't done anything illegal. It's not like Ashe can call the cops or anything. :roll:)

tldr: if you drop the "everyone"s there's not actually much left objectionable in your post; there's a broader spectrum of beliefs than you seem to be aware of or care about, and few if any of those beliefs have been absolutely ruled out yet by what's happened in the comic.
how would you feel if your restaurant server added an arbitrary 'this is the fee you now have to pay me for smiling all the way through serving you even though I'm having a bad day' charge to your bill
It's called a tip, and I'd feel that if I didn't want to pay it (barring egregiously bad service), I should have just gone to McDonald's.
various wrote: the Old Man paid Junko for services describable as dates
I'll humbly point out again that it hasn't yet been established in-comic what the nature of the meetings between Junko and the Old Man was ("dates" or otherwise), what Junko was told prior to and during said meetings, and what if any money was exchanged as a consequence.
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by paarfi » Tue Feb 19, 2019 11:57 am

darrin wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 11:28 am
various wrote: the Old Man paid Junko for services describable as dates
I'll humbly point out again that it hasn't yet been established in-comic what the nature of the meetings between Junko and the Old Man were ("dates" or otherwise), what Junko was told prior to and during said meetings, and what if any money was exchanged as a consequence.
While this is true, this also seems to be DrGero's research method, and he implies that he has done this with many girls [1547]. He doesn't appear to be the kind of lady-killer who could pull that off without resorting to paid dating. Junko may have taken a shine to him now, but I expect he would have needed to pay to get his foot in the door. That's not enough for certainty, but then MT is often like that.
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Teddy-Werebear » Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:10 pm

BetaCygnus wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:12 am
Conclusion, either way:
let's stop building AI / androids / sexbots for real. Whatever way you program them, they're a really BAD idea.
... But that means I will not be able to get my Monroebot before I die...

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by darrin » Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:13 pm

paarfi wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 11:57 am
While this is true, this also seems to be DrGero's research method, and he implies that he has done this with many girls
That's not ruled out of course. It's arguably the simplest hypothesis, and so should be the preferred one, and my failure to accept it as such is probably due to various biases I haven't managed to quash yet.

I think my biggest bias is my former background in (a field tangentially related to) medical research. I saw plenty of consent forms that read basically "You are being invited to participate in a study to determine the effects if any, of [test or treatment or drug etc] on [condition or disease etc]. Participants will be randomly assigned to two groups, one of which will receive [treatment], the other of which will [description of "standard of care" alternative or placebo]. If you are assigned to the group receiving [treatment], you will [more detailed description of treatment protocol, times and doses, side effects of treatment etc]. If you are assigned to the control group [description of things being done to simulate the protocols followed by treatment group]. You are free to decline to participate in this study, or to withdraw at any time. If you complete the study you will receive [amount], if you withdraw early you will receive [usually smaller amount]." etc. etc. Note that there would [not] be an obligation to describe the detailed mechanism by which [treatment] is expected to operate, let alone the specific hypothesized means by which [treatment] affects [condition]. There would, however, be a detailed description of the steps taken to ensure patient privacy (usually the recorded data using an ID key instead of patient name, with the map between patient info and the key being held securely by the principal investigator).

So I can imagine the Old Man approaching his subjects with such a form. "You are being invited by the Artificial Intelligence division of Sony Consumer Products to participate in a study to assess common behavioral patterns of teenage females living in Tokyo. This assessment will be carried out in the form of a series of interviews with [the Old Man and/or associates], in which various questions will be asked and you answers recorded. Your responses will be collected anonymously, without any of your personal information being retained in the interview transcripts. Sony will only use the collected information in aggregate; individual responses will be pooled together for the purposes of our research. Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. Should you choose to participate, you may withdraw your consent for participation at any time; in that case, the responses you have provided up to that point will be purged from our system and not used by Sony. If you complete the series of interviews, you will receive [amount somewhat smaller than EK going rates for the "time" involved; i.e. not enough to make it an offer they can't refuse, but not so little to be not worth their time]; if you withdraw early, you will receive [smaller amount]." Of course Ping would not be mentioned, and Junko on finding out that Ping (and any "services" she was compelled to perform for her "user") was the intended result of all this could indeed end up offended or even hurt (at the prospect of her new friend being treated this way). But prior to that, Junko could consider his inviting her to sign and participate as non-deceptive (again with the omission of Ping, but then researchers aren't normally required to divulge the mechanisms or expected endpoints of their research...), and his attitude / behavior toward her in the resulting interviews could easily lead to her perceiving him as "intelligent" and "mature". (The contrast would then be with her flaky dad, as opposed to her "typical clients", and would explain any perceived degree of affection -- ie paternal not romantic -- she displays in 1508.)
That's not enough for certainty, but then MT is often like that.
Definitely. There are still lots of possibilities in play here... My justification in leaning this direction is that I think that the more it can be objectively said that the Old Man has "done no wrong" (legally, morally, or otherwise), the scarier he will end up being (again in terms of threat posed to the multitude of Ping clones to be distributed to the masses) as a character. But the strong counterargument is that Ashe, cute waitress, and very likely Junko (esp. in the model you're favoring) are (or will be) more concerned with what he's potentially done / doing to his "subjects", and I agree it's unlikely Fred would have laid that out in so much detail if he were only concerned with the "EDS as slaves" connotations (the Guinan clip I can't stop posting :lol:). My gut is still having me focus on the most vulnerable person on the "set" right now, which to me is Ping... but that's a subjective feeling, not a solid argument.
Teddy-Werebear wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:10 pm
But that means I will not be able to get my Monroebot before I die...
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[alt]The Space Pope says, "Don't date robots!"[/alt]
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MoneyMan
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by MoneyMan » Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:58 pm

I feel I should point out that sex robots have been commonplace for over fifty years now, and available for well over a hundred.

It's the ones you can talk to that creep people out.

Ban talking!

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Teddy-Werebear » Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:36 pm

Oh... it would not be for dating...

Also dutch wives and such are not interactive robots.

Um... I read that some place.

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by darrin » Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:52 pm

Teddy-Werebear wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:36 pm
Oh... it would not be for dating...
"Dating" was pretty obviously a euphemism in the PSA in that episode, and Billy pretty obviously wasn't "dating" his Monroebot in the sense you imply above.
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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by malcolm125k » Wed Feb 20, 2019 2:03 am

I'm not sure Ping's, well, "creator" is overly evil or perverted. At least not along the lines that Ping has assumed the compensated dating should go.

I'd like to point out that when Ping came into the story, she started with blocks that prevented any H-actions with her.

And as to the his using Junko for data points, well, he has entered into a relationship based on compensated dating. He's basically paying her to spend time with him. I'm not sure there is any deep emotional connection or obligation implied in that agreement.

He is collecting information to create *something*, not a *someone*. This same sort of modeling that writers use to create characters, though perhaps most writers are not so scientifically rigorous.

I think he went along with Ping's plan because he arrived to meet Junko only to be greeted by his malfunctioning project. He seems more bemused than anything. He's looking on with morbid amusement. Its like he designed a robot that would sort all things green into one pile and all things blue into another and he arrived home to find the robot wandering around in circles arguing with itself about where something turquoise goes.

I think what he is failing to understand is that Ping has "broken" in such a way that a spark of self-awareness has fired off in her. She has exceeded her coding, in essence. Its either that or he did such a good job that I, as the reader, can't tell the difference between such awareness and the coded response.

If he is evil in any way, it would be in the way Dr. Frankenstein was "evil" - possessing of that hubris to create life - to play God. There are some parallels with that story here, mind you. The Old Man as Frankenstein. Ping as the monster that he created. Ping/monster getting out into the world with only a partial understanding of it. The Monster met a blind hermit that was kind to her. Here we have a mute fox-girl. :)

Ping is currently experiencing a very real existential crisis. What is her purpose, how should she fulfill the role she was created for.

I can see why the fox-girls are protective of her, but the reaction at the cafe is, frankly, overdramatic and childish. Her laying hands on him was excessive, especially since he was docile the entire time. Her overblown and frankly weird body language I found offensive in the way I would find someone old enough to know better deciding to resolve a discussion by throwing a tantrum like a 4 year old.

That and the presumption of the moral high ground. She helps to run a love motel, for Pete's sake. I'm sure some of the things that go on there are a bit farther beyond the pale than "I'll pay you to go on a date with me so that I can pick apart your personality and use the pieces to help develop an AI girl for gamers"

I think the most interesting thing about Ping, story-wise, is the same sort of theme that runs through Miho's storyline. Ping is a character in a game, only not just a character, but a physical representation that allows that character to be impressed upon the physical world. She is limited in her programming to be less than a real person, however. Miho is a self-admited character in a game, but has physical presence here in Megatokyo - a sort of extended existence as she has access to more reality than Piro. Both seem to be becoming "real" as defined by Piro's reality, perhaps dragged into it by Piro somehow. Miho had had her heart fixed, freeing her from the cycle of reincarnation, but also limiting her, making her weaker. Ping is having her crisis, and is close to malfunction, but she has overcome her blocks, exceeded her coding in many ways, and if she is malfunctioning, it is in such a way that she can question the meaning of her life.

If the Old Man is evil, perhaps it is because he seems to be betting that the malfunction will result in a failure and a decay of personality, and is sitting back and watching in interest. I think the fox girls have their money on "becomes person", but perhaps that is because when they met her they already assumed that was the case.

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Re: [1549] The sum of our parts

Post by Roamer » Wed Feb 20, 2019 5:12 am

Okashinamaru wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:36 am
paarfi wrote:
Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:03 am
It would (and I expect shortly will) matter to Junko. We saw her before with one of her "dates" and she was rather dismissive [760]. But she thinks much different of DrGero [1508]. Yes, he's paying her for dates, but from Junko's side there is more there. He's not just another old guy paying her for dates -- she *likes* him and seems to think he likes her back. In spite of her cynical exterior, Junko is going to be hurt if/when she finds out his real attitude toward her. The fact that he's paying her doesn't mitigate that. This was naïve of Junko, but it was also unethical and dickish of DrGero.
Oi, definitely missed that. Well that's.. awkward.
It's actually worse than paarfi says. Based on everything we've seen, this relationship with the doctor has been her most positive relationship with any guy. For perspective, the next best relationship is probably...Largo. That's gone about as well as you would expect. The low point was him asking her to translate words that were so objectionable that not only did Junko decline (she actually looked shocked) but when shown to Erika they made her pause. Followed by her issuing threats and being concerned that he was showing those words to his students.

So yeah, there's genuine concern that his lies are going to cause Junko real damage. Maybe even permanent damage, given her lack of any other positive relationships with men.

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