SFP

sfp-5-69-for-web

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  • Jonathan Boynton

    Dun, dun, dunnnnn…

  • …Some snacks? Serve everyone some snacks. That’s what Joan means, right?

  • GelasticJake

    You will serve everyone some refreshing tea?

    (WE MUST FEED…
    you if you are hungry.)

  • Insanenoodlyguy

    I WILL SERVE THE WORLD. WITH BOMBS.

  • Yagoth

    She created the ultimate robotic LAWYER?

  • GaryFarber

    IT’S A COOKBOOK!

  • Murd

    Is the alt-text added later on? Can’t get any right now. Had similar issue with Friday’s comic, though it turns up there now.

  • The Wealthy Aardvark

    I will serve everyone brunch.

  • Zac Caslar

    Right.
    The question now is if Joan is programmed to value freedom.
    Mass Effect ended up being all about this kind of situation, hopefully SFP’s got a plan.

  • Shjade

    Why do I get the feeling Alison and the AI matching poses in the last two panels – along with the AI declaring it will serve everyone, an apt description for Alison’s own intentions of late – is no coincidence?

    Less srs: given its pink interior, I can only assume it intends to serve everyone Kool-Aid. Oh yeah.

    • Ryan Thompson

      If it intends to serve Kool-Aid, we may have to worry that it also shares the old Templar bots’ tendency for knocking down walls.

  • serenagold

    Well. That got sinister quick.

  • Timothy O’Brien

    Wow, that was quick.

  • Dave Van Domelen

    THAT’LL serve ’em….

  • Bruce Greenwood

    …with some fava beans and a nice glass of chianti?

  • Geeze, Alison, don’t be so quick to raise that fist. Just because they’re saying something in a serious tone doesn’t mean they’re being menacing.

    Also, I think the mistake she’s been making in constructing these AIs is not giving them a learning period. I’m sure they’re capable of learning and personal growth, and are probably meant to go through those processes, but they should be like babies at activation- largely ineffectual, able to make judgements about the world based on an upbringing and personal experience rather than programmed values and what seems like a data bank they’re allowed access to. Or at least, not solely based on them. Even if their processing power is so immense that they can make those judgements moments after coming alive. Something that can GROW, and maybe throw a tantrum or make mistakes before it’s at 100% power, like it looks to be the case here.
    In other words, every one of her attempts, based on what she’s said, has made immediate snap judgements the moment they were turned on, like Joan up there. This should not at all be a desirable outcome.

    • Ryan Thompson

      You’re pretty close to what happens with current real-life applications of “AI”. You start with a naive classifier that can’t tell anything apart, then you feed it lots of examples of things you want it to distinguish and it gradually gets better. Of course, I’m talking about things like training a classifier to distinguish between, say pictures of cats and pictures of dogs, not good and evil. But I assume the process would be similar.

    • Keith

      Here’s what I see happening:
      Paladin pursues this idea, and realizes that the easiest way to accomplish this is to mimic the existing biological process.
      Every time there’s a hiccup, she discovers that the existing biological process is the elegant way to overcome the issue.
      Finally settles on encouraging some couples she knows to have children.
      Announces that she has successfully created AI when those children achieve maturity

  • John Smith

    Is it just me, or was there something ominous in that last statement? And doesn’t Paladin know that AI Is A Crapshoot? 🙂

  • VIKI

    First Thought:

  • Um, define “serve”?

  • sliz225

    Maybe he just means . . . serve cookies? I’d like that.

  • Catnik

    Joan: Robot Tennis Superstar!

    Joan: Robot Celebrity Chef!

    (Now, if the latter is of the to serve man variety…..)

  • Helpful Robot

    I will serve them so hard, everyone will stand around talking about how much people have just been served.

    • Ryan Thompson

      I guess technically you got it right too.

  • Todd Cole

    Oh, snap, the robot’s about to start break dancing! Alison best get ready to STEP!

  • Jack Coldstone

    Ominous!

  • spriteless

    This is why you put the ai in a box until you’re sure it is friendly.

  • JustinR

    … “Death”. The next word is “death”.
    …
    …
    Or “Ice Cream”.
    Could go either way at this point.

  • Guilherme Carvalho

    Well isn’t that an interesting way to address some very deep issues about parenthood. 🙂

    Great comic as always, I love it all.

  • Allison, don’t give the sentient killing machine ideas with your clenched fists and rough readiness to do violence on others’ behalf.

  • raerae

    I will serve everyone…

    COOKIES! (Best twist ever!)

    • Kid Chaos

      Chocolate chip? 😁

  • Caliban

    “I’m gonna serve them so hard.”

  • Jace

    All the serving

  • Todd Cole

    Oh, snap, the robot’s about to start break dancing!

  • Rod

    Whoo boy… not sure if that last sentence is going to wind up being just nice on the surface, or terrifying from the start.

  • fredhicks

    Aaaah! Is that an Ultron moment or an awesome new hero moment?! MUST KNOW

  • Anondod

    Joan is going to have a rough time of it, but this is a very cool direction to go.

  • David Nuttall

    Why am I getting the feeling this is going along the lines of “How to Serve Man”? Allison may have to intervene before Joan goes all Skynet on people.

  • Some guy

    Wait until it does something bad before you threaten it, Alison!

  • Aaron

    Maybe dial it back a bit there, Joan.

  • Pol Subanajouy

    Okay, so now both Joan AND Al are rocking the Rosie the Riveter pose. And Joan is totally not ominous at all. 😛

  • TBeckett

    And thus began Joan’s long, uneventful, yet happy life as a waiter.

  • Axel_Celosar

    “I’ll serve them… I’ll serve them all!!!!”

  • Drake

    Should we feel concerns about that last panel? 🙂

  • Keith

    … to whom?

  • Jonas

    So… who created MegaGirl/ Alison, who tries to serve everyone (at least on some level), too?

    • deebles

      Her parents, general life experiences, and society. Same as all the rest of us; some of whom also try to serve everyone, with highly varying levels of success.

  • Sabriel

    That’s going to be hard to pull off, Joan. People want conflicting things.

  • Alison’s new bestie :3

  • dbmag9

    “I will serve everyone” DELICIOUS CAKES AND ICE CREAM.

    Right?

    • Nonsensicles

      “I will serve everyone” IN A DANCE-OFF THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN NOR SHALL EVER AGAIN.

      More like.

      • Good guess 🙂

      • Keith

        Oh gods you were right.

    • Floweramon

      *resisting urge to make Portal joke*

      • Kid Chaos

        Oh come on, share with the rest of the class. 🙂

      • dbmag9

        That was a triumph.

    • Ryan Thompson

      No one will ever trust an AI promising baked goods ever again. At this point, I would assume that Lisa hardcodes an avoidance of the subject of cakes into all her bots. On the other hand though, one of them mentioned deadly poison a few pages ago, so maybe Lisa’s not so up-to-date on her pop-culture AI references.

  • NCD

    That is, without a doubt, the most ominous declaration of loyalty I have ever seen.

    • Mystery girl

      No kidding!

  • David Gottsegen

    I…I think we just got served.

  • Given the dialog, more likely the world’s first automated process server. Although how you’d distinguish those from the run-of-the-mill supervillain, I don’t know.

    Wait, didn’t the Riddler get a job doing that sort of thing after he went straight? Or am I thinking of skip-tracer or PI?

    (Now I want to see a gag with somebody in full Nineties hip-hop drag dance-serving legal documents to befuddled gentlemen in business suits. Seems like something that might happen on The Good Wife.)

    • MisterTeatime

      The Riddler became a private investigator, taking high-profile unsolved cases to get his puzzle kicks. It was pretty cool. 😀

  • Jack Lostthenames Warren

    That is absolutely the cutest singularity face I have ever seen.

  • Madasa

    AHHHH! Alison! Don’t be so ready to destroy things! It was just born after all. DUDE. That AI is super quick thinking.

  • motorfirebox

    Cue the most fire popping and locking the world has ever seen.

  • Sterling Ericsson

    I want him to start rapping. That would be the most amazing thing.

  • Dean

    “…TO HUNGRY TIGERS!”

  • susan

    clearly, joan thinks megagirl wants fighting practice because mega has her fist up.
    she will serve mega.

  • leonardo boiko

    BDSM sub robot?

  • Nickname of the Day

    I’d say something, but all the good jokes are already done.

  • Ganurath

    We all know what the cake is. The less said of the ice cream, the better.

    • Why? Is the ice cream an ideological superstructure alienating the workers from their true class interests?

    • John Smith

      THE CAKE IS A…Pineapple Upside-Down Cake?

  • John Smith

    OH, YEAHHHHH!!!

  • Ryuu798

    I’m just going to leave this here…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNL5-0_T1D0

  • Timothy Craig

    “I will serve EVERYONE.” *Cut to Joan busting a move, Megagirl looking exhausted, crowd chanting “SERVED. SERVED. SERVED. SERVED….”*

  • Keith

    In my mind, that android was about to announce its plans to crush-kill-destroy when it saw Alison shaking her fist and thought better of it. 😉

  • Shjade

    I’d be more concerned about that if its intent was to market Kool-Aid, rather than serve it.

  • MisterTeatime

    Joan has an excellent intuitive understanding of xyr own body and physical limitations for someone who’s only been alive for a few minutes. Most human infants wouldn’t be walking or gesturing anywhere near as well as this.
    Hell, with those itty bitty ground contact points, most human adults would’ve fallen on their shiny new asses by now.

  • DevinC

    I like Joan already.

  • John Smith

    I’ll serve them all…with lawsuits! Restraining orders! And JURY DUTY! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

  • Suzie Elisabeth Duncan-Bendix

    Just wanted to let you know I discovered this comic today, I’ve read it all in one sitting, and I’ve now ordered the book… despite being a dirt poor student. I just fell so much in love with this story that I would have felt guilty not immediately throwing money at it. 🙂

    Also, I wanted to have it on my shelf, so next time I get into an argument about “Wanting more diversity and being represented” I can pull it out and go “like this!”

    Love, love, love it.

  • Ryan Thompson

    In light of the following page, we now realize that from panel 3 onward, Joan was trying really hard to get Lisa to say that Joan was built to serve her, and eventually she just gave up and said it herself.