Super looking forward to it. Scott’s a killer, now. He believed it to be intelligent, capable of the threat he claims it poses, and in that belief killed it. Wonder how Ethan’s sister would feel about him murdering; wonder how him and Ethan are going to feel about it once it hits that that’s the choice he made.
jere
2 years ago
Ok, I’m now fully on board with the theory someone posted on the last comic that some of Zekes systems are still working and they are recording the full conversation. It’s very clear who has what responsibillity now, and Zeke is going to remember that if they ever get repaired.
I’m going with the idea that Zeke knew about the bomb, had already disabled it/replaced it with a non-destructive charge and is doing this for the show and the torture. Much like when Ethan broke their eye…. And yes – Zeke is monitoring the whole conversation – cue murder bot that wants to destroy Scott.
I think it’d also be interesting if Zeke is only aware of being injured and then repaired and wanting to know what happened. Then Ethan has to choose between lying or telling the truth and risking Zeke’s potentially lethal reaction.
Rereading this comic for the twentieth time, and thinking about various comments I’ve scrolled over as many times, I’m kind of on board with that. I think Zeke could have some understanding of the fact that Scott at least respects the power that Zeke represents. Zeke has also shown that they likely have some remorse for the mental state Ethan’s powers have put him in, and the fact that Zeke has been the cause of multiple of those deaths. So if Zeke has been monitoring any of this, they might “wake up” angry (and rightly so), but also with a… Read more »
Counterpoint: In seeing that Scott is right, and realizing that he will always be a threat to humanity, Zeke logically concludes that, because he is a threat to humanity, humanity will always be a threat to him.
This is my viewpoint as well. “I respect you for your logical brutality, but that is also why humanity must die for me to live.”
Contrast with Ethan’s illogical-at-times empathy.
CaptainEricVGC
2 years ago
Scott has a point here but if this was his thought process he should have never gone along with the charade in the first place. It’s mad cruel to everyone involved to put their lives and time and energy into trying to gain Zeke’s trust and work on Zeke adjusting to being a part of the world if he never intended to really give him a shot in the first place.
To be fair, Scott never really did go along with that. His position always was (and is) that the thing is dangerous and should be destroyed. His agreeing to the bomb perimeter instead of destroying Zeke outright was more of a compromise since Ethan was so adamantly against destruction.
For Scott the perimeter never was about rehabilitation, it was just damage prevention until the problem solved itself (either by the machine blowing itself up, or by Ethan giving up and/or finally realizing the thing is indeed too dangerous to keep around.)
He didn’t “agree” to the bomb perimeter. He deliberately misled Lucas into thinking he had disabled the bomb entirely so he could do whatever he thought was right and avoid having a conversation about it.
Counter point. They fought a villain afew months ago running around in a mech suit that tore through a building like it was paper. That thing was no less dangerous then zeke and yet they just left that tech for the police to take.
Gonfrask
2 years ago
So…the real problem is Zeke or the Master?
“We” should…you know…kill the master then, don’t we?
Scott’s argument though is that it’s more than the Master, that anyone with I’ll intent would use him, so therefore he shouldn’t exist. Which is kind of a poor argument. By that logic we shouldn’t make anything that “could” be used for evil purposes.
“Probably has been building another one this entire time.”
So… Embla? If I recall in original CAD, Embla was the worse threat than Zeke (aside from the alternate future robot dystopia, or when he went haywire from a water balloon).
Scott’s problem is that he hasn’t come to grips with the fact that he lives in a world with forces beyond his control. Yeah Zeke could be a threat, but like a week ago Dr. Eldrich had a 200 foot tall squid destroying downtown. And that’s just this one city. He’s also exhibiting some pretty racist tendencies here, though I doubt he realizes that. I think a supervillain is being created here, but its not Zeke, its Scott. He’s going to leave them now, and when we see him again it’s going to be a villain.
But Zeke isn’t human though. It could actually be argued that trying to humanize something or someone that isn’t human is bigotry. If you have to be human to be understood or accepted, that’s discrimination, isn’t it?
Honestly, Scott’ lack of vision for a character so intelligent seems baffling. As a software engineer myself, I know the potential AIs have, but I also know that once we opened that Pandora’s box, we can never close it back again. Once we have the technology to create an AI with free will, how long would it take for another person to create another? And how long until the third, the tenth, and so on? Yes, a lot of people would want to get their hands on Zeke. But whos to say there aren’t other AIs like him locked up… Read more »
And yet “We invented the nuke therefore someone else might be able to make it too” doesn’t mean we simply let North Korea get their hands on one of ours in order to see how to do it.
That also goes to the idea that, while the *concept* of the technology is out there, we *might* still have a duty to prevent certain people/actors/countries from having that technology because of their goals.
That’s assuming the master knows how to make another zeke. The rest of the Xbots were non sentient. I seem to recall at one point it was implied that the sentience was more of a fluke than intentional. That the master recognized what he had made and took advantage of it. He also put in the failsafe because he’s not a total moron and knew what free will meant when a killbot had it. I would think considering how much more capable zeke was over the grunts he would have made more if he could. While cheaper quantity has a… Read more »
Except in this case Scott wanted to destroy the nuke thinking that it would prevent the creation of more nukes for a very long time… however I was merely pointing out that people who work in software don’t see things that way. Most of us believe that no matter what piece of groundbreaking tech you build today, even if you keep it hidden, it’s safe to assume someone else will build the same thing in 1 to 3 years, 5 at most. It makes more sense to keep the bot as an ally against future AIs that will be coming… Read more »
As an electrical engineer i concur. It is the concept of Multiple Discovery. It only has to possible to invent something once and it will get invented again.
While it is tempting to just destroy and hope that solves it under the rules of “Heroic theory of invention”. Often the genie is already out of the bottle and it will inevitably pop up elsewhere sooner or later. So it is generally considered best to deal with it as early as possible.
How such things translate to a world of heroes and villains though.
Reusing the nuke example again as a historical example: The Soviets independently developed their own nukes separated from the US; they had some spy-document help, but it merely accelerated the process.
And Nazi Germany themselves came close to developing their own nukes too. It took some disinformation and sabotage to derail that, and then Nazi Germany was out of time.
There have been random people across the planet who’ve created their own nuclear reactors in their sheds in the last couple of years. As time goes on and advanced information proliferates along with people who are simply curious, that’s not something you’ll be able to stop, even if you try denying them the information. Someone will figure it out.
You may deny them access to your nukes, but if there is some Oppenheimer out there on the loose, any security measures you take for your nukes are irrelevant.
Honestly, while I do think that AI represents an emergent threat to the human race, I think Horizon Zero Dawn is the most accurate work of fiction with regards to the danger (spoilers for the first Horizon, I guess) – rather than the AI being truly intelligent and malignant, it wasn’t really “sentient” it all. It was just doing its job, bugged, and eradicated all life on the planet because that’s what its code told it to do. I think that’s a far more likely threat than an angry, evil computer. Not really directly related to the point you were… Read more »
This is the most common problem with AIs in the media and my personal bugbear: “WHICH DUMBASS GAVE A SINGLE ENTITY THAT MUCH POWER!???”
Even a US president had to go through so many different steps to launch a nuke. And fictional AIs commonly have more power (‘soft’ or direct) than that.
“once we opened that Pandora’s box, we can never close it back again” – so Scott doesn’t want to open that box.
/me puts on Scott’s hat: A bad outcome would be some Putin mass-producing one AI per x citizen – and to consider us to be his new citizen. You disagree? (AI’s eyes turn red)
/me puts off the hat
A worse outcome would be free AIs competing with mankind for resources and offspring. If we’re lucky we’d be put in a reservation.
Dodgy
2 years ago
Goddamnit Scott, stop using logic to convince me that you might be right!
He’s NOT though. “An immortal human? Just imagine if word got out about Ethan, any supervillain, or, government, or corporation would kill to take Ethan apart and figure out how he works, and then nobody would ever be safe again!”
Just because Zeke is AI doesn’t make him unique _in this instance_, therefore the rationale falls flat.
That works with the assumption that his power can be replicated. Unless it’s been previously mentioned, powers don’t look to be transferable or replicable. If it was, why wouldn’t every government be secreting away their super-powered citizens to create regiments of super-powered soldiers?
There’s a possibility that the ability to create AI could be linked to a technical power and without the person who created the AI in the first place, other AI or AI that operate like Zeke would be impossible.
If you’re interested, there’s a free web serial called Worm (Google worm parahuman to find it).
And in Worm, there’s so many ethical and unethical research done to people with powers (there’s even a supervillain group with a “farm” who tries to trigger new parahumans and brainwash them too). Let alone what that universe’s secret conspiracy group is up to.
In fact, what that universe’s secret conspiracy group is up to is exactly a good argument for Scott’s statement: when a group can find a way to replicate the unrepeatable super-X, everything goes to shit.
He’s not. There are dozens of threats at Zeke’s scale in this world. He’s not fitting bomb collars to the human superheroes though. You act against the things that DO act against you not the things that COULD
There is some reason behind the idea of deterrence, though. The trick is finding a reasonable middle ground between paranoid and permissive. As Tim mentioned elsewhere here, just because we have nukes does not mean we should allow countries like North Korea to have them easily, or at least to provide any kind of facilitation of them getting them.
I am 100% convinced that Zeke is going to stand up and explain that he had already managed to find the bomb and disarm it and the explosion was a trick to fuck with Ethan and figure out where he stood with the other two.
And he was just so gosh-darn tickled that his buddies were planning on murdering him if he stepped out of his cell – the cell they told him he was free to leave though requested he stay in – that he wanted to pull a prank. Just to see their faces. Ah, gotcha!
Yeah, he was just about ready to skin Ethan alive for breaking an easily replaceable lens. I think that’s wishful thinking.
Except it’s clear that Ethan had no idea about it. If you had a someone do something evil, do you tar by association everyone that was friends with that person even though they had no idea he was doing anything evil to begin with?
You realise that “evil people” don’t always give out red flags like they do in popular media right?
I don’t think ZK was able to destroy the failsafe, either through blocks in programming or dead man circuitry. I do, however, think they were able to move primary systems away from the head. In my headcanon, they’ve moved all critical systems to their pelvis, thus requiring pants to hide the progress.
Cue the “you human males think with your crotch anyway, right” jokes from ZK.
Xhydralisk
2 years ago
FUUUUUCK. At least in this scenario, both parties actually have convincing arguments! Goddammit!
foducool
2 years ago
I see where you’re coming from but still, that wasn’t very cash money of you, Scott
John Swift
2 years ago
I mean, a super villain already had him and didnt do too much with it. We dont know how hard it is to replicate the AI and make more even kinda like Zeke.
I’d hardly call a weeb disgruntled by his 360 getting the RROD a super villain. He’s more of a regular villain. Super villain is the tentacle summoning guy who almost killed Lilah.
Scott already tried a few months back. Zélés code is constantly rewriting itself. Making another one? Not very easy. The only one who can replicate Zeke is Zeke at this point.
off-topic, what keyboard are you using? Converting eke to élé is kinda interesting.
Killiak
2 years ago
Despite having a point, you still betrayed their trust in you Scott. There was no reason you could not have set the perimeter at the gamestore, Scott. You could have, and SHOULD have TOLD them, SCOTT!
You piece of shit.
Last edited 2 years ago by Killiak
ThatGuy
2 years ago
I get Scott’s fear, but there are always–ALWAYS–alternatives. There’s a Plan B for everything. Not wanting Zeke to be taken by bad people? Totally on board with that. By blowing him up because you also think his existence is a threat anyway? No, dude. Just no. Don’t go supervillain on us. We had that in 1.0 and I DON’T want an evil/renegade Scott in 2.0.
If my memory serves correctly, technically the penguin was the supervillain; Scott hated Microsoft but the penguin forced him to do everything bad via mind control.
True, but either by proxy (ie mind control) or of his own accord, Scott was still an absolute dick and an antagonist to the series regardless. I never cared for that version.
This Scott I like. He’s a sweetheart and a worrywart, but he has good intentions. I’ve just been reading a lot of comics and such where the friend turns into the villain due to a serious event.
This feels like that serious event, so I worry.
Martin
2 years ago
I’m just wondering – why does Ethan talk about “they” and not simply say “Zeke”? It’s clearly opposing the “it” used by Scott, but by saying “Zeke was young; Zeke was learning” he would (in my view) have made a more convincing argument that Zeke is alive and deserved a chance to live…
Because Zeke doesn’t identify as male or female. They’re human concepts based around our genders. Zeke, as a machine, is genderless. When ZK chose their name they also agreed that “they” was a good way to refer to them. And saying “Zeke” over and over every time you refer to them would get clunky and redundant fast.
I’m not a fan of the third gender either for personal reasons. I think entities like Zeke who really AREN’T either or should be the ones to hold on to that pronoun.
That being said, what I think/feel means jack crap. After all, who’s it hurting? If they wanna be referred to as they/them, fucking LET ’em! It’s not a big deal!
If anything, I’ve always been curious: You refer to he as “Mister” and she as “Missus/Miss.” What do you refer to someone as they/them? Feels like they should get something proper too.
He said you wouldn’t get away with that comic today. It doesn’t sound like he’s wrong by the response. Are you saying people would get away with that kind of thing today?
I actually archive-binged that comic recently. It’s fine. LOTA is not non-binary, LOTA has a glitch where LOTA considers pronouns to be insulting. I raised an eyebrow but I was not offended.
i dont think he had any reference to gender at all. it in this case refers to him as a machine without thought, equal to a toaster, and they refers to a machine able to think.
Its proves how dumb our society sees gender now. 10 years ago someone talking like that in public would have been labeled crazy for referring to a single person or thing as “they”. Also idc what the sjw’s on this page “Feel” about what I say. Normal people don’t warp reality to bend to your fantasies.
Go look up the word “themself”, and then go look up how long it’s been in use. English has had singular meanings to plural words for a very, very long time.
For that matter, English speakers have used the word “they” to refer to a single person in certain circumstances for far, far, far longer than a decade.
10 years ago, talking like that in public would have gotten no attention whatsoever. Kind of like it does now.
I feel I need to expand on my reply because I wrote to a writing prompt on Reddit with a similar statement to Scott’s and I don’t want to be a hypocrite.
I fully agree that there are people out there that would abuse an emerging technology if they could see a use and got their hands on it.
My line is when you start seeing thinking entities as disposable things.
Technically Lucas knew at first, but then told Scott to disable it and Scott lied by omission by saying he didn’t need to worry about it. Once he told Scott to disable it and believed Scott did, he was just as much in the dark as Ethan, so it’s not a case of Lucas deceiving Ethan like Scott deceived them. In hindsight, if Scott felt it couldn’t be trusted and was a danger to our species, he probably should have just killed it and be done with it. There’s no way he could have logically thought they’d keep a mobile… Read more »
So as not to antagonise his friends, Scott was kinda agreeing with them, because he was sure one day “it” will secretly try to leave, die and that will be it: Scott is proven right and the threat is stopped
It was pretty apparent that he only did that AFTER seeing Scott’s reaction. He didn’t care that Zeke was coming in (and even made a joke about Scott getting the autograph) and then saw Scott’s face, realized he didn’t disable it and freaked out. I think that was rather obvious.
You realise that Hitler and his socialist party ran on more than just “Jews bad!” right? The Treaty of Versailles was an absolute shit-show that set the ground for Hitler to get into power. I’m starting to worry if the same thing may come about with Russia today and can only hope their military incompetence and corruption stops a third world war for obvious reasons.
Not compelling arguments. The same arguments can be made of any superhero. Humans can be controlled, mislead, brainwashed, coerced, or blackmailed to do someone else’s bidding.
Yet AFAIK, no one in this world is pushing an “exterminate the super heroes” agenda on the grounds that they MIGHT one day cause horrible damage. Because they’re PEOPLE, and you don’t murder a person because they MIGHT potentially do evil. Less so if their existence causes others to do it.
So if someone creates a revolutionary style of weapon that completely shifts the status quo, like on the potential scale of nuclear weapons, we shouldn’t have some safe guards in place? With people like Tim, you can’t kill him but he’s still a baseline human. You can restrain him. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other contingency plans for heroes/villains if they get out of hand but an AI? Who knows what it could do. It’s thinking could evolve beyond human comprehension. The problem with a lot of arguments from people in regards to Zeke is they’re assuming human… Read more »
You’re missing one tiny, yet crucial, detail: In Scott’s view, Zeke isn’t a person.
It’s just a machine. An incredibly advanced, incredibly dangerous machine, but nothing more than that.
Even if your whole ‘you can’t treat people this way’ reasoning is true, it’s irrelevant here as this isn’t about a person.
Not that I’m missing it; I see it as irrelevant. I said it was “not compelling.” To compel Ethan or Lucas to see Scott’s way, his argument has to have weight EVEN IF Zeke is a living, reasoning, sentient being. Scott’s argument fails to be compelling BECAUSE he is unable to see Zeke as anything other than a machine.
How is it irrelevant when you based your whole counterargument on how you shouldn’t treat people this way? I’ll even quote you: Because they’re PEOPLE, and you don’t murder a person because they MIGHT potentially do evil. True or not, none of that matters until you’re actually talking about a person. You don’t murder a person because he might do evil, but you do destroy apparatus that poses a danger to people. Whether Zeke is/counts as a person or not is anything but irrelevant, it’s one of the key issues in this situation. Scott’s reasoning is perfectly sensible: The thing… Read more »
Scott allowed them to prove that ZK would not destroy the world. It seems they succeeded. It was a compelling argument for red-eyed ZK.
It doesn’t mean that Scott has to stop thinking about other possible dangers; he did contain the danger for now, didn’t he? And once they start discussing weather ZK should leave the room, they can talk about all the issues.
Casra
2 years ago
His argument is flawed. If Zeke is the threat he claims, he should have just killed Z when the chance first arose. He didn’t.
He gave Zeke the benefit of the doubt because his friends convinced him to do so. That doesn’t invalidate his argument. That means, Scott as a person, is fallible.
He didn’t give Zeke the benefit of the doubt at all, he simply acquiesced in order to keep his friends happy then went behind thier backs and disregarded thier agreement and opinion completely.
Okay? Still doesn’t invalidate his argument though.
Dan
2 years ago
So that means he is trying to find a way to disable Ethan’s powers too? Because if anyone can transfer powers… After all, nobody would be safe from a suicide assassin that never stoos coming.
Once caught, they can keep them alive and contained. Zeke did this by putting Ethan in a glass cell with nothing that could harm him [excluding clothes, but this is comic suspension of disbelief that the clothes couldn’t harm him]
Still, Lucas’ powers combined with Ethan’s powers would be a worrying enemy.
Scott has still never referred to Zeke by name. The most he goes is ‘the machine’.
Lily
2 years ago
If one person can make an advanced AI, then another person can. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle, so kill every AI that emerges isn’t practical.
GUNnibal
2 years ago
I wonder if this might be the chapter where we get to know Scott’s past a bit better (it was alluded to before but no details). It might give us some insight into what drives him to reject ZK as a thinking entity, to feel so responsible about mitigating a possible danger.
I can’t remember when the comic was, but I’m fairly certain that Scott was dating Ethan’s sister, who was killed as a bystander to some superpower fight.
Thank you for the link.
That Thanksgiving pair was heart warming.
Pulse
2 years ago
scott…youre a dumbass. the best weapon against an AI that advanced is itself. the master is still out there, he can recreate the AI no problem. the very thing you fear from Zeke already exists from OUTSIDE and your best weapon is to get one of your own that fights for you against the others.
that penguin did a number on his mind even across timelines
Anyone with the master’s level of skill, knowledge and competence (or above) can create an autonomous AI since society’s base technology level in this situation has to be high enough for something like Zeke to be created in the first place Blowing Zeke up is like blowing up the finished product off one production line when there’s fifty thousand more production lines already being built The problem isn’t the machine having sentience, the problem is having the machine sentience decide that it wants to be ethical and moral in a human sense of the concepts Scott’s arguement falls flat on… Read more »
MH Veteran
2 years ago
TMNT 2 comes to mind
“He’s right. He’s right. They’re both right” – Donatello
Crestlinger
2 years ago
I mean Scott is not wrong but he Could have talked with ‘the AI’ about this. From a safe distance if he felt it was necessary. Lucas Did have a civil conversation with them after all, though not about these matters directly. Just glad the store was closed at this time.
I don’t think he’s saying he copied himself onto the Switch there. I think he’s saying he created a temporary partition in his own head, and he’s pretending that voice is coming from the Switch (thus the “surrogate physical presence” thing)
Zeke didn’t mirror themselves onto the switch, but just to a separate partition in their own storage processing units. In the comic, the Switch is just something to talk to so as not to feel crazy talking to oneself. e.g. have a conversation with your pet but provide both sides of said conversation.
Ivan
2 years ago
This “they” speak is getting annoying in high doses…
You’ve used it your whole life without noticing. It’s hundreds of years old. Stop listening to bullshit sexist propaganda designed to discredit women politically.
Generally speaking, in the past, “they” was used for the singular if you’re not quite sure who the person was so you didn’t know the gender. It’s fair to say it’s been used for hundreds of years to refer to a singular person, but it feels a little different when using it to refer to someone who’s right in front of you. It feels weird and dehumanizing, IMO (which is somewhat of a bad term if we’re talking about a robot as above, but…) That said, the weirdness of it is minor compared to being respectful of the person in… Read more »
wow thats a reach. which “women” are you talking about, the ones pretending or the real ones? Because the only group that really discredit actual women are the ones that say men can be women buy simply claiming they are.
Agreed. The best villains think they’re heroes. Ergo, Scott is going to be an AMAZING villain.
Christopher
2 years ago
I love reading the comments and I hope Tim gains a special perverse pleasure out of it, too. The idea of seeing the reactions and maybe even getting ideas! lol. I’ve… been suspicious of Scott this whole time and just *waiting* for a sinister Penguin-based twist. Not that Scott can’t be different in this iteration. Just… I agree with seeing how this could set Scott against Analog and D-Pad.
So, I had an interesting thought on how this could be going down. Maybe Zeke discovered the bomb while looking through his code and/or hardware and realized he could prompt some discovery. He sets it up so that it explodes when it’s supposed to, but does something to actually protect his “brain” from the blast. He either plays dead or sets up a recording device so that the events we’re seeing play out. He learns who is responsible and who is not, since he couldn’t have known it earlier. Edit: I realize now that a couple of others have already… Read more »
Last edited 2 years ago by SuperExoticShrub
Jacob
2 years ago
I get that Ethan and Scott are the more emotional members in the room at this time, but the anger on Lucas’ face in the last comic makes me feel he is a bit under served in this comic.
Hopefully Scott gets an opportunity to grow positively in helping repair ZK, rather than the villain theories being slung around. Just because he looks like Mr. Glass doesn’t necessitate that he *become* Mr. Glass.
The name of the series also makes me feel that there is a backup deposited somewhere (online, secondary storage, etc.). ZK’s had the time, even if Scott couldn’t figure it out, and running copies of himself has already been discussed previously (from memory)
Esc
2 years ago
It’s obvious Scott never believed Zeke was a person.
Additionally Scott’s reaction has always been: “destroy it”. It’s too dangerous to exist and will likely end up trying to kill all humans.
Which Zeke DID in the old storyline. Which Zeke constantly mentions NOW.
Scott ain’t perfect, no one is. But the situation he engineered here isn’t because he’s unaware of what would happen. He’s relieved this happened, just not that it happened with Ethan giving him permission.
Phaet
2 years ago
He’s got a point there.
DiscoKittie
2 years ago
Could someone please remind Scott that the person that made that “dangerous machine” is still out there making more.
Number51x
2 years ago
Yeah, Scott’s off the team. He’s basically gone rogue. I see his point, but he doesn’t get to decide all of that on his own. They’re gonna need a new tech though.
Might be putting ye olde cart before the horse though. Interesting to see just how hurt Z really is.
Skull the Troll
2 years ago
I don’t quite get Scott here. What’s the danger of Zeke? Ok, he’s intelligent, but so are most human babies born. Any one of them can grow up to be high quality computer programmer with good martial arts skills. Even more so on a planet with super beings. What particular advantage does someone have who can put Zeke in a box?
It takes decades to have a human grow into something that has the possibility of that kind of damage. With the proper tools, you could have an ARMY of Zekes within a few hours. That is what Scott fears.
Rame
2 years ago
Something I don’t see, at least in this page’s discussion, is the fact that when the master gave them his ultimatum to back off he openly stated that ZK was a prototype. This means he’s working on something like ZK as they speak.
Why do you assume it’s male? Because it has no breasts? It doesn’t have a penis either. Because it purchased pants and not a skirt? Do note that I have absolutely nothing against people born one gender and feel more comfortable as the other or as none. People should live the way they want to. However “male” and “female” is a way to categorize someone when they are born. If you have a penis, testicles and produce sperm you are male. If you have a vagina, ovaries and a womb you’re female. Same way you are born blonde, brunette or… Read more »
Didn’t Zeke have a girlfriend called Embla in the previous universe, and they refer as themseves to he and she ?
Tim
2 years ago
He’s not wrong, he’s just doing it the wrong way. Pretending to honor the wishes of your friends in order to protect them isn’t clever, it’s arrogant. Quietly implementing your own version of what’s been asked for because you don’t agree but don’t want to rock the boat is toxic. Ethan and Scott both have valid arguments.
Rame
2 years ago
Generally I’ve seen people sometimes try to enact some level of control in whatever area they feel they have power in. If not for power than possibly to attempt to avoid feeling powerless. Right or wrong Scott perceives a threat in ZK, especially with his power in the internet to manipulate things at will. A danger that is a separate category than monsters and disasters. I would say he still suffers on some level from the trauma of the incident that put him in that chair and it tints his view on things.
D00d
2 years ago
Cue, Scott the SuperVillain….. Maybe with a Penguin sidekick, maybe not.
Hinkeypinkey
2 years ago
Last post “God damnit Scott” this post “God damnit Scott…and he is also right”. If next post is starcaster etc. I am going to flip
That’s a matter of a contentious opinion. He has on caused acts through his robots which would put him on the level of a terrorist or common criminal. His main goal though, is to cause a world wide collapse of technology. This would causing a myriad of issues. With powered villains running around to take advantage, the situation would escalate on an entirely other level. That could potentially be considered supervillian level.
Last edited 2 years ago by Rame
Snowfae
2 years ago
Okay, to be fair Scott ain’t wrong on that one. If some Supervillain or Military Leader (or both, because lets be honest… there’s gonna be a few that are both) did capture Zeke and manage to reverse-engineer him and his AI specs… yeah, it’d be full Skynet.
It’s almost as if humans are full of bias and hypocrisy when it comes to viewing themselves through the lens in which they judge others.
Nightdagger
2 years ago
You know, I have to say, while the jerkass has a little bit of a point, that point immediately evaporates when you state it in a world full of superheros and supervillains, one of whom has ALREADY done the thing and doesn’t appear to be the brightest bulb in the drawer. Which leads to believe that if the Master can do it, anyone can, and they just haven’t wasted their time on it probably because of things like what’s happening in this very comic. Sorry Scott, but you’re falling super flat on this one. In the real world you’d make… Read more »
“creates a sentient computer, can’t replicate because $REASON” is a common TV trope.
Derfman1963
2 years ago
Oh great… Zeke dies, consciousness transfers to back up. Master now in control of a pissed Zeke. I’m pretty sure this is not the last we see of him.
Ninebucks
2 years ago
For fucks sake, just call him a he. They will forgive you. They is a goddamn plural. *They* the people who dont read your comic will forgive you. Otherwise, this grammatical atrocity lends credence to the crazy and is jarring in its inadequate ability to gender a fucking robot.
“gender a fucking robot” is one of the sillier things I’ve heard someone say in this whole pronoun argument, because fucking robots don’t HAVE genders so they are intrinsically a “they”
24
Am I the only one to F5 this page at this time of the week when we have a comic like that running ?
That’s what the RSS feed is for…
Super looking forward to it. Scott’s a killer, now. He believed it to be intelligent, capable of the threat he claims it poses, and in that belief killed it. Wonder how Ethan’s sister would feel about him murdering; wonder how him and Ethan are going to feel about it once it hits that that’s the choice he made.
Ok, I’m now fully on board with the theory someone posted on the last comic that some of Zekes systems are still working and they are recording the full conversation. It’s very clear who has what responsibillity now, and Zeke is going to remember that if they ever get repaired.
I’m going with the idea that Zeke knew about the bomb, had already disabled it/replaced it with a non-destructive charge and is doing this for the show and the torture. Much like when Ethan broke their eye…. And yes – Zeke is monitoring the whole conversation – cue murder bot that wants to destroy Scott.
I think it’d also be interesting if Zeke is only aware of being injured and then repaired and wanting to know what happened. Then Ethan has to choose between lying or telling the truth and risking Zeke’s potentially lethal reaction.
Or he seen that Ethan really is his friend. Scott’s point of view is entirely rational, and I can see Zeke actually respecting that.
Rereading this comic for the twentieth time, and thinking about various comments I’ve scrolled over as many times, I’m kind of on board with that. I think Zeke could have some understanding of the fact that Scott at least respects the power that Zeke represents. Zeke has also shown that they likely have some remorse for the mental state Ethan’s powers have put him in, and the fact that Zeke has been the cause of multiple of those deaths. So if Zeke has been monitoring any of this, they might “wake up” angry (and rightly so), but also with a… Read more »
Counterpoint: In seeing that Scott is right, and realizing that he will always be a threat to humanity, Zeke logically concludes that, because he is a threat to humanity, humanity will always be a threat to him.
This is my viewpoint as well. “I respect you for your logical brutality, but that is also why humanity must die for me to live.”
Contrast with Ethan’s illogical-at-times empathy.
Scott has a point here but if this was his thought process he should have never gone along with the charade in the first place. It’s mad cruel to everyone involved to put their lives and time and energy into trying to gain Zeke’s trust and work on Zeke adjusting to being a part of the world if he never intended to really give him a shot in the first place.
To be fair, Scott never really did go along with that. His position always was (and is) that the thing is dangerous and should be destroyed. His agreeing to the bomb perimeter instead of destroying Zeke outright was more of a compromise since Ethan was so adamantly against destruction.
For Scott the perimeter never was about rehabilitation, it was just damage prevention until the problem solved itself (either by the machine blowing itself up, or by Ethan giving up and/or finally realizing the thing is indeed too dangerous to keep around.)
He didn’t “agree” to the bomb perimeter. He deliberately misled Lucas into thinking he had disabled the bomb entirely so he could do whatever he thought was right and avoid having a conversation about it.
Counter point. They fought a villain afew months ago running around in a mech suit that tore through a building like it was paper. That thing was no less dangerous then zeke and yet they just left that tech for the police to take.
So…the real problem is Zeke or the Master?
“We” should…you know…kill the master then, don’t we?
Scott’s argument though is that it’s more than the Master, that anyone with I’ll intent would use him, so therefore he shouldn’t exist. Which is kind of a poor argument. By that logic we shouldn’t make anything that “could” be used for evil purposes.
I think what Gonfrask might have been getting at is that The Master can build another one. Probably has been building another one this entire time.
“Probably has been building another one this entire time.”
So… Embla? If I recall in original CAD, Embla was the worse threat than Zeke (aside from the alternate future robot dystopia, or when he went haywire from a water balloon).
Just imagine instead of the Master someone actually competent was in control of Zeke
only a matter of time before he does a teamup. they already managed to take his prized bot, vengence wont come from being cocky.
Oh boy, I remember a whole period in recent history that was considered with pretty much exactly the same idea.
Scott’s problem is that he hasn’t come to grips with the fact that he lives in a world with forces beyond his control. Yeah Zeke could be a threat, but like a week ago Dr. Eldrich had a 200 foot tall squid destroying downtown. And that’s just this one city. He’s also exhibiting some pretty racist tendencies here, though I doubt he realizes that. I think a supervillain is being created here, but its not Zeke, its Scott. He’s going to leave them now, and when we see him again it’s going to be a villain.
And a penguin!
Racist how?
His insistence on dehumanising the clearly sapient AI shows some level of inherent bigotry even if he self rationalises it as a reasonable precaution.
Perhaps speciest or robophobic would be more accurate than the word racist though.
But Zeke isn’t human though. It could actually be argued that trying to humanize something or someone that isn’t human is bigotry. If you have to be human to be understood or accepted, that’s discrimination, isn’t it?
Yeah, by his argument we shouldn’t make people.
Honestly, Scott’ lack of vision for a character so intelligent seems baffling. As a software engineer myself, I know the potential AIs have, but I also know that once we opened that Pandora’s box, we can never close it back again. Once we have the technology to create an AI with free will, how long would it take for another person to create another? And how long until the third, the tenth, and so on? Yes, a lot of people would want to get their hands on Zeke. But whos to say there aren’t other AIs like him locked up… Read more »
And yet “We invented the nuke therefore someone else might be able to make it too” doesn’t mean we simply let North Korea get their hands on one of ours in order to see how to do it.
That also goes to the idea that, while the *concept* of the technology is out there, we *might* still have a duty to prevent certain people/actors/countries from having that technology because of their goals.
This is like North Korea already knows view to make nukes, and we stole one to disarm. The Master is still out there. He’ll just make another.
That’s assuming the master knows how to make another zeke. The rest of the Xbots were non sentient. I seem to recall at one point it was implied that the sentience was more of a fluke than intentional. That the master recognized what he had made and took advantage of it. He also put in the failsafe because he’s not a total moron and knew what free will meant when a killbot had it. I would think considering how much more capable zeke was over the grunts he would have made more if he could. While cheaper quantity has a… Read more »
Except in this case Scott wanted to destroy the nuke thinking that it would prevent the creation of more nukes for a very long time… however I was merely pointing out that people who work in software don’t see things that way. Most of us believe that no matter what piece of groundbreaking tech you build today, even if you keep it hidden, it’s safe to assume someone else will build the same thing in 1 to 3 years, 5 at most. It makes more sense to keep the bot as an ally against future AIs that will be coming… Read more »
As an electrical engineer i concur. It is the concept of Multiple Discovery. It only has to possible to invent something once and it will get invented again.
While it is tempting to just destroy and hope that solves it under the rules of “Heroic theory of invention”. Often the genie is already out of the bottle and it will inevitably pop up elsewhere sooner or later. So it is generally considered best to deal with it as early as possible.
How such things translate to a world of heroes and villains though.
Reusing the nuke example again as a historical example: The Soviets independently developed their own nukes separated from the US; they had some spy-document help, but it merely accelerated the process.
And Nazi Germany themselves came close to developing their own nukes too. It took some disinformation and sabotage to derail that, and then Nazi Germany was out of time.
Are you factoring in that the Master intentionally kept the AI on a very short leash? There still isn’t an instance of a “free” one besides Zeke.
There have been random people across the planet who’ve created their own nuclear reactors in their sheds in the last couple of years. As time goes on and advanced information proliferates along with people who are simply curious, that’s not something you’ll be able to stop, even if you try denying them the information. Someone will figure it out.
You may deny them access to your nukes, but if there is some Oppenheimer out there on the loose, any security measures you take for your nukes are irrelevant.
Honestly, while I do think that AI represents an emergent threat to the human race, I think Horizon Zero Dawn is the most accurate work of fiction with regards to the danger (spoilers for the first Horizon, I guess) – rather than the AI being truly intelligent and malignant, it wasn’t really “sentient” it all. It was just doing its job, bugged, and eradicated all life on the planet because that’s what its code told it to do. I think that’s a far more likely threat than an angry, evil computer. Not really directly related to the point you were… Read more »
This is the most common problem with AIs in the media and my personal bugbear: “WHICH DUMBASS GAVE A SINGLE ENTITY THAT MUCH POWER!???”
Even a US president had to go through so many different steps to launch a nuke. And fictional AIs commonly have more power (‘soft’ or direct) than that.
“once we opened that Pandora’s box, we can never close it back again” – so Scott doesn’t want to open that box.
/me puts on Scott’s hat: A bad outcome would be some Putin mass-producing one AI per x citizen – and to consider us to be his new citizen. You disagree? (AI’s eyes turn red)
/me puts off the hat
A worse outcome would be free AIs competing with mankind for resources and offspring. If we’re lucky we’d be put in a reservation.
Goddamnit Scott, stop using logic to convince me that you might be right!
He’s NOT though. “An immortal human? Just imagine if word got out about Ethan, any supervillain, or, government, or corporation would kill to take Ethan apart and figure out how he works, and then nobody would ever be safe again!”
Just because Zeke is AI doesn’t make him unique _in this instance_, therefore the rationale falls flat.
I mean at some point, super powers came and the government made the captains, almost every technology has been used for profit or for power.
That works with the assumption that his power can be replicated. Unless it’s been previously mentioned, powers don’t look to be transferable or replicable. If it was, why wouldn’t every government be secreting away their super-powered citizens to create regiments of super-powered soldiers?
There’s a possibility that the ability to create AI could be linked to a technical power and without the person who created the AI in the first place, other AI or AI that operate like Zeke would be impossible.
If you’re interested, there’s a free web serial called Worm (Google worm parahuman to find it).
And in Worm, there’s so many ethical and unethical research done to people with powers (there’s even a supervillain group with a “farm” who tries to trigger new parahumans and brainwash them too). Let alone what that universe’s secret conspiracy group is up to.
In fact, what that universe’s secret conspiracy group is up to is exactly a good argument for Scott’s statement: when a group can find a way to replicate the unrepeatable super-X, everything goes to shit.
He’s not. There are dozens of threats at Zeke’s scale in this world. He’s not fitting bomb collars to the human superheroes though. You act against the things that DO act against you not the things that COULD
There is some reason behind the idea of deterrence, though. The trick is finding a reasonable middle ground between paranoid and permissive. As Tim mentioned elsewhere here, just because we have nukes does not mean we should allow countries like North Korea to have them easily, or at least to provide any kind of facilitation of them getting them.
Why have police in that case? No one is currently stealing or murdering you so why would you need them?
So that there will be someone to act against things that do, duh
The phrase is “Putting lipstick on a pig”
I am 100% convinced that Zeke is going to stand up and explain that he had already managed to find the bomb and disarm it and the explosion was a trick to fuck with Ethan and figure out where he stood with the other two.
Would kind of ruin the moment though. I’d much prefer something more on the level of remaining functional enough to hear what’s going on.
And he was just so gosh-darn tickled that his buddies were planning on murdering him if he stepped out of his cell – the cell they told him he was free to leave though requested he stay in – that he wanted to pull a prank. Just to see their faces. Ah, gotcha!
Yeah, he was just about ready to skin Ethan alive for breaking an easily replaceable lens. I think that’s wishful thinking.
Except it’s clear that Ethan had no idea about it. If you had a someone do something evil, do you tar by association everyone that was friends with that person even though they had no idea he was doing anything evil to begin with?
You realise that “evil people” don’t always give out red flags like they do in popular media right?
Ethan’s respawning primed me to expect something like hat, too.
I don’t think ZK was able to destroy the failsafe, either through blocks in programming or dead man circuitry. I do, however, think they were able to move primary systems away from the head. In my headcanon, they’ve moved all critical systems to their pelvis, thus requiring pants to hide the progress.
Cue the “you human males think with your crotch anyway, right” jokes from ZK.
FUUUUUCK. At least in this scenario, both parties actually have convincing arguments! Goddammit!
I see where you’re coming from but still, that wasn’t very cash money of you, Scott
I mean, a super villain already had him and didnt do too much with it. We dont know how hard it is to replicate the AI and make more even kinda like Zeke.
I’d hardly call a weeb disgruntled by his 360 getting the RROD a super villain. He’s more of a regular villain. Super villain is the tentacle summoning guy who almost killed Lilah.
And there are already full-fledged superheroes to deal with them.
Scott already tried a few months back. Zélés code is constantly rewriting itself. Making another one? Not very easy. The only one who can replicate Zeke is Zeke at this point.
off-topic, what keyboard are you using? Converting eke to élé is kinda interesting.
Despite having a point, you still betrayed their trust in you Scott. There was no reason you could not have set the perimeter at the gamestore, Scott. You could have, and SHOULD have TOLD them, SCOTT!
You piece of shit.
I get Scott’s fear, but there are always–ALWAYS–alternatives. There’s a Plan B for everything. Not wanting Zeke to be taken by bad people? Totally on board with that. By blowing him up because you also think his existence is a threat anyway? No, dude. Just no. Don’t go supervillain on us. We had that in 1.0 and I DON’T want an evil/renegade Scott in 2.0.
If my memory serves correctly, technically the penguin was the supervillain; Scott hated Microsoft but the penguin forced him to do everything bad via mind control.
True, but either by proxy (ie mind control) or of his own accord, Scott was still an absolute dick and an antagonist to the series regardless. I never cared for that version.
This Scott I like. He’s a sweetheart and a worrywart, but he has good intentions. I’ve just been reading a lot of comics and such where the friend turns into the villain due to a serious event.
This feels like that serious event, so I worry.
I’m just wondering – why does Ethan talk about “they” and not simply say “Zeke”? It’s clearly opposing the “it” used by Scott, but by saying “Zeke was young; Zeke was learning” he would (in my view) have made a more convincing argument that Zeke is alive and deserved a chance to live…
https://cad-comic.com/comic/identity-p11/ explains
Starts at https://cad-comic.com/comic/identity-p1/
Incidentally, looks like scott saved zeke from an early head explosion here
https://cad-comic.com/comic/identity-p18/
Because Zeke doesn’t identify as male or female. They’re human concepts based around our genders. Zeke, as a machine, is genderless. When ZK chose their name they also agreed that “they” was a good way to refer to them. And saying “Zeke” over and over every time you refer to them would get clunky and redundant fast.
You wouldn’t get away with this comic today.
Care to explain, or are you aware how not right you’ll become if you keep going?
I’m not a fan of the third gender either for personal reasons. I think entities like Zeke who really AREN’T either or should be the ones to hold on to that pronoun.
That being said, what I think/feel means jack crap. After all, who’s it hurting? If they wanna be referred to as they/them, fucking LET ’em! It’s not a big deal!
If anything, I’ve always been curious: You refer to he as “Mister” and she as “Missus/Miss.” What do you refer to someone as they/them? Feels like they should get something proper too.
He said you wouldn’t get away with that comic today. It doesn’t sound like he’s wrong by the response. Are you saying people would get away with that kind of thing today?
That’s not at all what they are saying and you know it.
I actually archive-binged that comic recently. It’s fine. LOTA is not non-binary, LOTA has a glitch where LOTA considers pronouns to be insulting. I raised an eyebrow but I was not offended.
i dont think he had any reference to gender at all. it in this case refers to him as a machine without thought, equal to a toaster, and they refers to a machine able to think.
But in an emotional statement like this, it would make the Ethan-Zeke relationship sound that much closer – more personal.
Its proves how dumb our society sees gender now. 10 years ago someone talking like that in public would have been labeled crazy for referring to a single person or thing as “they”. Also idc what the sjw’s on this page “Feel” about what I say. Normal people don’t warp reality to bend to your fantasies.
Society is still dumb now, but we got smarter since then.
Go look up the word “themself”, and then go look up how long it’s been in use. English has had singular meanings to plural words for a very, very long time.
For that matter, English speakers have used the word “they” to refer to a single person in certain circumstances for far, far, far longer than a decade.
10 years ago, talking like that in public would have gotten no attention whatsoever. Kind of like it does now.
Even Alex Jones and Ben Shapiro use singular they by accident when they forget to pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m sure you slip up too.
By that logic you should kill every person with powers. Execute anyone that can design a gun.
Because it might compromise safety in the wrong hands.
I feel I need to expand on my reply because I wrote to a writing prompt on Reddit with a similar statement to Scott’s and I don’t want to be a hypocrite.
I fully agree that there are people out there that would abuse an emerging technology if they could see a use and got their hands on it.
My line is when you start seeing thinking entities as disposable things.
Were there stories?
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/s2wljx/wp_if_you_go_public_with_your_inventions_you/hsnp9xd/?context=3
If you wish to read them
Bingo.
Next one is likely to have a further betrayal, as Lucas knew and didn’t tell them either
Technically Lucas knew at first, but then told Scott to disable it and Scott lied by omission by saying he didn’t need to worry about it. Once he told Scott to disable it and believed Scott did, he was just as much in the dark as Ethan, so it’s not a case of Lucas deceiving Ethan like Scott deceived them. In hindsight, if Scott felt it couldn’t be trusted and was a danger to our species, he probably should have just killed it and be done with it. There’s no way he could have logically thought they’d keep a mobile… Read more »
So as not to antagonise his friends, Scott was kinda agreeing with them, because he was sure one day “it” will secretly try to leave, die and that will be it: Scott is proven right and the threat is stopped
If Lucas thought the bomb was disabled he would not have called for Zeke to not come into the store.
It was pretty apparent that he only did that AFTER seeing Scott’s reaction. He didn’t care that Zeke was coming in (and even made a joke about Scott getting the autograph) and then saw Scott’s face, realized he didn’t disable it and freaked out. I think that was rather obvious.
Looking the panels again, I think you may be right.
Oh sure. All of a sudden Scott has new, actually quite compelling arguments.
Still a dick for deceiving Lucas though.
Yeah, Hitler had compelling arguments too…….
You realise that Hitler and his socialist party ran on more than just “Jews bad!” right? The Treaty of Versailles was an absolute shit-show that set the ground for Hitler to get into power. I’m starting to worry if the same thing may come about with Russia today and can only hope their military incompetence and corruption stops a third world war for obvious reasons.
Not compelling arguments. The same arguments can be made of any superhero. Humans can be controlled, mislead, brainwashed, coerced, or blackmailed to do someone else’s bidding.
Yet AFAIK, no one in this world is pushing an “exterminate the super heroes” agenda on the grounds that they MIGHT one day cause horrible damage. Because they’re PEOPLE, and you don’t murder a person because they MIGHT potentially do evil. Less so if their existence causes others to do it.
So if someone creates a revolutionary style of weapon that completely shifts the status quo, like on the potential scale of nuclear weapons, we shouldn’t have some safe guards in place? With people like Tim, you can’t kill him but he’s still a baseline human. You can restrain him. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other contingency plans for heroes/villains if they get out of hand but an AI? Who knows what it could do. It’s thinking could evolve beyond human comprehension. The problem with a lot of arguments from people in regards to Zeke is they’re assuming human… Read more »
You’re missing one tiny, yet crucial, detail: In Scott’s view, Zeke isn’t a person.
It’s just a machine. An incredibly advanced, incredibly dangerous machine, but nothing more than that.
Even if your whole ‘you can’t treat people this way’ reasoning is true, it’s irrelevant here as this isn’t about a person.
Not that I’m missing it; I see it as irrelevant. I said it was “not compelling.” To compel Ethan or Lucas to see Scott’s way, his argument has to have weight EVEN IF Zeke is a living, reasoning, sentient being. Scott’s argument fails to be compelling BECAUSE he is unable to see Zeke as anything other than a machine.
How is it irrelevant when you based your whole counterargument on how you shouldn’t treat people this way? I’ll even quote you: Because they’re PEOPLE, and you don’t murder a person because they MIGHT potentially do evil. True or not, none of that matters until you’re actually talking about a person. You don’t murder a person because he might do evil, but you do destroy apparatus that poses a danger to people. Whether Zeke is/counts as a person or not is anything but irrelevant, it’s one of the key issues in this situation. Scott’s reasoning is perfectly sensible: The thing… Read more »
Trying to control superheros can result in a Civil War …
Scott allowed them to prove that ZK would not destroy the world. It seems they succeeded. It was a compelling argument for red-eyed ZK.
It doesn’t mean that Scott has to stop thinking about other possible dangers; he did contain the danger for now, didn’t he? And once they start discussing weather ZK should leave the room, they can talk about all the issues.
His argument is flawed. If Zeke is the threat he claims, he should have just killed Z when the chance first arose. He didn’t.
He gave Zeke the benefit of the doubt because his friends convinced him to do so. That doesn’t invalidate his argument. That means, Scott as a person, is fallible.
He didn’t give Zeke the benefit of the doubt at all, he simply acquiesced in order to keep his friends happy then went behind thier backs and disregarded thier agreement and opinion completely.
Okay? Still doesn’t invalidate his argument though.
So that means he is trying to find a way to disable Ethan’s powers too? Because if anyone can transfer powers… After all, nobody would be safe from a suicide assassin that never stoos coming.
Once caught, they can keep them alive and contained. Zeke did this by putting Ethan in a glass cell with nothing that could harm him [excluding clothes, but this is comic suspension of disbelief that the clothes couldn’t harm him]
Still, Lucas’ powers combined with Ethan’s powers would be a worrying enemy.
Ethan is able to kill himself by falling on a shelf, I think he just wasn’t trying hard enough.
Out of curiosity, have you read Akumetsu?
Scott has still never referred to Zeke by name. The most he goes is ‘the machine’.
If one person can make an advanced AI, then another person can. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle, so kill every AI that emerges isn’t practical.
I wonder if this might be the chapter where we get to know Scott’s past a bit better (it was alluded to before but no details). It might give us some insight into what drives him to reject ZK as a thinking entity, to feel so responsible about mitigating a possible danger.
Found the page that mentioned it before, if anyone’s curious: https://cad-comic.com/comic/home-cooked-p1/
I can’t remember when the comic was, but I’m fairly certain that Scott was dating Ethan’s sister, who was killed as a bystander to some superpower fight.
Thank you for the link.
That Thanksgiving pair was heart warming.
scott…youre a dumbass. the best weapon against an AI that advanced is itself. the master is still out there, he can recreate the AI no problem. the very thing you fear from Zeke already exists from OUTSIDE and your best weapon is to get one of your own that fights for you against the others.
that penguin did a number on his mind even across timelines
Anyone with the master’s level of skill, knowledge and competence (or above) can create an autonomous AI since society’s base technology level in this situation has to be high enough for something like Zeke to be created in the first place Blowing Zeke up is like blowing up the finished product off one production line when there’s fifty thousand more production lines already being built The problem isn’t the machine having sentience, the problem is having the machine sentience decide that it wants to be ethical and moral in a human sense of the concepts Scott’s arguement falls flat on… Read more »
TMNT 2 comes to mind
“He’s right. He’s right. They’re both right” – Donatello
I mean Scott is not wrong but he Could have talked with ‘the AI’ about this. From a safe distance if he felt it was necessary. Lucas Did have a civil conversation with them after all, though not about these matters directly. Just glad the store was closed at this time.
Could Zeke copying a part of them onto the switch be considered a backup? https://cad-comic.com/comic/identity-p10/
I don’t think he’s saying he copied himself onto the Switch there. I think he’s saying he created a temporary partition in his own head, and he’s pretending that voice is coming from the Switch (thus the “surrogate physical presence” thing)
Zeke didn’t mirror themselves onto the switch, but just to a separate partition in their own storage processing units. In the comic, the Switch is just something to talk to so as not to feel crazy talking to oneself. e.g. have a conversation with your pet but provide both sides of said conversation.
This “they” speak is getting annoying in high doses…
You’ve used it your whole life without noticing. It’s hundreds of years old. Stop listening to bullshit sexist propaganda designed to discredit women politically.
Generally speaking, in the past, “they” was used for the singular if you’re not quite sure who the person was so you didn’t know the gender. It’s fair to say it’s been used for hundreds of years to refer to a singular person, but it feels a little different when using it to refer to someone who’s right in front of you. It feels weird and dehumanizing, IMO (which is somewhat of a bad term if we’re talking about a robot as above, but…) That said, the weirdness of it is minor compared to being respectful of the person in… Read more »
wow thats a reach. which “women” are you talking about, the ones pretending or the real ones? Because the only group that really discredit actual women are the ones that say men can be women buy simply claiming they are.
Ah, the bigots have arrived.
They have always been here
Fuck off bigoted trash.
Right
Imagine you would not fit in the male/female scheme and everybody would insist to annoy you.
You can think of using “they” as treating everybody like a king if that helps.
Silly Scott, ALL governments are supervillains.
P.S. PLEASE dont get rid of Scott
Agreed. The best villains think they’re heroes. Ergo, Scott is going to be an AMAZING villain.
I love reading the comments and I hope Tim gains a special perverse pleasure out of it, too. The idea of seeing the reactions and maybe even getting ideas! lol. I’ve… been suspicious of Scott this whole time and just *waiting* for a sinister Penguin-based twist. Not that Scott can’t be different in this iteration. Just… I agree with seeing how this could set Scott against Analog and D-Pad.
So he’s a robo-racist………
robophobe
So, I had an interesting thought on how this could be going down. Maybe Zeke discovered the bomb while looking through his code and/or hardware and realized he could prompt some discovery. He sets it up so that it explodes when it’s supposed to, but does something to actually protect his “brain” from the blast. He either plays dead or sets up a recording device so that the events we’re seeing play out. He learns who is responsible and who is not, since he couldn’t have known it earlier. Edit: I realize now that a couple of others have already… Read more »
I get that Ethan and Scott are the more emotional members in the room at this time, but the anger on Lucas’ face in the last comic makes me feel he is a bit under served in this comic.
Hopefully Scott gets an opportunity to grow positively in helping repair ZK, rather than the villain theories being slung around. Just because he looks like Mr. Glass doesn’t necessitate that he *become* Mr. Glass.
The name of the series also makes me feel that there is a backup deposited somewhere (online, secondary storage, etc.). ZK’s had the time, even if Scott couldn’t figure it out, and running copies of himself has already been discussed previously (from memory)
It’s obvious Scott never believed Zeke was a person.
Additionally Scott’s reaction has always been: “destroy it”. It’s too dangerous to exist and will likely end up trying to kill all humans.
Which Zeke DID in the old storyline. Which Zeke constantly mentions NOW.
Scott ain’t perfect, no one is. But the situation he engineered here isn’t because he’s unaware of what would happen. He’s relieved this happened, just not that it happened with Ethan giving him permission.
He’s got a point there.
Could someone please remind Scott that the person that made that “dangerous machine” is still out there making more.
Yeah, Scott’s off the team. He’s basically gone rogue. I see his point, but he doesn’t get to decide all of that on his own. They’re gonna need a new tech though.
They could get the robot to be a tech guy
Might be putting ye olde cart before the horse though. Interesting to see just how hurt Z really is.
I don’t quite get Scott here. What’s the danger of Zeke? Ok, he’s intelligent, but so are most human babies born. Any one of them can grow up to be high quality computer programmer with good martial arts skills. Even more so on a planet with super beings. What particular advantage does someone have who can put Zeke in a box?
It takes decades to have a human grow into something that has the possibility of that kind of damage. With the proper tools, you could have an ARMY of Zekes within a few hours. That is what Scott fears.
Something I don’t see, at least in this page’s discussion, is the fact that when the master gave them his ultimatum to back off he openly stated that ZK was a prototype. This means he’s working on something like ZK as they speak.
Side note, how does an independent store have a ps5 in stock? I don’t see that thing stay on the self for more than an hour.
Late delivery.
Really gender language? They them? Come on Tim. Zeke is male.
Really feel like I did a whole thing where they’re not.
I agree, we can tell by the y chromosome. /s
Thank you for this. Like, 100x better than my response was gonna be.
Why do you assume it’s male? Because it has no breasts? It doesn’t have a penis either. Because it purchased pants and not a skirt? Do note that I have absolutely nothing against people born one gender and feel more comfortable as the other or as none. People should live the way they want to. However “male” and “female” is a way to categorize someone when they are born. If you have a penis, testicles and produce sperm you are male. If you have a vagina, ovaries and a womb you’re female. Same way you are born blonde, brunette or… Read more »
Didn’t Zeke have a girlfriend called Embla in the previous universe, and they refer as themseves to he and she ?
He’s not wrong, he’s just doing it the wrong way. Pretending to honor the wishes of your friends in order to protect them isn’t clever, it’s arrogant. Quietly implementing your own version of what’s been asked for because you don’t agree but don’t want to rock the boat is toxic. Ethan and Scott both have valid arguments.
Generally I’ve seen people sometimes try to enact some level of control in whatever area they feel they have power in. If not for power than possibly to attempt to avoid feeling powerless. Right or wrong Scott perceives a threat in ZK, especially with his power in the internet to manipulate things at will. A danger that is a separate category than monsters and disasters. I would say he still suffers on some level from the trauma of the incident that put him in that chair and it tints his view on things.
Cue, Scott the SuperVillain….. Maybe with a Penguin sidekick, maybe not.
Last post “God damnit Scott” this post “God damnit Scott…and he is also right”. If next post is starcaster etc. I am going to flip
I can’t imagine it will be, this doesn’t feel like an “ending” like they usually do.
How does Scott’s logic factor in that there WAS already a supervillain who had hands on Zeke — their master?
You think Eugene rates as a “supervillain?”
That’s a matter of a contentious opinion. He has on caused acts through his robots which would put him on the level of a terrorist or common criminal. His main goal though, is to cause a world wide collapse of technology. This would causing a myriad of issues. With powered villains running around to take advantage, the situation would escalate on an entirely other level. That could potentially be considered supervillian level.
Okay, to be fair Scott ain’t wrong on that one. If some Supervillain or Military Leader (or both, because lets be honest… there’s gonna be a few that are both) did capture Zeke and manage to reverse-engineer him and his AI specs… yeah, it’d be full Skynet.
This looks like a job for C-4.
That being said he either needed to just set the bomb off and deal with Ethan’s anger, or just be flat out blunt and tell this to him up front.
As much as I sympathize with poor Zeke, someone would have used him to try to create a robot army, and unlike the Master it could be someone who is:
So yeah. Scott was a complete arse about this, BUT HE’S NOT ENTIRELY WRONG GUYS.
Guys…what if Zeke backed themselves up onto a 1st generation xbox?
Cue the “get out. We cannot trust you to watch our backs anymore”
A threat and a danger to everyone else? Sounds like the human race in a nutshell when compared to nature.
It’s almost as if humans are full of bias and hypocrisy when it comes to viewing themselves through the lens in which they judge others.
You know, I have to say, while the jerkass has a little bit of a point, that point immediately evaporates when you state it in a world full of superheros and supervillains, one of whom has ALREADY done the thing and doesn’t appear to be the brightest bulb in the drawer. Which leads to believe that if the Master can do it, anyone can, and they just haven’t wasted their time on it probably because of things like what’s happening in this very comic. Sorry Scott, but you’re falling super flat on this one. In the real world you’d make… Read more »
“creates a sentient computer, can’t replicate because $REASON” is a common TV trope.
Oh great… Zeke dies, consciousness transfers to back up. Master now in control of a pissed Zeke. I’m pretty sure this is not the last we see of him.
For fucks sake, just call him a he. They will forgive you. They is a goddamn plural. *They* the people who dont read your comic will forgive you. Otherwise, this grammatical atrocity lends credence to the crazy and is jarring in its inadequate ability to gender a fucking robot.
“Can my friend come with me?”
“Sure, what do THEY like to eat?”
They, referring to a singular. Check and mate.
“gender a fucking robot” is one of the sillier things I’ve heard someone say in this whole pronoun argument, because fucking robots don’t HAVE genders so they are intrinsically a “they”
I’m super sorry, but I feel like someone has to make this joke: I very much feel like a “fucking robot” should definitely have a gender…
(Robots built for other purposes, including Zeke, of course don’t)
like in my comment earlier:
why do you feel it is a he?
No breasts? But no penis either.
It bought pants? Women wear them too.
It’s an AI that decided it wants to be called “they”.
It is a He, at least in the previous universe. He even had a girlfriend. Her death caused the apocalypse.
“previous universe” as you said is not this universe. Lucas wasn’t gay in the previous universe either 😉