Freefall

At least he's not taking after the Nazis? Yet, anyway. As for Ishiguro I think the problem is that he doesn't think of robots as people so the idea that one of them might make a creative interpretation of his order never occurred to him.

He thinks of them as people. As dumb masses of people, though, and does not realise how much one not-dumb robot can influence the others, especially with his clearance given.

edited 24th Nov '15 10:24:23 PM by Adannor

Of course at this point you have to wonder to what extent Ishi thinks of humans as people. At least those in the 99%

edited 24th Nov '15 10:29:43 PM by tricksterson

Not very much, yes.

While I might agree that Ishiguro would equate humans and robots, I think he'd be more prone to thinking humans are meat robots rather than think that robots are metallic people.

From his comments on purity, I have a strong suspicion which way he's leaning, but remember that there was more than one formalized Inquisition.

The Papal Inquisition, which was created to rein in the more extreme abuses of medieval inquisitions, was much less likely to convict without sufficient evidence than their Spanish counterpart, which was more a servant of the Spanish Crown than of the Holy See.

(This isn't to say that the Papal Inquisition was perfect, mind you, nor that it was incapable of being in error. It was, however, a huge step up from what existed previously.)

edited 25th Nov '15 6:40:17 AM by Nohbody

Also, in terms of things that many people prefer to not think about, the papal office of the Inquisition still exists. Sure, it's now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith instead of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, but it's still around. And it's still pretty influential - prior to his papacy, Benedict XVI was the prefect.

This isn't to say that Blunt's crusade isn't going to go completely off the rails, but there's still a chance that he might be vigorous without being zealous. This would still put him in opposition to the protagonists, of course, but I'm hoping he doesn't go too overboard.

He's already pretty zealous. This just shows that he's ready to actually start exterminating robots that do not conform to his dogma.

I overstated things by bringing up genocide. you're right that the Inquisition does not really imply that. Although, as was proved during the violent "debates" before the actual televised debates, there really is nothing preventing robot-on-robot violence, particularly if it's to save a human life. Depending on which version of the Inquisition he's considering, it could be anything from trying to convince robots via rational debate to converting them under pain of death or disassembly.

Of course, some part of me also imagines him taking it literally and converting robots by sheer volume of questions, inquiring until they agree to follow his lead just to get some peace.

Yep, Ishiguro is still locked into the same mindset: "Can we make lots of money off of it?" or "Can someone else make lots of money by suing us over it?"

Maybe he's not Stupid Evil like his uncle, but he's still Only in It for the Money.

Imagine that, EU isn't a charity...

Less sarcastically, more often than not you'll find success if you appeal to a person's self-interest (enlightened or otherwise) instead of their better nature. As Lazarus Long notes, they may not have a better nature.

[edit] Friday strip◊

edited 26th Nov '15 6:20:54 PM by Nohbody

Hmm... I'm kind of surprised that Ishiguro isn't pushing for citizenship in this case, since it might insulate EU from lawsuits ("that robot's actions aren't a matter of bad programming, but clearly a case of free will"). Of course, Blunt might beat him to the punch by providing an example of horrible harm that a robot can do due to bad implementation of the Pseudo-three-laws implementation...

Which illustrates my point. He's under the impression that ownership equals control. Since EU owns the robots (including Blunt), EU controls them. Which clearly is not the case...

As an analogy, consider a vacant building somewhere. It stands empty and unused, and the owner of the property never visits the place. Then a gang of criminals moves in and starts up a drug lab. Is the owner liable, or not? Ishiguro's attitude is: "I own title deed to the place, therefore I control everything that goes on there." Um, might wanna rethink that one, Ishi...

edited 27th Nov '15 8:36:35 AM by pwiegle

He's also ignoring the fact that yes, quite a few humans since the debate are in favor of robot emancipation

Ishiguro evidently has no imagination, as suggested by his stance of: "It's never been done before, therefore it's not possible." Just how did this guy get put in charge of moving the moon? That's not the sort of thing that happens every day.

This may not be the first human colony EO has terraformed.

You know, it may be me, but it sounds like it's more him playing devil's advocate. After all, he's on board on how much money this could make EO(and consequently him), so he's probably wanting to poke all the holes he can in this and then come up with patches for the holes.

Could just be me though

Ishiguro seems to employ _all_ the logical fallacies.◊

On CFO qualifications...◊

Weird... somehow Ishiguro came around to exactly the proposal that the other sensible people had already thought up. That abruptly removes an obstacle that I thought would occupy a few dozen more comics. Now, the only "antagonist" that's left over is Blunt, unless you count Kornada, but he's locked up.

edited 1st Dec '15 5:32:20 PM by Fighteer

Even when he was free, Kornada couldn't really do much of anything without Clippy, and Clippy's deactivated and in police impound, with Raibert holding the key-code.

Well, let's not forget how expansive that order Ishiguro gave Blunt is. That could still produce a lot of problems.

edited 2nd Dec '15 6:53:26 AM by 32_Footsteps

Especially if Blunt figures out the workaround...

"I felt. Guilty. Making the. Nuclear. Power Plant. Explode. But then. I thought. About. Cancer caused. By high. Energy power. Lines. And I. Smiled."

I'm really confused.◊ EU is basically the corporation on Jean. Where is this government that they are paying taxes to, and what is the currency unit that is used to denominate them? If it's offplanet, then how is the idea of paying taxes in any way meaningful given that transactions have a latency measured in weeks or months?

Hell, the entire Jean investment should be super, super negative right now because of all the upfront costs before the project starts to turn a profit.

The economics make zero sense here.

edited 4th Dec '15 4:55:05 AM by Fighteer

EU runs the show, but they're not the government. The mayor is.