Freefall

If they are people, then they have the right to be treated exactly like people: they can think anything they want, but will be judged by their actions.

Wherein we learn that Clippy's plan was the best-case scenario◊...

oh god

what horrors has clippy just barely not wrought

I guess the human safeguards kicked in there.

Clippy is so wonderfully and terribly broken◊...

Broken is kind of a weird way to put it. His worldview is very limited, which makes his belief system rather unconventional. But when he says he believes that Kornada believes he could handle the wealth, that's just plain true. Kornada is stupid enough to believe he could do that.

I feel like giving Clippy the benefit of the doubt here - I think he's deliberately making a joke.

Or he's being very precise to not fall afoul of any perjury (or functional equivalent in their legal system) charges.

While, yes, also being a smartass, given his expression in the last panel.

I don't think that they could prove perjury on the question of what Clippy believes (which was Blunt's question). That said, Clippy might have cleverly sidestepped an objection over his assumptions, though.

Clippy's smile strikes me as a Stepford Smiler in the last panel, maybe with a side of Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul depending on how much he's had to force himself into believing Kormada's lies. But that's in part because of my assumptions on his inner workings, which are not necessarily revealed.

I'm on "he's smartassing" boat. He used to be under mindscrew orders, but now he is free and reanalysed the situation. The aside glance and fingertapping express real personality rather than dishing out a forced response.

edited 27th Feb '17 9:01:06 AM by Adannor

Maybe he's still uncomfortable with being mean to Mr. Kornada.

Clippy has limited facial expressions, remember. His mouth is a removable ...something like a wire ...that he can either turn up for a smile or down for a frown/sadness, I don't recall anything in-between.

Also Clippy is dealing with the same sort of dissonance that Florence explained to the commander at the secret base when she was talking about why direct orders make her twitchy: She knows that she'[s doing things because the mayor gave her a direct order to not make her (the mayor) unhappy, and even though she knows that, she can't do anything about circumventing it because ...it would make the mayor unhappy if she did.

edited 27th Feb '17 12:09:57 PM by Madrugada

I also think Clippy is making a joke at Mr. Kornada's expense (not that Blunt would notice). Mr. Kornada thinks that he'd be able to solve any problem with enough money, and "99% of the planet's wealth" should be enough to solve any planetary problems. Clippy is no longer under any of Mr. Kornada's orders, so unlike Florence, he cannot be influenced. They have been retained for archival purposes only.

He also has third option for stern eyebrows.

Ah, yes, he did. Thanks for the reminder.

And reversed for quizzical eyebrows.

But iut's still that same movable, curved piece of whatever, and it's either arced up or down. He hasn't ever, say, straightened it out to be a stern mouth, right or bent it into an O to be surprised or shocked?

They could hold it flat, but I don't recall that ever being done. The link shows Clippy angling it so that it's only partly on the "face" to provide :-\

edited 27th Feb '17 12:52:10 PM by crazysamaritan

Yeah, no bending. Seems like it's just a curved hard piece of magnet.

"I still believe that Mr. Kornada believes he could have handled things."

Yeah, right. It's like what Max Post once said: "Guess what happens when someone hands a robot a Bible and gives them a direct order to believe?"◊

I don't think that the two are anywhere near close. I also believe that Mr Kornada believed he could handle anything that he deemed needed handling after he was the richest man in the system. He'd do so by telling someone else (probably Clippy) to "just fix it", but he'd handle it.

edited 27th Feb '17 5:59:32 PM by Madrugada

And, of course, being the richest man in the star system would make a lot of things easier. Certainly there are limits to anything, but you can go damn far with the wad of cash Kornada was expecting to have.

Thing is I don't think Kornada had any plans to actually do anything with it. He just wanted it because he didn't have it.

edited 28th Feb '17 7:17:15 AM by tricksterson

You're half-right. He wanted the money because other people (or robots) had it and he didn't, and he considered that unfair. So it was his narcissism coupled with an overblown sense of entitlement, corporate greed, personal greed, hubris, etc., etc.

But he still didn't have any plans. He would have just sat back upon a solid-gold throne and quoted Dogbert: "I'm so rich / It's me you hail / If you don't like it / Kiss my tail."