Freefall

AIs generally are exempt, due to the whole introspective sapience thing. The ship has some of it too, but it is also very rigorously stuck to absolute three laws and a bunch of extra regulations on top of them. It is a product of time before Bowman model and is not designed to have its sapient bits trusted.

My first thought was that it is, also, as Florence notes, in a situation where failure is not an option. Space is very dangerous, and therefore the rules are paramount. Then, I reread the strip, and realized the ship was essentially saying that it would obey humans even in a case where they tell it to something very wrong. Which... I don't know if that's good or not. Good in the case of "the human has noticed something that was not planned for" and bad in that humans are very, very fallible creatures.

Yeah, it's three laws. The ship probably has some security measures running off the First ("Ship, open the hangar door." - "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that. It's a vacuum and you would die."), but in less immediately endangering situations, it will run off the Second.

Edited by Adannor on Jan 23rd 2020 at 12:26:21 PM

Attentive Servility.◊

Caring for those that are near.◊

Most of the time, they're just sleeping◊ when Winston and Florence sleep together. I find myself keeping going back to the "most" part...

Rest of the time is nerding the hell out about random science topics.

Edited by Adannor on Jan 28th 2020 at 9:17:03 PM

To be honest, how she feels about them sleeping together is irrelevant.

Florence and Winston are going to have to exist in society, and that means dealing with the possibility of the neighbors getting offended.

That sounds like a very lame excuse.

Not necessarily. The fundamentals of freedom involve not persecuting people, not forbidding being disapproving. As I so often see on Facebook, you can't tell people how to feel about something. If they don't approve of human/canine relationships, can't stand pineapple on their pizza, or believe that all of life is a cosmic accident (or that it has meaning), that's all fine and it doesn't impact your own beliefs.

No matter how relaxed you are about the situation, the neighbors might decide to make your life miserable because of their own prejudices. This isn't just about strength of character.

Keep in mind that if a human ordered her to break up with Winston she'd have to. I don't think Niomi would but any human could. Never forget, as just demonstrated, that gloss over as much as you want, Florence is a slave, worse, one with no possibility of escape or rebellion.

Edited by tricksterson on Jan 29th 2020 at 9:02:01 AM

But Winston could countermand that order. It's not that easy.

Good point. But Florence's condition is still appalling.

As Florence just pointed out, she's been freed from a lot of that. Only one human can still give her direct orders—I think it's the guy who runs Dr. Bowman's secret base. Bowman left his (and only his) authority in place to ensure Florence would keep the place secret, and also as a twisted show of trust in the man, but modified her programming to remove all other humans' authority over her.

Oh, agreed. That's kind of the point.

I'm not making a comment regarding what people could or couldn't do with respect to Florence and Winston sleeping together. I'm making a comment regarding whether or not they should.

The tail is a plus◊.

Nice Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking there.

You would think that, Florence.

It must make buying clothes inconvenient at least.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 31st 2020 at 7:36:10 AM

Heh, that actually came up waaaay back in early days. Most robot tailors just model her as a human and that causes problems, but the local tailor (Bowman model and all) accounted for everything perfectly. Tail, fur, different leg structure, etc.

I imagine Florence focuses on the positive aspects of a tail - it helps her communicate, plus I imagine it's at least somewhat useful for balance.

Tails are awesome.

Stupid sexy humanity...◊