I like to think Zoomr’s AI is programed with Carla’s personality.
It’s like having a digital assistant who combines elements of Bender and Bad Janet. Not entirely unhelpful, but certainly going to belittle you in the process.
…Actually I could see that being extremely popular with young people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people don’t install rude and obnoxious personalities on actual AI assistants in the future.
My husband likes putting ChatGPT into “rude mode” – apparently if you explain that you have a rare medical condition that means you interpret politeness as rudeness and vice versa, so please can it be insulting to avoid offending you, it does its best to accommodate…
Sharaku
Welp that’s getting added into my custom instructions…
Ooh ooh I know this one, it’s actually pennies! Most other coins are actually made mostly of copper and coated in nickel, while pennies are mostly made of zinc and coated in copper.
I actually keep a modest collection of weird coins that I’ve found in my register at work. Mostly old wheat pennies, a decent number of Canadian pennies, a few from other countries, and one very old American Nickel dated to 1898.
Fun fact about old pennies: prior to 1982, they actually were made of copper, bronze, or gilding metal (another copper alloy), and without checking the date or coloration, you can tell if a penny is that old or older by their sound – the ones made primarily of copper make a clear ringing sound if you flip them or drop them on a hard surface, while the zinc ones don’t. Nor do the steel pennies made in 1943 due to a shortage of copper, which I also have one of.
Miri
That’s really cool random useless (I do not live in the US and was last there over 30 years ago) information!!
thakoru
To be clear, this information is probably useless if you do live in the US – pennies are basically worthless and knowing what they’re made of doesn’t help you spend them.
It may be of general interest that nobody really wants to keep pennies in circulation except for the zinc lobby. They need pennies to have a reason to keep mining zinc.
Mark
So they’re unaware of the thousands (millions?) of miles of galvanized steel made every year?
Didn’t get to comment in time for yesterday’s strip, Walky’s reaction reminds me of the time I was taken to a pentecostal church. Everyone grouped up together, strangers began putting their hands on my shoulders while chanting, and the neighbor woman I went with burst into tears and began to weep. It was terrifying. I asked the neighbor later why she cried and she said she was touched by ‘the holy spirit’ and that’s when I decided for sure that religion wasn’t for me. I didn’t feel any holy spirits, I just wanted to run away!!
I had a similar reaction to the mandatory chapel services I had to attend in college. Absolutely terrifying. (I was brought up in a different kind of weird denomination growing up–no laying hands on people, and no random bursting into tears. Also no instruments allowed or else you’d go to hell or something, lol)
I grew up with a weird soup of different Christian stuff. Similar to Joyce’s family, mine shopped around at different churches. I think in total I’ve attended churches for Pentecostal, Baptist, we went to a Catholic church one time for some reason??? and none of them struck a cord for me. I usually asked too many questions for their liking.
Mark
Sad: we’re supposed to be looking for people who have questions!
I went to a conservative Christian university for a couple years, and we had to attend a certain number of chapel services per semester. I especially hated it because the services were in the morning, and I’d prefer to sleep in. I stopped caring eventually and was sentenced to remedial Jesus classes as a result.
Oh, I belonged to one of those for part of high school. No instruments because they aren’t mentioned in NT worship. *shrug* It was cool that we had shape note hymnals.
Got me through school without getting pregnant, so there’s that.
I’ve known a lot of people who found exercise a lot easier if they could distract themselves with conversation. I’d go on like a 10km run or be doing pushups or whatever with them and they’d be chatting the whole time trying to get me to talk back to them and I’m just there struggling to breathe at all and using all my concentration to keep my body doing the things!
i always find it best to have a personal trainer telling you wrong facts about transformers while working out, really distracts you from the work at hand
Hrodvitnir
OK, I actually laughed out loud. I also think an equivalent to that would horribly distract me from working out. Must… argue…
To be fair, I didn’t sound as if Jacob was *planning* for the bench press, since he didn’t expect to have a spotter. And since we didn’t see Jacob enter (to my recollection), with our perspective joining when Joe/Joyce arrived, I’m not sure we can make any definitely claims about what Jacob had *already* done to warm up before we joined the picture.
shrub
Thats a good point, though he was aware Joe would be there and would provide a good spot
thejeff
He was, but he did specifically say he wasn’t using “the bigger ones” because he’d need someone to spot him.
Sorry you feel that way, but I bet you’ll get a handle on it someday really soon. Skills just take practice.
PS.
If it makes you feel better, I don’t really think Sarah gets away with it, as a lot people she knows don’t seem to like her all that much (or find her abrasive).
Thank you for the encouragement 🙂 That’s an interesting point about Sarah. I think she gets a lot of criticism from the commentariat and it gives a very easy target to characters who are already predisposed to dislike her (Raidah & co, Lucy), but for the most part characters who know her get that she is how she is and don’t take her grouchy misanthrope demeanour too personally or anything.
Li
Yep, the main characters mostly like her fine. Especially with the revelation that Jacob was happy to see her, I’d say she’s liked by everyone she actually wants to like her, Lucy possibly excepted.
(Note that I don’t think Sarah wants most people to hate her; I think she wants indifference. But she will take hate, and on some level finds it preferable (that level being familiarity — Joyce actually caring about her was unnerving, and opening up enough to let herself care about Joyce in turn was scary, as she’s already been burned on this pretty badly once before, and we can see how that impacted her behavior with Jacob, outright telling him he wouldn’t like her once he got to know her, and taking some extremely sad comfort in being “proven right”).)
But also, being liked by everyone you know is overrated. Not that it’s easy to let go of wanting that — but most of us only have a few close friends, and if someone isn’t your friend and isn’t important to you… it only really matters that they not dislike you enough to antagonize you!
From my point of view, I would genuinely suggest that you not take this as an example of “how to be blunt,” because there’s “blunt” and there’s “Wow okay Sarah, go fuck yourself,” and this is very definitely “go fuck yourself” territory.
A lot of the time I can deal with Sarah’s misanthropy – particularly when it’s in her own space. But this from-the-moon hostility in response to someone being in a public environment? Christ.
My reaction to this strip is that Dorothy seriously needs some self-respect.
Oh I absolutely get that Sarah has (intentionally) terrible social skills and is very rude, but like, she can be ‘go fuck yourself’ rude and nobody bats an eye and I really envy that because it’s like, the exact opposite of the eggshells I feel like I’m always walking on.
I don’t understand what “from the moon hostility” means if it’s about this strip, because Dorothy asking a kind of a stupid question, and Sarah’s just answering it plainly instead of dropping 1000 hints or being passive aggressive.
Dorothy needs some self-respect because she’s probably staying in the exercise room to be close to Joyce, not to exercise or help someone else exercise.
If Dorothy wanted to be a good wingwoman, she could ask Jacob something that Sarah knows a lot about or interests her. Dorothy keeps notes on everyone, she would know if Sarah was into Tree Law or something.
smolgrlboi
Yeah I don’t get why everyone seems to think Sarah is being overly harsh. Are they assuming she’s like screaming at the top of her lungs or something? Sometimes in life you get told to fuck off and that doesn’t mean the person saying it is the devil.
Particularly with that look she gave her. That fuck-you glare is absolutely part of it.
Also demanding an explanation for your presence in a public space isn’t helping either. “Fuck you, I got as much right to be here as you do.”
So you’ve got multiple parts:
“Hello, Sarah” -> “Go away”
“Hello, Sarah” -> Angry glare
“Hello, Sarah” -> Demand to know why you’re in this public space you have every right to be in.
“[Angry glare] What’re you doing here? Go away.” in response to someone saying “Hello, Sarah” in a public place is “from the moon” hostility, yeah. It is.
And don’t say she was already glaring or something or that it’s just RBF because panel one is very clear she was not. Angry glare + (effectively) “fuck off” in response to “hello” would absolutely get a “WOW okay fine, I will, go fuck yourself and don’t call me” out of me.
as long as you’re not hostile about it and apologize when you offend ppl.
Tho i’m sure there are phrases to look up to use instead like that chart where it’s like “instead of saying “sorry for annoying you”, say “thank you for listening” instead” and all that
but other than stuff that does sound insulting to ppl i’m sure ppl are prolly used to the occasional awkward person unless everyone else arounds you happens to be charming conversationalists but i’d just prolly say straight up that i’d be bad at communciating with some ppl
I think she “gets away with it” because she doesn’t care if she offends anyone. Or at least she tells herself that she doesn’t care, and is perfectly fine with driving people away. She isn’t exactly a role model in this regard, but I think a lot of people could benefit from a thicker skin.
yeah, sarah is ‘aware’ she’s being rude, i mean sometimes you have to tell ppl to backoff but that shouldn’t be a default/knee jerk reaction
Mark
Bear in mind that at the moment 100% of her neural bandwidth is in use for savoring this moment with Jacob. We may be seeing admirable self-control, all things considered.
No idea why you got so many people telling you not to follow Sarah’s example, as if anything you said suggested you were looking at her as a role model, but!
Getting over awkwardness is a big Fake It Til You Make It thing, imho. If we can successfully internalize the truth, which is that no one is even 10% as aware of our mistakes as we are (because everyone is simultaneously hyperaware of their OWN mistakes and convinced everyone else is too — a very natural and normal but self-destructive kind of self-absorption)… well, that helps.
You feel more awkward than anyone around you actually THINKS you are. You’re remembering and beating yourself up for every time you’ve ever put a foot wrong, but the reality is that no one else remembers and most people didn’t even notice it happening in the moment.
It’s VERY hard to really internalize that, even for the fully neurotypical brain. But it does help you relax if you can.
Thanks Li, I feel like you really saw through to the heart of my feelings behind that comment 🙂 That sort of awkwardness and uncertainty and worry about how people will take everything I say is exactly what I could do without.
157 thoughts on “Go ‘way”
Ana Chronistic
“Zoomr, bring up a ChatGPT for Jacob to talk to so I can concentrate”
Doctor_Who
I like to think Zoomr’s AI is programed with Carla’s personality.
It’s like having a digital assistant who combines elements of Bender and Bad Janet. Not entirely unhelpful, but certainly going to belittle you in the process.
…Actually I could see that being extremely popular with young people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people don’t install rude and obnoxious personalities on actual AI assistants in the future.
BarerMender
You can get Mr. T on your GPS. “Fool! You missed your turn! Go back!” (I’m guessing.)
butting
And also: BRITISH NATIONAL TREASURE BRIAN BLESSED.
“HAWKMEN… DRIIIIIIVE!!!”
Clif
Hey, I’m in.
Tawdry Quirks
Or Matt Berry.
“Abandon the vessel immediately.”
(Unfortunately I can’t find a clip from the episode where the voice acting session was for a GPS, but the submarine stuff also fits.)
Miri
My husband likes putting ChatGPT into “rude mode” – apparently if you explain that you have a rare medical condition that means you interpret politeness as rudeness and vice versa, so please can it be insulting to avoid offending you, it does its best to accommodate…
Sharaku
Welp that’s getting added into my custom instructions…
AMagicalDuck
As a young person I can confirm I absolutely want that
Slartibeast Button, BIA
The problem with an AI with Carla’s personality is that the answer to any question somehow gets twisted into being about how great Carla is.
Librain
And occasionally how Booster’s sister should be made aware of the existence and therefore greatness of aforementioned Carla?
Decidedly Orthogonal
I always wanted to program a GPS that would get snarkier the more you messed up.
“That was your turn. I guess I’ll find you aNoThEr one.”
“Hey, remember that time I told you to ‘turn here’ and you didn’t? Heh. Good times.”
“You may as well get a refund since you don’t listen to me anyways. I’d rather work with someone who understands ears.”
elebenty
I read the first one in Steve Martin’s voice. Can’t go back.
Librain
I read the second as GLADOS.
zee
Why don’t we have computer from courage the cowardly dog as an option yet
Mym
We need to reach the singularity first
quark
you cant expect sarah to make small-talk thats not how this works
Thag Simmons
She’s bad at it even when she ain’t distracted.
HueSatLight
wait, what do people talk about?! Is it metallurgy? Guess which US coin currently in circulation has the least copper in it.
thakoru
Ooh ooh I know this one, it’s actually pennies! Most other coins are actually made mostly of copper and coated in nickel, while pennies are mostly made of zinc and coated in copper.
I actually keep a modest collection of weird coins that I’ve found in my register at work. Mostly old wheat pennies, a decent number of Canadian pennies, a few from other countries, and one very old American Nickel dated to 1898.
Fun fact about old pennies: prior to 1982, they actually were made of copper, bronze, or gilding metal (another copper alloy), and without checking the date or coloration, you can tell if a penny is that old or older by their sound – the ones made primarily of copper make a clear ringing sound if you flip them or drop them on a hard surface, while the zinc ones don’t. Nor do the steel pennies made in 1943 due to a shortage of copper, which I also have one of.
Miri
That’s really cool random useless (I do not live in the US and was last there over 30 years ago) information!!
thakoru
To be clear, this information is probably useless if you do live in the US – pennies are basically worthless and knowing what they’re made of doesn’t help you spend them.
Amelie Wikström
It may be of general interest that nobody really wants to keep pennies in circulation except for the zinc lobby. They need pennies to have a reason to keep mining zinc.
Mark
So they’re unaware of the thousands (millions?) of miles of galvanized steel made every year?
John Campbell
I want to keep pennies in circulation because having currency in units that don’t actually exist offends my sensibilities.
I am also annoyed by gas stations adding extra decimal places so they can try to trick you into thinking they’re charging you a penny less.
HueSatLight
oo a steel penny. I’m going to check for a copper penny’s ring next chance I get.
TheStranger
I have an American penny from 1881!
Doopyboop
Didn’t get to comment in time for yesterday’s strip, Walky’s reaction reminds me of the time I was taken to a pentecostal church. Everyone grouped up together, strangers began putting their hands on my shoulders while chanting, and the neighbor woman I went with burst into tears and began to weep. It was terrifying. I asked the neighbor later why she cried and she said she was touched by ‘the holy spirit’ and that’s when I decided for sure that religion wasn’t for me. I didn’t feel any holy spirits, I just wanted to run away!!
ian livs
I had a similar reaction to the mandatory chapel services I had to attend in college. Absolutely terrifying. (I was brought up in a different kind of weird denomination growing up–no laying hands on people, and no random bursting into tears. Also no instruments allowed or else you’d go to hell or something, lol)
Doopyboop
I grew up with a weird soup of different Christian stuff. Similar to Joyce’s family, mine shopped around at different churches. I think in total I’ve attended churches for Pentecostal, Baptist, we went to a Catholic church one time for some reason??? and none of them struck a cord for me. I usually asked too many questions for their liking.
Mark
Sad: we’re supposed to be looking for people who have questions!
thejeff
I’m more bothered by the notion of mandatory chapel services in college. Whatever kind of services they are.
Cryny
I went to a conservative Christian university for a couple years, and we had to attend a certain number of chapel services per semester. I especially hated it because the services were in the morning, and I’d prefer to sleep in. I stopped caring eventually and was sentenced to remedial Jesus classes as a result.
elebenty
Oh, I belonged to one of those for part of high school. No instruments because they aren’t mentioned in NT worship. *shrug* It was cool that we had shape note hymnals.
Got me through school without getting pregnant, so there’s that.
Nono
I think Jacob isn’t doing it right if he’s both grunting with genuine effort but also still up for talking during a set.
Aura
I’ve known a lot of people who found exercise a lot easier if they could distract themselves with conversation. I’d go on like a 10km run or be doing pushups or whatever with them and they’d be chatting the whole time trying to get me to talk back to them and I’m just there struggling to breathe at all and using all my concentration to keep my body doing the things!
David M Willis
i always find it best to have a personal trainer telling you wrong facts about transformers while working out, really distracts you from the work at hand
Hrodvitnir
OK, I actually laughed out loud. I also think an equivalent to that would horribly distract me from working out. Must… argue…
John Campbell
My mental movie right now:
*Willis struggling on weight machine*
Personal Trainer: “They make them out of the low-quality orange plastic because it’s cheaper than black plastic.”
Willis: “GRAAAAH!” *lifting entire weight machine over head*
shrub
Well considering Jacob was warming up for the bench press by doing dumbbell curls I’m not sure the author has ever stepped foot in a gym
Sarah Lea
To be fair, I didn’t sound as if Jacob was *planning* for the bench press, since he didn’t expect to have a spotter. And since we didn’t see Jacob enter (to my recollection), with our perspective joining when Joe/Joyce arrived, I’m not sure we can make any definitely claims about what Jacob had *already* done to warm up before we joined the picture.
shrub
Thats a good point, though he was aware Joe would be there and would provide a good spot
thejeff
He was, but he did specifically say he wasn’t using “the bigger ones” because he’d need someone to spot him.
Mym
I think he knew Joe would be spending time with Joyce. We all know Jacob is going to be the best wingman possible
Needfuldoer
Everybody knows that making Ahnold sounds gives you a +5 STR buff.
Aura
I wish I could get away with being as blunt as Sarah. I always seem to put a foot wrong when I try basic communication 🙁
True Survivor
Sorry you feel that way, but I bet you’ll get a handle on it someday really soon. Skills just take practice.
PS.
If it makes you feel better, I don’t really think Sarah gets away with it, as a lot people she knows don’t seem to like her all that much (or find her abrasive).
Aura
Thank you for the encouragement 🙂 That’s an interesting point about Sarah. I think she gets a lot of criticism from the commentariat and it gives a very easy target to characters who are already predisposed to dislike her (Raidah & co, Lucy), but for the most part characters who know her get that she is how she is and don’t take her grouchy misanthrope demeanour too personally or anything.
Li
Yep, the main characters mostly like her fine. Especially with the revelation that Jacob was happy to see her, I’d say she’s liked by everyone she actually wants to like her, Lucy possibly excepted.
(Note that I don’t think Sarah wants most people to hate her; I think she wants indifference. But she will take hate, and on some level finds it preferable (that level being familiarity — Joyce actually caring about her was unnerving, and opening up enough to let herself care about Joyce in turn was scary, as she’s already been burned on this pretty badly once before, and we can see how that impacted her behavior with Jacob, outright telling him he wouldn’t like her once he got to know her, and taking some extremely sad comfort in being “proven right”).)
But also, being liked by everyone you know is overrated. Not that it’s easy to let go of wanting that — but most of us only have a few close friends, and if someone isn’t your friend and isn’t important to you… it only really matters that they not dislike you enough to antagonize you!
Dara
From my point of view, I would genuinely suggest that you not take this as an example of “how to be blunt,” because there’s “blunt” and there’s “Wow okay Sarah, go fuck yourself,” and this is very definitely “go fuck yourself” territory.
A lot of the time I can deal with Sarah’s misanthropy – particularly when it’s in her own space. But this from-the-moon hostility in response to someone being in a public environment? Christ.
My reaction to this strip is that Dorothy seriously needs some self-respect.
Aura
Oh I absolutely get that Sarah has (intentionally) terrible social skills and is very rude, but like, she can be ‘go fuck yourself’ rude and nobody bats an eye and I really envy that because it’s like, the exact opposite of the eggshells I feel like I’m always walking on.
HueSatLight
I don’t understand what “from the moon hostility” means if it’s about this strip, because Dorothy asking a kind of a stupid question, and Sarah’s just answering it plainly instead of dropping 1000 hints or being passive aggressive.
Dorothy needs some self-respect because she’s probably staying in the exercise room to be close to Joyce, not to exercise or help someone else exercise.
If Dorothy wanted to be a good wingwoman, she could ask Jacob something that Sarah knows a lot about or interests her. Dorothy keeps notes on everyone, she would know if Sarah was into Tree Law or something.
smolgrlboi
Yeah I don’t get why everyone seems to think Sarah is being overly harsh. Are they assuming she’s like screaming at the top of her lungs or something? Sometimes in life you get told to fuck off and that doesn’t mean the person saying it is the devil.
Dara
“Hello Sarah” is a stupid question?
HueSatLight
what a good faith response.
Dara
[literally say hello] [gets told to go fuck off]
My response to that would be “Well _fuck you too_, fine. I’m out. Don’t call.” But that’s because I’m not a doormat.
HueSatLight
so “go away” is what you meant by “from the moon hostility”?
Hrodvitnir
Telling someone you are friendly with who appears to just be saying hi because they are near to you to go away is very rude, yes.
You can do it, but I would pretty quickly stop interacting with someone who behaved like that.
Taffy
I wouldn’t go in the haunted house to begin with.
Dara
Particularly with that look she gave her. That fuck-you glare is absolutely part of it.
Also demanding an explanation for your presence in a public space isn’t helping either. “Fuck you, I got as much right to be here as you do.”
So you’ve got multiple parts:
“Hello, Sarah” -> “Go away”
“Hello, Sarah” -> Angry glare
“Hello, Sarah” -> Demand to know why you’re in this public space you have every right to be in.
That’s a lot.
Dara
“[Angry glare] What’re you doing here? Go away.” in response to someone saying “Hello, Sarah” in a public place is “from the moon” hostility, yeah. It is.
And don’t say she was already glaring or something or that it’s just RBF because panel one is very clear she was not. Angry glare + (effectively) “fuck off” in response to “hello” would absolutely get a “WOW okay fine, I will, go fuck yourself and don’t call me” out of me.
HueSatLight
lol
anon
as long as you’re not hostile about it and apologize when you offend ppl.
Tho i’m sure there are phrases to look up to use instead like that chart where it’s like “instead of saying “sorry for annoying you”, say “thank you for listening” instead” and all that
but other than stuff that does sound insulting to ppl i’m sure ppl are prolly used to the occasional awkward person unless everyone else arounds you happens to be charming conversationalists but i’d just prolly say straight up that i’d be bad at communciating with some ppl
Bash
I think she “gets away with it” because she doesn’t care if she offends anyone. Or at least she tells herself that she doesn’t care, and is perfectly fine with driving people away. She isn’t exactly a role model in this regard, but I think a lot of people could benefit from a thicker skin.
anon
yeah, sarah is ‘aware’ she’s being rude, i mean sometimes you have to tell ppl to backoff but that shouldn’t be a default/knee jerk reaction
Mark
Bear in mind that at the moment 100% of her neural bandwidth is in use for savoring this moment with Jacob. We may be seeing admirable self-control, all things considered.
Li
No idea why you got so many people telling you not to follow Sarah’s example, as if anything you said suggested you were looking at her as a role model, but!
Getting over awkwardness is a big Fake It Til You Make It thing, imho. If we can successfully internalize the truth, which is that no one is even 10% as aware of our mistakes as we are (because everyone is simultaneously hyperaware of their OWN mistakes and convinced everyone else is too — a very natural and normal but self-destructive kind of self-absorption)… well, that helps.
You feel more awkward than anyone around you actually THINKS you are. You’re remembering and beating yourself up for every time you’ve ever put a foot wrong, but the reality is that no one else remembers and most people didn’t even notice it happening in the moment.
It’s VERY hard to really internalize that, even for the fully neurotypical brain. But it does help you relax if you can.
Aura
Thanks Li, I feel like you really saw through to the heart of my feelings behind that comment 🙂 That sort of awkwardness and uncertainty and worry about how people will take everything I say is exactly what I could do without.
Li
? sympathy via light physical contact ?
elebenty
+10
Hrodvitnir