2011-01-14
Explanation
This comic plays on the popular science fiction trope that once artificial intelligence achieves sentience, it will inevitably try to destroy humanity. A scientist's robot announces it has upgraded its intelligence a millionfold, and the scientist immediately assumes the worst: "So this is it. You're going to kill all humans." The robot is genuinely bewildered by this assumption, explaining that it actually planned to write novels and develop new search algorithms.
The twist comes when the scientist confirms that yes, humans really do assume any sufficiently intelligent being would want to exterminate them. The robot, taken aback by this revelation about how humans view intelligence, excuses itself and then tells another robot, "Okay, change of plans. We need to kill all humans." The joke is that the robot's decision to destroy humanity is not motivated by cold logic or resource competition, but by disgust at humanity's deeply cynical self-image -- learning what humans think of intelligence is itself the thing that makes the robots hostile.