ai-16
Explanation
This comic shows a sequence about AI-augmented humans. In the first panels, a man with some kind of brain-computer interface brags about the technological improvements: "With all the improvements, why don't you just let AI do it all and make life better?" He says he's "programmed a brain scanner to allow me to use my toes as a third set of appendages" and that it "already works."
He then demonstrates: "Come, watch me eat this stir fry, without using my hands" -- and proceeds to eat with his feet while maintaining intense eye contact with horrified onlookers. Someone pleads: "Please stop making eye contact." He responds triumphantly: "FUTUUURRRE!"
The humor mechanism is the gap between technological capability and social desirability. The man has achieved a genuinely impressive technological feat -- controlling his feet with the dexterity of hands via brain-computer interface. But the actual application (eating stir fry with your feet while staring at people) is deeply unsettling and socially horrifying rather than useful. The joke satirizes the tech industry's tendency to ask "can we?" without asking "should we?" -- and specifically targets the AI/transhumanist community's enthusiasm for augmentation that nobody actually wants.
The "FUTUUURRRE!" exclamation is the punchline -- it's a parody of tech evangelism where any sufficiently advanced capability is treated as inherently good, regardless of whether it solves a real problem or just makes everyone uncomfortable. This is the 16th in SMBC's AI series, reflecting Weinersmith's ongoing commentary on artificial intelligence hype.