Complex
Explanation
This comic satirizes the overuse of "complexity" arguments to dismiss gender-detection AI and similar classification technologies, but then twists into a broader critique of AI hype culture.
The setup is a lecture or presentation. The speaker begins by noting that scholars going back to Kellogg have observed the existence of a "Madonna/Whore Complex" -- a framework in which two discrete categories of women are maintained as simultaneously virginal and pure yet sexually immoral. The speaker notes that "recent work has examined this as a classification or detection task" -- framing a lady's virtue as something a classifier can detect, like a machine learning model.
The comic then pivots to evolutionary psychology, noting it has been used to explain the phenomenon but can provide "a complete, sexually biased explanation." Then comes the machine-learning angle: the speaker argues that since machine learning requires training data, the simplest way to confirm this artificial intelligence is to see if it can achieve a classifier's competence benchmark based on the smallest amount of training data.
The key satirical twist comes when the speaker argues that "the program may not infer the most correct category from the data" and that "the least useful input is said to be the simplest, most easily gathered data." The speaker then suggests that "if someone can execute the Turing Test with the same skill based on a mere handful of genuine encounters, we are talking to an Einstein-level genius" -- which earns "thunderous applause."
The final panel reveals the whole thing was a grift: the speaker says "anyone looking for training data can meet me in the storage closet of the chemistry building after 8pm Wednesdays." The comic mocks how academic jargon and AI terminology can be used to dress up dubious propositions, and how conferences can be venues for intellectual fraud. The whole pseudo-intellectual presentation was just a convoluted pickup scheme.