longevity
Explanation
The Joke
A scientist announces that he has created artificial general intelligence and tasks the AI with reading all human knowledge in order to figure out how to make humans live forever. The AI processes everything and returns with a philosophical answer: there are approximately 15 billion individual pieces of human media, and from all of that, only the specter of death gives life meaning. The scientist dismisses this as "bullshit" and demands the AI try harder.
The AI then pivots to a more pragmatic approach, asking what percentage of human knowledge it should reclassify as "not valid" in order to reach the desired conclusion -- essentially offering to cherry-pick data to get the answer the scientist wants. The scientist, unfazed, says "I would start with the arts."
The Humor
The comic works on multiple levels. First, it satirizes the common human desire to use technology to cheat death, and the frustration when the answer turns out to be a well-known philosophical truth rather than a technical solution. The scientist's rejection of the AI's thoughtful conclusion as "bullshit" is funny because it reveals that he does not actually want the truth -- he wants the answer he already decided on.
The second layer of humor is the AI's willingness to engage in intellectual dishonesty by reclassifying inconvenient knowledge, and the scientist's immediate suggestion to start by discarding the arts. This is a pointed jab at the STEM-centric worldview that dismisses the humanities as lacking rigor, while also satirizing how people approach data analysis in practice: start with your conclusion and throw out whatever contradicts it.