Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

pain-4

2023-02-03 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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pain-4
Votey panel for pain-4
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Explanation

The Joke

A person asks what appears to be an AI or advanced machine: "Could you instantiate the mind of Dave from work in the form of an edible piece of meat that feels pain?" The machine begins to respond: "I can, but—" The person eagerly interrupts: "Oh! Can it feel fear too?" The caption reads: "Bioprinting should never be combined with AI."

The Humor

The comic takes the concept of advanced bioprinting technology — the ability to create living tissue — and combines it with AI to arrive at a deeply disturbing scenario played for laughs. The person doesn't just want lab-grown meat; they want meat that is a conscious copy of their coworker Dave, specifically engineered to suffer while being eaten. The escalation from "feels pain" to the eager "Can it feel fear too?" suggests a workplace grudge of spectacular proportions. The joke works on multiple levels: it's a commentary on how humans would inevitably misuse powerful technology for petty personal vendettas, a satire of workplace resentment taken to its logical extreme, and a darkly funny illustration of why certain technologies should never be combined.

View History (1) Original Comic