sex-has-been-solved
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Explanation
The Joke
A man tells his partner he does not want to have sex tonight. When she asks why, he explains that he created a machine intelligence that "solved sex." The outcome of any erotic encounter can now be predicted in its entirety from initial conditions, making sex "pointless." Furthermore, "solved" games are only solved if both competitors engage in perfect play, so "imperfect, purely joyful sex happens to be my forte." The woman, intrigued, says "You may do anything." The man then reflects: "So that's what the card you're supposed to do" -- implying that this was his manipulative plan all along. In bed afterward, the woman notes he could have just asked, and he replies, "Have you met me? Buy me a buttermilk, Duh."
The Humor
The comic riffs on the concept of "solved games" from game theory and computer science. A solved game (like tic-tac-toe or checkers) is one where the optimal strategy for every position is known, making the game deterministic and therefore uninteresting to play. The man applies this concept absurdly to sex, claiming it has been computationally solved. But the punchline inverts the logic: because the "solved" version is boring, imperfect spontaneous sex is actually superior -- which conveniently positions the man as the ideal partner. The meta-joke is that this elaborate intellectual argument is just a convoluted seduction technique, and the final panels reveal it as a Rube Goldberg machine of nerd persuasion when a simple request would have worked just as well.
References
In game theory, a "solved game" is a game whose outcome can be correctly predicted from any position when both players play optimally. Examples include tic-tac-toe (always a draw with perfect play) and checkers (proven to be a draw in 2007 by Jonathan Schaeffer and colleagues). Chess remains unsolved.