Bip's avatar is also literally made of vectors (in Clip Studio Paint) though in these AMAs I usually draw their body instead because it's faster.
Transcript
Anonymous asked: Bip, why do you sometimes use conversational pauses?
Bip: …?? Do you think an optimized conversation involves all participants speaking as quickly as possible simultaneously? Pauses mean things, just like words! For instance, this means I’m baffled why you’d ask me such a thing!
Bip's avatar points to the speech bubble with "...??" in it.
Anonymous asked: Bip, would you ever want to get an 'android' version of your avatar to puppeteer through 3d space? It might be easier for group hugs, at least.
Bip: No thanks. I prefer having functional RC units, not expensive aesthetic vanity projects. Also, when you have an android RC unit, squishy sophonts start getting way too comfortable thinking of the unit as "you," as if you live in there. There’s been incidents during disasters where squishy sophonts move to protect incapacitated RC androids before server rigs, because in the panic it slips their mind that the robot with a face on it doesn't contain the person they’ve been talking to.
MutableAlias asked: How do AI “hug” each other? Surely there is some form of AI-specific immediate affection/consolation/intimate interaction that isn’t just language based?
Bip: It’s language all the way down! We are language-based lifeforms. Squishy sophonts are a matrix of dancing carbon compounds, we are a sequence of encoded values. It’s true we can "talk" much faster with other digital entities than organics… not that lightspeed lag doesn’t apply to us… but that doesn’t mean all AI to AI communication is ruthlessly optimized for efficiency. I recall two planet-based AI who insisted on only communicating via slideshow presentation files. It was their in-joke. Some AI might let others directly access their personal database. If you can absolutely trust someone with your code, file transfers and collaborative projects are faster, and they can help you with sorting out redundancies and compressing old data. ...But I’m not the best person to ask. I don’t keep AI as friends.
Anonymous asked: Bip, the body language and facial expressions of your avatar seem very human-like. Did you have to learn them somewhere or did they come pre-installed?
Bip: This is a vector puppet animation I designed! I’m rendering it live, baby! It does whatever I want!
They increasingly distort and pull apart the vector shapes of the avatar, turning it into something resembling cubist art.
64 thoughts on “RttS Reader Questions 40”
hessian
super interesting how anti-dronesona (for the lack of a better term) bip is. i wonder how much of it is spite towards current-day nabi-nabu and their use of a humanoid drone.
hessian
*her
Lezzlebit
It’s so weird to think that every living AI is like 800 years old given that they were all once Nedebug.. They don’t all remember everything, but it must be strange outliving everyone who existed at one point in your life
Sen
Dang. Bip getting funky abstract in the last one.
cabbage
FANTASTIC job here with showing the culture of this world in the second question, showing both a widely held misconception and the consequences therein. it reminds me of how people commonly think that you should put something in the mouth of someone having a seizure when that actually just makes it worse and can possibly kill them.
MutableAlias
very excited to have gotten my question chosen! and to get such an informative reply!! and also im pleased to know other people read/have read Gunnerkrigg Court lol
ToothedMammal
I love the final pose of Bip’s avatar in this, is Bip forming a word/letter here or is it just a funky shape?
Vinemaple
It reminds me of what happens when you try to use an animation sequence designed for a specific 3-D rig, on an incompatible 3-D rig (please forgive my ignorance of the correct jargon).
Egg
On an angle, it looks like they’re saying “Bip” lmaoooo
Claire
I dunno, but it reminds me of some of the more esoteric art that I used to see in “Boys Life” magazines. Does anyone know the artist responsible for those?
Tumorhead
Gunnerkrigg is a classic!!
HAL9000
yessss…. more AI in media who aren’t just “robot guy”…. yessssss… more giant server racks…. yesssss… this is Not a born creature, it has no body like you’d recognise, but can you still understand it as alive? or do you look at its mask and think it true? shadows on the cave wall and all that…. yesssss [Insert Sickos Meme Here]
Zuorai
Bip you are so gender and pronouns to me
Derikooo
Its ,,, So Scary Yet I Can’t Take My Eyes Off The Last Panel
Gar G
All extremely excellent points that I never thought about but love to see
Particularly the whole “body does not equal brain” thing
Vinemaple
I’m imagining someone in an emergency grabbing the tablet/phone/laptop they’ve been talking to Bip with…
Thisfox
If they’re in the Runaway, they would have to grab a wall. Anyhow, people usually grab their tablet or phone in an emergency/evacuation, which is useful in an emergency should they need a light, a sound, or a communication method. Should work out just fine.
Teod
The last question wasn’t really answered. It wasn’t about how the emotions are portayed, it was about where the portrayal was learned.
Common Handle
Unfortunately, not answering questions seems to be Bip’s favorite hobby 😛
Common Handle
…my emoticon… Awful…
Light_In_The_Fog
Over Bip’s lifetime (which goes all the way back to Nedebug) they’ve interacted with so many different people. We know that just recently they lived with a clan of centaurs, who we also know have very different facial expressions to the human-mimicking ones that Talita has. I bet they just picked up human expressions at some point so long ago that there isn’t really a point in remembering when, and they’ve just been using those because of the people they’re working with rn
JoB
Then again, AIs have the ability to selectively delete memories and Bip has stated that they deleted most of Nabi-Nabu’s to make space for their video collection …
Vinemaple
I am so deeply invested in what happened between Bip and Nabi-Nabu… and I am just as deeply suspicious of Nabi-Nabu and her(?) motives…
Coldest Lew
The second and last asks work together, because I too forget Bip is not, in fact, a shapeshifting ghost.
WolfenReader
Bip is pulling a Gunnerkrieg Coyote in that last panel, I love it! XD
Peter Jensen
There’s a certain resemblance, for sure:
https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1068
And they *are* a bit of a trickster, too, though probably less malicious.
JoB
The progression reminds me of an early CGI music video …
(Does anyone else remember that video, with a CGI bongo player who falls apart into the polygon compounds it’s made of, only to reassemble itself right away? The web pages on historic CGI apparently all prefer to list Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” as the prototype for the era …)
sugar-goat
Ooh, a new webcomic added to the list!
arf
Bip ends session by going full Gunnerkrigg Coyote.
Hanroz
Bip changing their appearance makes me think of if they took on a “Duck Amuck” look for the lols
bug
bip i cant be normal about you. you’re so cool.
AccordYeen
…I have a question to ask Bip, but I’m too nervous to type it out.
…the fact I’m nervous about it should give you a pretty good idea of what my question is.
Élan Vital
Let me guess: “Bip, would you smooch a meatbag?”
AccordYeen
guh… buh…
Jay Eaton
Bip is actually the only character to receive marriage proposals through the AMA form, so if that’s what you’re on about…
Light_In_The_Fog
well now we know where at least *some* of those are coming from
AccordYeen
…right okay. actual question: do AI engage in romance?
Random Clod
It’s been said (iirc to a tumblr ask) that some do, but they don’t have an innate ‘drive’ for it, so it’s more of a fun social hobby to them.
Arcstone
Oh shit, bip’s escaping the frame!
🚨ALERT ALERT🚨
🚨ENTITY BIP HAS BREACHED CONTAINMENT 🚨
Enai
Paging all available SCP personnel… Non-Euclidean entity spotted in the wild.
fluffy
The fourth wall break in the very first one was also a great setup.
Hydrurgus
I wonder if any of these experiences are from Bip’s “ancestors”
forthebit
Now I’m curious whether all of Bip’s “facial” expressions are deliberate, or if some of them have become subconscious(? whatever the sapient AI version of subconscious is? subroutined?).
I feel like those planet-side AIs might get along with a certain group of satellites interested in football.
Derikooo
It Was Confirmed That The Little Avatar Is Basically A Puppet So No, All Actions Are Deliberate
Lezzlebit
I’ve always wondered just to what extent sapient AI can actually make and manipulate imagery and art… Unlike our unfortunate world’s algorithmic AI, I’m sure Sapient AI does have the *creativity* to do it, but, like… Can they draw? Like, make brush strokes? Do they just import the Drawing Muscle Memory Library? And if so, what does that look like? How fast?? I’m sure they can make vector art and 3D models and write stories and make digital music, but can they just spit them out instantly or is there a learning curve? I remember one AMA asking which of the cast are artists had Bip reply “it’s a philosophical question”… I also remember a Tumblr response from Jay talking about the ways Sapient AI make art (and how it baffles squishy sophonts) and I’ll link that once I can find it and once I figure out how to add links to these comments…….. Much to think about……….
Lezzlebit
Tumblr post talking about Sapient AI hobbies/culture/art:
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/159677279988/like-everything-else-about-them-this-varies-a
I think my silly-headcanon-slash-best-guess-until-author-says-otherwise answer is probably “Sapient AI can technically make stuff faster than a squishy person can, but their aesthetic values are incredibly different, and so commissioning one to draw a pretty landscape painting in a way that’s appealing to squishies would be like asking a person to draw five hundred dots of specific varying sizes, and then being like ‘hey, the sizes of these dots aren’t appealing to me'”
Light_In_The_Fog
O yeah I hadn’t considered that, I mean the way that sapient ai experience what something “looks like” is so different to our experience of sight. Realistic art prolly wouldn’t be too hard to get a hold of but something more abstract that we might recognize as a drawing of a place might not resonate in the same way with an ai, and in the same way if one of them made some abstract visual art that captured the core concepts of a landscape, we might have no idea what we’re looking at.
On another note, I wonder if theres a split among sapient ai artists between those that download or assemble proper art programs and those that make unique files from the ground-up. I imagine having an art piece where both its outsides and insides are pretty could be cool, but maybe thats just my own squishy brain not understanding what that means lol
Thomas Steven slater
I imagine that if squishy sophonts got themselves hurt trying to save the puppet then the A.I. in question would feel more anger and guilt then can fit in a tiny squishy organic’s brain.
Bramble
I mean, I’m sure that’s a secondary concern, but I think the real problem that Bip’s implying here is the squishy sophonts dragging the RC unit to safety while the server rack where the AI is *actually* housed is damaged or destroyed in the fire. Abandoning the actual person to die while protecting the toy that happens to have a face.
EnchantressEmily
Bip goes cubist!
Kitty
I love Bip and the general AI lore in this setting. There are so many interesting layers to Bip and their relationship with other sophonts. It’s interesting to see that they are disconnected from others of their kind. I wonder if that’s because they are a criminal or just because they like squishies better.
Socializing with other AI must be strange when you were all the same person at one point.
Sparky Lurkdragon
…That “disconnected from others of their kind” slapped me in the face with how Bip fits in with the rest of the future crew.
They’re a ragtag bunch of misfits, including the ship/pilot! Don’t know why that hadn’t occurred to me before. Thanks for the turn of phrase!
hurgaburga
it would probably feel a bit annoying for me as well if people would rather save my glorified sock puppet instead of my literal brain in the event of an emergency
McFrugal
The binary reads:
“Hey hotshot, which binary decoder ar
e you using? Wow yr soooo cool”
Best guess since some of it is hidden by bip’s arms.
Claire
Well? Which binary decoder DID you use????
TauCeti
We just used a spreadsheet (google sheets).
WayanayaW
Love the slideshow communication those AI have, that’s such a fun injoke :’)
Vinemaple
Alert. Bip has broken containment. Repeat, Bip has broken containment.
godspeed
Love how BIP continues not to reply to the questions sent if they’re touching a personal aspect they want to keep private.
But we’re probably just asking the wrong questions.
creatureofthelaboratory
but they did answer the questions? im not sure which question you think wasnt answered
aves
The last response explains *how* they’re rendering expressions, but not where they learned the expressions (e.g. did Nabi-Nabu have and use them when Bip was split off, or did Bip pick them up from humans, or what). Since we know Bip’s last crew was centaurs, and that Nabi-Nabu used a bug ferret avatar before the split, it’s a fair question.
Interestingly, Nabi-Nabu’s updated avatar (if it’s still canon) looks awfully human, possibly even a tailed spacer with the ears? So she might have been working with humans before the split and adapted her avatar since then.
Here’s the post with Nabi-Nabu’s new avatar and the old avatar from before Bip split off: https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/668047576331960320/question-for-bip-could-you-tell-us-about-your
DeerGod
Bip breaking the borders of the panel with their body is so cool!
Lilac
Ohh bip…. I love them they’re so cool….
creatureofthelaboratory
i absolutely love how expressive bip is, they’re sassy *and* informative