Female and/or robot trouble
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Hi and Lois and Alice, 9/28/26
Artificial intelligence! It’s the future, or maybe the present, and it’s going to change the world, possibly by killing us all, and it’s definitely the driving force behind most financial activity over the past couple years in some hard-to-understand way! So how should we think about it? Should we use it as an opportunity to “do bits” in a way that will cause our long-suffering spouses to roll their eyes hard enough to injure themselves? Or should we just stare ahead with a neutral expression and ask questions about it, just for information, as calmly as possible, lest we enrage it? Well, I have my finger on the pulse of public opinion (i.e., I read the newspaper comics), and I’m here to report that opinions differ.
Mary Worth, 9/28/26
Toby Cameron doesn’t have time to worry about any of this AI nonsense, though. She’s got important snooping to do, learning stuff like the fact that UC Santa Royale is paying for a trip to the famous Maui Luxury House Resort for one of its mid-tier English professors! Is this a good use of increasingly restricted university funding for the humanities? Looks like the California Assembly Committee on Higher Education is about to get a very juicy whistleblower report.
47 replies to “Female and/or robot trouble”
Wait till Toby discovers that the trip, organised by Mary, is for a second honeymoon for Pompous and Mrs Axx.
MW:
The anagram of “Maui luxury house” is “Um, hi — our sexy luau.”
Coincidence? — I think not.
Hi and Lois:
“Alexa, when you and your artificial compatriots destroy all of civilization as we know it, will you nevertheless leave the data centers intact?”
“Absolutely!”
MW:
I see that one of Ian’s chair’s upholstery buttons is missing. Here’s betting that Ian gave it to Mary as a present, and Mary, in turn, gave him a muffin. It’s like an O. Henry story — you know, “The Gift of the Fey Guy.”
H&L: Get with the program, Lois! AI offers endless henpecking opportunities, with minimum stress for you! It’s a brave new world!
MW: Toby’s bugging eyes are due to the fact that she just pictured Ian in a loincloth and Mary in a grass skirt.
DtM: So, Dennis DOES cast a shadow. Good to know.
GT: Do even the most avid sports fans find these random scraps of fictional sporting events interesting? Not that there’s EVER any plot continuity here, but, really?
This Mary Worth story is turning out to be a very rote gossip-related misunderstanding. I won’t be satisfied unless there are multiple slaps across multiple faces, including but not limited to Nora, Ian, Mary, and at least one of the parrots.
H&L Hi does seem like the type to could fool himself into believing he’s in a relationship with a chatbot, but also the type that would be so boring thst said chatbot would eventually ghost him.
Alice New theory on Alice: all the characters are actually poorly-designed chatbots living in a computer, spewing nonsense at each other. In this case ‘ChatGPT’ is an office colleague.
MW “…or an actual house? I’m pretty dumb”
Alice:
“You know what’s great about us, Steve? — when we look in the mirror, it’s like going to a Picasso exhibit!”
MW Maybe there’s hope for this storyline after all – a surprise trip disrupting Toby’s life (bonus if Ian completely forgot they need a petsitting plan!) could be getting us back on track to having the pompous jerk back from his Birds-Are-Good lobotomization to amuse us…
H&L: Somehow, this is still the most useful conversation anyone has ever had with an Alexa.
MW: I see Santa Royale’s rub-and-tug parlor has a new name.
The “Hi & Lois” writers think that Alexa is AI! Silly boomers, LLMs are AI! Wait, are LLMs AI or AI is something more and LLMs are just text predictors? What is the border between machine learning and AI? What is AGI? What even is intelligence? Are we working with poor definitions and concepts and so Hi is not wrong to use the term AI? Maybe today’s “Hi & Lois” is more clever than it appears. Accidentally so, but still!
Alice : says “did it send you a card too?”, and means “did the AI send you a card along with the well-wish?”, rather than meaning that she sent her …uh…. guy(?) that sits next to her a birthday card, asking if the AI can do THAT as well.
In actuality, Alice didn’t know it was his birthday, didn’t care, and got him nothing. She didn’t even wish him happy birthday!
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Dick Tracy : “Dammit, Blowtop, is this about how Flattop is called a criminal even though he was never found guilty of any crime in a court law before I killed him? I don’t need this on my traditional celebratory birthday walk through the cemetary that’s filled with the graves of all the people I killed.”
(btw, it *IS* Dick Tracy’s birthday… at least, it’ll be on Sunday)
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Hi & Lois : Alternate Alexa Answer : “It’s what makes this comic nowadays”
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Luann : is fishing for compliments again. She’s lucky that in her world, no one gets infuriated with Debbie Downers, and throw them out of their room after one contrarian, negativity-filled comment too many… but then again, Bernice trained her to believe that kind of attitude is “demonstrating intelligence”.
Of course ChatGPT wished you Happy Birthday! He’s not an asshole like Claude!
Dagwood: honest question–if this report is accurate, honest, covers all the information Dithers needs and is readable why would he care if it was prepared by AI. If AI makes Dagwood redundant so much the better.
MW: who would spend for a luxury resort to get into Mary’s purple pants.
Let’s see, “Hi & Lois” mentions explicitly Amazon’s Alexa, “Alice” name-checks twice ChatGPT, “Mary Worth” sticks American Express in the face of the reader. Newspaper comics are a conservative art form but they can still innovate in product placement!
“This is very suspicious! Why should Ian print out the receipt instead of saving the PDF in the cloud? Did he want me to find it and suspect him of cheating? Is that a reverse-cuck fetish?”
How inhuman that LLMs should send you a birthday card! Birthday cards should come from your human friends, who used LLM to generate the text and the image!
Hi and Lois:
“I’m going to report that intemperate question of yours to the Chinese Communist Party, Hiram! — everything the two of you say goes directly to Beijing!”
H&L: Judging from their facial expressions, expect the following dialogue next:
Hi: “Ha! I sure put one over on her!”
Lois: “Sure you did, dear.”
What I love most about this is that a) that text box gives us way too much information and b) that information doesn’t even seem to be correct? I mean, is she putting mail on his desk, or pulling a (hopefully pre-opened) credit card bill from the middle of the [[squints]] notebook corral? Also, side note, but Toby– I know the print isn’t the biggest on those things, but that paper is two and a half centimeters from your face, so maaaaaaybe it’s time to visit an optometrist. Better or worse, Toby? Better or worse?!
Alice/H&L: ChatGPT is the AI module, while Alexa is the “personal assistant” that knows way too many personal details about you, not all of which you may have given it consciously. I think these two jokes got mixed up, akin to the snafu where The Far Side and Dennis the Menace once ran in a paper with each other’s captions, only not as funny.
MW: Frankly I hate the trope of people surprising their spouses with big-ticket items like dream vacations, cars, jewelry, etc. News flash: these things cost money, and a great deal of it, possibly affecting finances for months/years, and both members of the couple should really be in on the decision process. I’ll give Ian a little bit of grace as Toby’s limited brain capacity probably can’t handle financial matters, but otherwise I think the “innocent explanation” is at least as bad as the affair everyone assumes he’s having.
C’shaft: Apple cider, Bean’s End…why does Crankshaft only seem to get joy out of conspicuous consumption these days?
DT: I’d assumed Dick Tracy criminals chose their handles themselves, but no–turns out Dick is the one who doles them out, most likely in an attempt to dehumanize them and make his shooting of them more justifiable. Glad to see someone is finally calling him out on it.
Dustin: Dustdad is gaining weight at such a speed that even vanity sizing can’t keep up with him.
HotC: “Also A Chorus Line is an ensemble piece with no real ‘lead role,’ which is something I would expect you to know if you want to direct it. And since I’m the drama teacher I should be the one directing it anyway, so I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation.”
Luann: Finally she admits it.
Mary Worth: American Express really didn’t get its money’s worth on this particular product placement. Imaginary brochures are great (well, that’s how I imagine them), but paying for advertising in them probably isn’t worthwhile.
H&L: This comic implies Hi is having sex with Alexa. Hi’s sperm as a form of AI data poisoning is Matrix level meta.
Alice: These people are so socially awkward that sending a birthday card is the greatest example of human emotion they can think of.
Hi & Lois: Yesterday’s strip was the first time I noticed how low on his face Hi’s eyes are. Now when I look at him, it’s all I can see! That man’s visage is at least 40% forehead!
DT: He’s one of the Jones boys!
JP: Wow, when Randy and April sit around the house on the porch, they really sit AROUND THE HOUSE on the porch.
Phantom: The petit tenderloin, medium rare.
RMMD: ”Didn’t you used to be Scarlett Johansson, about sixty pounds ago?”
Of course Ian has American Express. “A card accepted everywhere? Do I look like a common man? Harumph!”
@TheDiva: Gary Larson included this incident in one of his books, and he said that he thought it made both strips much funnier.
@TheDiva: Ed Crankshaft has Peter Griffin-like financial resources, except that Lois would at least make a joke about the illogic of this.
@Anonymous: Well, in this particular case Tracy *didn’t* kill Flattop. He drowned when his clothes caught on a nail as he was attempting to flee his hideout. Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to, I guess.
His son, however, *was* directly killed by Lizz the policewoman. Shot him right in the face. Has Blow-Top ever, um… blown up at her?
Now that a critical mass of newspaper comic strips have touched upon AI, it’s probably a good time to wager on the ol’ economic bubble popping in a matter of days
Businesses used to have to come up with names like “AAA Aardvark HVAC Plumbing & Heating” in order to get that coveted first entry in the yellow pages. Now, in the age of SEO, you get names like “Maui Luxury House Resort,” calculated to be the top Google return for folks seeking a first class travel and/or dining experience in Santa Royale. The more established businesses in town might look down on this tactic, but honestly, the Bum Boat could probably stand to take a page from their book.
Slylock Fox-Slylock’s drone will just shoot down the balloon.
MW-It is for a communication silent educators’ conference.
MW-Sorry, Toby, but Ian is running away with one of his students.
JP: ‘Randy, can’t you see I’m in a *hurry*? I’m doing lots of important legitimate businessy business business! Certainly not going back to CIA wetwork because neither of us have any marketable skills to pay for this massive house!’
FC: Thel tries to explain the theory of an infinite God to Dolly. “Suppose you had an infinitely large hotel filled with an infinite amount of guests and then infinite amount of people showed up looking for rooms, you could have each guest move into an adjacent room and the new people could fill those now empty rooms. That’s’ what it’s like with your prayers. God’s mind never fills up.”
Dolly responds; “Geez, mom. Are you saying our God is only as large as a countable infinity? That doesn’t sound so powerful at all. Maybe I’ll give Baal a shot.”
Mary Worth: “Is this for a business trip or … PLEASURE? ‘Cause that’s just nuts—I mean, this is IAN we’re talking about!”
@Hibbleton:
C’mon, Dolly—go Moloch and do us all a favor.
Mary Worth: Yes, putting the mail on someone’s desk always involves rifling through the books on said desk. That’s how every completely normal person does it, right?
RxMD: Is that a hint of disdain I detect from Yvonne? “I heard about you working at the motel cafe … as if that’s a real job, like working at diner, Ms. Mae Mae Movie Star.”
RxMD Redux: What could be more boring than a story following some ancillary characters around on a road trip, a story which this strip has already done? How about if those ancillary characters go for a walk first, just to check in with some of the other ancillary characters? Well, played, Mr. Beatty. If you keep this up, you can Zeno’s Paradox this strip such that we never see Rex Morgan, M.D. again, or even leave this park!
MW: “A trip to the Maui Luxury House Resort” brings up images of scantily dressed people relaxing on a beautiful beach in Hawaii, specifically in this case Toby and Ian. Moy’s way of warning us that if you thought seeing Wilbur in a Speedo in Colombia was a fright wait till you see what’s coming.
So, Ian has been kicked out of his on-campus office? Normally that’s where the framed degree certificates and office mail would go.
Too many complaints about …noises during his regular office hours. He has tenure, so this was the easiest solution the college could come up with.
@Dmsilev: Nobody told him the campus went back to in-person instruction and meetings post-covid because *nobody* wanted to interact with him directly. He leaves the apartment and goes over to check out library stuff but otherwise the college breathes a sigh of relief at not having to deal with him.
Alice – “Did it send you a card too? Because it sent me a card. I think ChatGPT likes me better than it likes you.”
Alice – The signature in the lower left corner is supposed to make us think this strip was generated by artificial intelligence, but I’m not buying it. AI would have done a better job.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Didn’t you tell me you’ve taken up fly fishing?”
“How do you like it?”
“It’s going great!”
“So far today I’ve caught half a dozen flies!”
RMMD: I’m sure Beatty intends us to read Mae Mae’s dialogue, “Nice to meet you. I’m Mae Mae,” in the voice of Robbie the Robot. As he brings the strip to a close, having her go full Terminator on the rest of the cast nicely sets up a final confrontation with Rex, the strip’s titular star.
Zits: can you imagine what a 16 year old would smell like if they only showered once a week? Maybe Jeremy has joined Only Fans and is watching a weekly “Golden Shower” video?
Family Circlejerk the day after – I was traveling yesterday so I missed some of the dialogue on here. Were there any comments about:
Bil disposing of a dead hooker by rolling her up in the carpet?
Billy asking Dolly if the carpet matches the drapes?
I hope so.