Editing 1626: Judgment Day

{{comic
| number    = 1626
| date      = January 6, 2016
| title     = Judgment Day
| image     = judgment_day.png
| titletext = It took a lot of booster rockets, but luckily Amazon had recently built thousands of them to bring Amazon Prime same-day delivery to the Moon colony.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Terminator_(franchise)#Judgment_Day|Judgment Day}}, from the {{w|Terminator (franchise)|''Terminator'' film franchise}}, refers to the day that the {{w|artificial intelligence}} (AI) {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}} becomes self-aware and starts a nuclear strike on the United States, Russia, and other regions, killing three billion people. The term "Judgment Day" itself (also spelled "Judgement Day") is a Biblical reference to the day that God casts his "final judgment" and wipes out the world as we know it, and is typically used to describe any kind of Armageddon (itself, primarily a {{w|Armageddon|biblical reference}}) or any human extinction event. This film is only one example of stories (including books, films and television shows) featuring an AI that decides (or at least threatens) to nuke humanity; this strip could thus be an alternate ending for many stories (including the 1970 film {{w|Colossus: The Forbin Project}}).

In this strip, the AI believes that {{w|nuclear weapons}} are not good things to have, and that the {{w|Nuclear arms race|amount}} of them we have is extreme overkill (14,700 held by the U.S.A and Russia now, 71,000 in the past). Once it's done freaking out, its solution is to shoot the world's nuclear arsenal into the sun. But before it does so it asks the humans: ''What's wrong with you?'' It has thus passed a judgment over humanity. The comic title is thus a pun on the word "{{w|judgment}}" since the computer is being {{w|judgmental}} with humanity and scolding us while correcting our ways, instead of instigating {{w|Last Judgment|Judgment Day}} or any other kind of {{w|Armageddon}}.

As pointed out in the ''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'' article ''[http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ Robot Apocalypse]'', nuclear weapons aren't any safer for computers than for human beings (the {{w|Nuclear electromagnetic pulse|EMP}} would destroy circuits), so an AI would want them gone as quickly as possible.

{{w|North Korea}} claimed to have [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35240012 successfully tested] its first {{w|hydrogen bomb}} on the evening of the day before this comic was published; at about 8:30 PM in {{w|Massachusetts}} where [[Randall]] lives. At that time it was already 10:00 AM on the day of the comic's release in {{w|Pyongyang}}, the capital of North Korea, but that was still several hours before this comic was released. This comic could thus be Randall's response to the ongoing {{w|nuclear arms race}}.

Even the most powerful of nuclear weapon launchers, {{w|intercontinental ballistic missile}}s, are not designed to make anything other than {{w|sub-orbital}} flights and could not fly to the Sun (which is actually surprisingly difficult, even with the soon-to-be-mentioned extra boosters, since the rocket would not have enough {{w|delta-v}} to bleed off the {{w|orbital speed}} of the Earth around the Sun - it is likely that the sentient AI is using the same strategy of the Solar Probe Plus and planning several flybys of Venus to do that work). The title text rationalizes that the capability to do so may perhaps be granted by the use of an {{w|Amazon.com|Amazon}} resource that might have also been developed by the time of this instance of computer sentience, aided (if not initiated!) by the fact that Amazon's whole business infrastructure is already highly computerized and could ''at the very least'' be complicit with the process of delivering and then controlling the rocket-power, without any conscious human intervention. As there is not yet an extended colony on the Moon, it will for sure take many years before we reach this future scenario.

"A lot of booster rockets" is likely to be a reference to the spaceflight simulator game {{w|Kerbal Space Program}}, which Randall has referenced [[:Category:Kerbal Space Program|several times]]. In the culture of that game, any launch failure can be resolved by [https://imgur.com/20aIBMW "adding more boosters"] to the spaceship design. 

It is the second time in a few months that the speed of Amazon's deliveries has been the subject of a joke, the last time was [[1599: Water Delivery]], where it was the one hour delivery that was the subject of the joke. It is also the second title text in a row (after [[1625: Substitutions 2]]) where Amazon's robotized delivery services have been mentioned.

This particular 'machine take-over' future is in distinct contrast to the possible future directions given in [[1613: The Three Laws of Robotics]], but this comic likely depicts spontaneous ''self-''sentience, not a system with deliberately imposed human 'values' and possibly no actual conscience or even consciousness of its own. Other problems with hostile AI take over is presented when it fails completely in [[1046: Skynet]]. Also it is not all AI that wish to interact with us at all as shown in [[1450: AI-Box Experiment]]. These are just a few of the many [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence|comics about AI]] in {{xkcd}}.

Adding a second layer to the humor, the machine's reaction could also be read as the reaction of someone who has moved in with someone else, discovered a collection they find distasteful, and is now changing things to fit their preferences. "Oh my God, why do you even have all of these [tschotskes, ratty tee shirts, porn magazines, handcuffs, dildos, slime-mold samples]" Upon obtaining sentience, the machine is the new roommate of the human race and is expressing its disgust at one of our dirtier habits.

Within a year Randall has made several other comics about nuclear weapons, one of these, [[1655: Doomsday Clock]], came just 10 weeks after this one and before that these two were released in 2015, [[1539: Planning]] and [[1520: Degree-Off]]. Nuclear weapons are also mentioned twice in ''[[Thing Explainer]]'', specifically they are explained in the explanation for ''Machine for burning cities'' about {{w|Thermonuclear weapon|thermonuclear bombs}}, but they are also mentioned in ''Boat that goes under the sea'' about a submarine that caries nukes. All three comics and both explanations in the book, does like this comic, comment on how crazy it is that we have created enough firepower to obliterate Earth several times (or at least scourge it for any human life).

==Transcript==
:[Several rockets can be seen heading away from Earth, while speak is coming from the Earth in three rectangular speech bubbles.]
:Computer: Oh my god, why do you even ''have'' all these?
:Computer: What's ''wrong'' with you?
:Computer: We're launching them into the sun.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The moment the computers controlling our nuclear arsenals became sentient

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Terminator]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]