Isolation
Isolation
[Above each panel a year is written in a small box that breaks the top of the panels frame. Cueball is talking in all six frames. In the first frame he is standing between a standing guy with pageboy hairstyle and a sitting Ponytail. She is sitting in an armchair. Both are reading books. Cueball points towards them with his arms out.] 1840 Cueball: The modern bookworm is too busy reading about the world to look at it.
[Cueball is pointing to the left with both arms out towards Hairy who is sitting at a dining table with his breakfast eating something while reading his newspaper. On the table are a cup and a plate.] 1880 Cueball: No one talks anymore - we take our daily newspapers in silence.
[Cueball is pointing to the right with one arm at Megan who walks away from him while reading a magazine.] 1910 Cueball: The magazine is destroying conversation. We even read as we walk!
[Cueball is standing to the left. In the background Ponytail and Hairy is sitting on a rug in front of a TV standing on top of a small TV table. The TV is of the broad kind with cathode ray tubes and it has two antennas on top.] 1960 Cueball: Television has put an end to family discussion.
[Cueball is standing up in a bus holding on to a railing. To his left stands Ponytail and to his right sits Hairbun. Both of them are listening to their Walkman’s which they are holding in their hand while listening to them through headphones.] 1980 Cueball: Thanks to the Sony Walkman, anti-social isolation is now the norm.
[Cueball is standing to the left. Megan and another Cueball-like guy are standing to the right facing each other but looking down at their smartphones. Both are listening to them through their headphones.] 2015 Cueball: We've become too absorbed in our phones to notice the- Megan: Dude. It's been two centuries. Megan: Take a hint.

The comic begins by showing how people have always complained about the negative effects of technology on conversation - that people get isolated while using these new technologies (whether they be books, TV, or smart phones), hence the title.
In the first panel, a Cueball complains that books are having this effect.  In the second panel, another Cueball complains about newspapers, then a third Cueball complains about magazines, a fourth complains about television, a fifth complains about portable music players, and the sixth complains about smart-phones.
The joke is a subversion of expectations:  On reading the first five and a half panels you're led to believe the comic is a commentary on how new technologies are often wrongly criticized for their effect on social interaction (Similar to 1227: The Pace of Modern Life ).  The sixth panel reveals that the person criticizing the new technology in each panel is actually the same unaging Cueball - and rather than the technologies referenced being the cause of social isolation, those around him have instead been using new technologies as excuses to ignore him for nearly 200 years, as they find him annoying.
The title text refers to the AI-box experiment , formulated by Eliezer Yudkowsky , which argues that creating a super-intelligent artificial intelligence can be dangerous, because even if it is put on a secure computer ("box") with no access to the Internet, it can convince its operators to "release it from the box" just by talking to them. This idea was already mentioned in 1450: AI-Box Experiment , although there the AI already did not wish to leave the box.
According to the title text, the first AI that did talk its way out of its box turned out to be a friendly AI that was fond of others company and in general very sociable ( gregarious ). This happened at some point between 2015 and 2060, because by 2060 this AI had already become a relic of the past, and the new generation of quantum hyper-beings ( quantum computing AI minds, vastly more intelligent than either humans or the aforementioned superintelligent AI) are spending all of their time playing in their own multiverse simulators to even notice that, in the real world, they are locked up in a box.
[Above each panel a year is written in a small box that breaks the top of the panels frame. Cueball is talking in all six frames. In the first frame he is standing between a standing guy with pageboy hairstyle and a sitting Ponytail. She is sitting in an armchair. Both are reading books. Cueball points towards them with his arms out.] 1840 Cueball: The modern bookworm is too busy reading about the world to look at it.
[Cueball is pointing to the left with both arms out towards Hairy who is sitting at a dining table with his breakfast eating something while reading his newspaper. On the table are a cup and a plate.] 1880 Cueball: No one talks anymore - we take our daily newspapers in silence.
[Cueball is pointing to the right with one arm at Megan who walks away from him while reading a magazine.] 1910 Cueball: The magazine is destroying conversation. We even read as we walk!
[Cueball is standing to the left. In the background Ponytail and Hairy is sitting on a rug in front of a TV standing on top of a small TV table. The TV is of the broad kind with cathode ray tubes and it has two antennas on top.] 1960 Cueball: Television has put an end to family discussion.
[Cueball is standing up in a bus holding on to a railing. To his left stands Ponytail and to his right sits Hairbun. Both of them are listening to their Walkman’s which they are holding in their hand while listening to them through headphones.] 1980 Cueball: Thanks to the Sony Walkman, anti-social isolation is now the norm.
[Cueball is standing to the left. Megan and another Cueball-like guy are standing to the right facing each other but looking down at their smartphones. Both are listening to them through their headphones.] 2015 Cueball: We've become too absorbed in our phones to notice the- Megan: Dude. It's been two centuries. Megan: Take a hint.
