I enjoy this comic (my favorite is the Laplace's Demon comic that manages to sneak Boltzmann brains into the story).
I wonder why they haven't challenged her to solve and justify the solution to some sort of scientific puzzle, like Blackbody Radiation or the equation of state for a white dwarf for a degenerate fermi gas or something.
Unless the answer is so universally known (blackbody radiation may have been a poor choice), she would have to use the type of reasoning they're looking for to solve it, and then it doesn't matter what she is, as it demonstrates that she's sentient and capable of reasoning in the way needed.
(Tl;dr: Employ some sort of existential entrance exam?)
Link.
To provide some background: Kimiko, the main character, is moving to Nephilopolis, where all empiricism is strictly regulated by the Department of Inquisition: "You couldn't so much as make an observation based judgment without a license." Since her bag is lost, she has no references, so she was rejected and is attempting to appeal.
My first reaction was that the Department is acting ridiculous. But on further consideration, given the futuristic setting, it would actually be quite plausible that she's a hologram or an automaton or something of the sort (I do wonder why they don't mention this hypothesis).
So, discuss! Just how ridiculous are they being? What do you think of this "credibility score" idea? Or, if you were to implement such a score, how would it be determined and how would it be administrated?
This comic was also a convenient excuse to offer my apologies for delays getting started on the sequence I posted about. I've been having a really rough time with some house issues, though it looks like the worst of it may blow over in the next day or two. I'm going to cautiously say the first post will be out early- to mid-next week.