Tag: Big Tech

The Future With No Shock: The ‘Strange Days’ Of The Soft Singularity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though the Soft Singularity is here. Advances in AI, automation and what I call “digital telepathy” have reached a critical juncture. And, yet, it seems as though Big Tech is fucking with us — they’re using a lot of new advances in the darkness because, what, they don’t want to spook us?

I find this very annoying because I really want my fucking $1,200 mindcap that allows us to skip the MX (VR – AR) phase of things and go directly to Strange Days shit.

And I’m not talking about a fucking Neural Link where you have to drill into someone’s head — I’m talking about something like what you find in Strange Days or Odyssey 3: Final Odyssey that happens by simply laying the device on your head. No drilling necessary. It’s unintrusive mind reading. In fact, imagine if you could harness the processing power of your own mind as part of mindcap. That’s some next level Singularity shit right there. If you could ride off your own wetware for processing power, wow!

And if you assume like I do that Big Tech (Tik-Tok) can already read our fucking minds, then what I’m proposing isn’t really that big a deal. If they can read our minds without touching our skulls, imagine what they can do if they have something that actually touches your skull?

But, again, no one listens to me.

Yet, I do think we’re probably within the Event Horizon of some sort of Singularity. It’s as if Netscape was only an enterprise company and only people in the bowels of the Big Tech knew about the World Wide Web. I feel as though for crass power and monetary reasons that there’s a chance a lot of Singularity-ish advancements have been made and…we’re supposed to be stuck wanting to get into Clubhouse of all things?

Or, put another way, I just feel something’s up. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason The Powers That Be have decided to hide some pretty big technological advancements from us for the time being. There’s bound to be a reckoning at some point. You can’t keep being able to read people’s minds via their cellphones a secret forever, you know.

I guess they’re going to try.

But, let me be clear — I have no absolute proof that Tik-Tok is rummaging through my mind. But I do feel as though it’s something we should think about being possible.

That Silicon Valley Is Buzzing About Clubhouse Is Comical


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a sense of why Clubhouse is popular — you participate in a Zoom-like meeting while taking a dump. Or nude. Or whatever. So, that causes a lot of powerful people to want to participate. Throw in artificial scarcity and you have the makings of a very popular site.

But, bruh, where is my Mindcap?

If Big Tech would just admit that they can read our minds, then after everyone stopped being shocked, Big Tech could say, “Within 18 months we’ll be selling you Mindcaps for $1,200.”

And, yet, what’s got the attention of Silicon Valley? A digital version of a rural party line. COME ON. It’s all very strange. It’s strange that Silicon Valley is so disconnected from the Steve Jobs ethos of putting a “dent in the universe” that they’re screwing around with something as inward looking as Clubhouse.

Whatever. I have a novel to work on.

Think Bigger, Silicon Valley


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I only talk about this again because I can not believe that of all the things generating buzz right now fucking a digital version of the old rural party line — Clubhouse — is huge. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Where’s all the talk of “disrupting” the way we live in fundimental ways? Meh. Give me a Mindcap like in Arthur C. Clarke’s 3001: The Final Odyssey instead of a tech weenie circle jerk.

But, I don’t see my vision happening. Even if Big Tech can read my mind as I suspect, no one cares,. I’m just a rando writing a novel. Though, to be fair to myself, I am using some of my allotted words to give people my personal vision of how some of the technology I believe SHOULD exist would be used in a practical fashion.

That’s one of the unexpected aspects of this novel — how much it’s veered off into practical scifi in ways I didn’t really expect. But I really need to just throw myself back into this novel again.

This weekend I kind of relaxed. Now it’s time write write write. Maybe I’ll inspire so nerd to change our lives again en mass.

The National Security Implications Of Tik-Tok (Potentially) Reading The Minds Of America’s Youth


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me state for the record that I have no idea if Tik-Tok (or Big Tech for that matter) can read our minds. But if it’s happening, Tik-Tok abuses the technology the worst, given how of all the “Hey, are they reading my mind” abuses I find these days seem to be the most egregious on Tik-Tok.

The issue is — the connection between Tik-Tok and the Chinese government is probably pretty nebulous and difficult to pin down. And, obviously, I don’t know the nature of any putative mind reading technology that may be being used. Is it point-to-point? Is the information gleaned being stored somewhere that can be analyzed? Is this all part of a broader “Soft Singularity” that no one is telling us about? What gives?

What’s more, if private companies can rummage around in private citizens minds using electronics connected to the Internet, just imagine what the CIA, NSA and MI6 can do at this very moment.

But, again — I have no idea if my fears about any of this are real. All I have is a low-grade hunch that maybe, just maybe a Soft Singularity has happened within the bowels of Big Tech and they haven’t told us about it.

Yet, let’s assume that if not now, at some point in the future, “digital telepathy” might be weaponized by both sides as China grows in power and the United States is put on something of a back foot. (Remember, it’s very likely that the United States will become a MAGA autocracy in the 2024-2025 time frame so a lot of my fears will become a lulz.)

But maybe one might find the governments of each country breaking it to their respective populations that they should stop using electronics if it seems like a war is about to break out between China and the United States? If it is, in fact, possible for Big Tech to read our minds and it’s completely unregulated there are so very many moral, ethical and political consequences to deal with if that particular cat is ever let out of the bag.

Having a New Cold War enemy being able to read the minds of your youth is a severe national security issue that might be seen as something close to the dropping of the first a-bomb in historical implications.

Or not.

No one listens to me.

And this doesn’t even begin to address what happens when the a MAGA autocrat uses “digital telepathy” to read the minds of the American populace on the the DL. Talk about a Black Mirror episode! They could have almost absolute control over the population without even anyone realizing.

Everyone uses a phone or a computer. If someone just vanishes one day because of technology no one believes even exists, well, oh boy.

How I Quit Worrying & Came To Love Big Tech’s ‘Digital Telepathy’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Whenever I think of how I’ve come to believe Big Tech is reading our minds (in some way) I think of that dude who figured out the Bernie Madoff scheme really never got any credit. In interviews he comes off as an acerbic, somewhat deranged guy. Just the type of guy that MSM wouldn’t give credit for breaking a huge story.

I feel for that guy.

I have no New York Times-level proof that Big Tech can read our minds, but there’s one specific thing that Big Tech (specifically Tik-Tok) is doing that is so specific that it definitely seems as though there’s some mind reading going on: they know shit about my body.

Now, as I keep saying, I hate conspiracy theories, so, yes, it’s very possible that through AI or algorithms they’ve somehow magically narrowed down specific issues with my body that I’ve told no one about. And if that’s the case I have two responses — then THAT needs to be regulated. And two, if that’s the case, they’ve managed to come up with an AI that has figured out very specific health issues for my specifically that make one think we’ve reached a Soft Singularity somewhere in the shadows.

But Big Tech (Tik-Tok) keeps pushing me very specific content for very specific health issues — down to virtually the same wording in my own Goddamn mind! — that something has got to be up. What’s going on right now, of course, is, I think, a Soft Singularity has happened and our poor old rummaged through minds can’t process that we’ve reach a point in technological development where Big Tech can actually READ OUR FUCKING MINDS.

We just can’t grok it. It just isn’t something we can process, so we dismiss it. And if only freaky weirdos like me are claiming this, then it’s very easy to dismiss it. There’s no proof. All I have is a direct link between my personal, internal monologue and the content I’m being pushed by Big Tech. I can’t PROVE THAT, now can I?

It’s Tik-Tok that seems to abuse their ability the most. They don’t just push me content for, say, “bathmat” without any obvious context, they push me content with some abstract analyzation to it. Now THAT is fucking spooky.

But let me be clear — I bounce back and forth between believing I’ve figured this out and saying this is just another one of my kooky ideas I’ve had since I’ve left South Korea.

The only reason why I keep bringing it up is…Big Tech keeps trying to pull a Soft Singularity fast one on me and it’s beginning to bug the shit out of me.

Facebook’s Half-Assed ‘Deplatforming’ of Me


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Welp, I’m in a curious limbo with Facebook. First, some context. I’ve been using Facebook since about 2007 and as during the Trump Era all I did was rant — often with a lot of “fucks” — about how angry I was about it.

So, if that’s the reason why they’ve put me in a time-out while they “evaluate” my case, I get it. But they’ve been “evaluating” my case for six months now and even though they blame it on COVID….it definitely seems as though they don’t want me around anymore.

I guess I just they would just be more honest about it. Or, at the very least, fish or cut bait. Either let me back on the platform or tell me that I was, in my own way, being too deranged for their liking.

It’s a very surreal feeling being unable to use Facebook. I feel like the Isaac Asimov character in a short story of his who is unable even to use a computer — the court forbids is.

Anyway. At least I have the novel.

The Future Is Wetware


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Before I begin, let’s mull something Trump said once. As I remember it, Trump rambled something about how “the Deep State” could “read our minds” via our microwaves or some shit. Is it possible it wasn’t what we thought — his addled brain coming up with bullshit — but something he actually knew about once he became president?

I doubt it, but it makes you think.

I mean, here I am thinking Big Tech can read my mind — just imagine what the NSA or MI6 can do. And it starts to get a little spooky when you think how much of our lives are rigged up to the Internet. The first thing we may have to worry about when the Singularity turns hard isn’t the Terminator, but our fucking government controlling us to an unprecedented level.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand: the future is wetware.

What I mean by this is, if you assume that the technology to read our minds already exists, what if you took it to the next level and figured out a way to use our own wetware as our next Internet. Using a device found in Arthur C. Clarke’s 3001: Final Odyssey, you could totally re-imagine human interaction with the digital realm.

You could send “m-mail” from mind to mind. Watch video in your mind’s eye. Listen to music in your mind. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that it might even be possible to use your own mind’s processing power to help things along. That may be pushing it, but it seems something to think about.

The point of all of this is — why the fuck are we talking about Clubhouse — which is nothing more than a re-imagined rural partyline –instead of jawdropping changes in the human experience like the Internet became over about 20 years.

What is wrong with us? Where are our Snowdens of yesterday?

Anyway, seems like about $1 trillion is being left on the table because of the shortsightedness of the nerds of Silicon Valley.

Tik-Tok’s ‘Soft Singularity’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something’s up. I don’t know what it is, but Tik-Tok (and possibly the Chinese government) is up to something. When you start to seriously consider that Tik-Tok (and as such the Chinese government) can read your mind via your cellphone, you got a problem.

Now, the experiment I suggested people do with Tik-Tok apparently doesn’t work — someone I know via Twitter handed their phone to their boyfriend and what I thought would happen, didn’t happen.

So, this makes one wonder how it is that the “spooky” shit that Tik-Tok is up to can possibly happen.

If you want to imagine still that Tik-Tok is reading our minds, one possibility that they have their digital telepathy somehow “imprint” with your specific mind after a certain point so my experiment doesn’t work. They know your specific brain signals well enough that simply having someone else use the phone doesn’t right away change what you’re pushed.

Now, let me be clear — the only reason why I even propose this bonkers conspiracy is the repeated times that Tik-Tok (and to be fair, other Big Tech companies) have pushed me content (read: ads) that seems to brazenly reference my internal monologue. Tik-Tok is just the absolute brazen at it. When it starts to push videos that reference the abstract of “women who looks like the woman that is often in my mind” then, well, something fucked up is going on.

But I’m prepared to admit defeat. I just don’t have any New York Times-level evidence to support my claim. This is a very rarely viewed Website, so it’s not like anyone cares what I think.

Think Big: Silicon Valley & The Soft Singularity of ‘Digital Telepathy’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A long time ago, when dinosaurs still walked the earth, I was in college and obsessed with this thing called the Internet. This was before the World Wide Web. This was back when having an email address was, in itself, something of a future shock.

Flash forward to the present day and, meh, we’ve been in a technological holding pattern for about a decade now. Sure, a lot of apps have been designed, but the basic thing that powers it all hasn’t changed in over a decade: the smartphone.

Now, here’s where things get tricky.

I think Big Tech has figured out a way to read our minds. And, what’s more, they’re getting kind of brazen about it because, I mean, who’s going to believe that our phones are reading our minds? And, let me be clear, I absolutely hate conspiracy theories. I think they’re the last refuge of the intellectually dishonest. So, I’m very reluctant to think what I’m saying I think: that Big Tech can read or minds and they’re using that ability on the DL to sell us ads.

And, really, this would not be that big a deal real terms — at least not now — but for one thing: Tik-Tok. It’s at least possible that the Chinese government, through Tik-Tok is rummaging around in the minds of American’s youth via Tik-Tok. I say this because of all the services I suspect can read our minds, Tik-Tok is the absolute most brazen.

They really push it. I think about something once without telling anyone else and lo and behold, I get a pushed a video or ad about that subject the next time I log on to the service. This is not to say there aren’t plenty of other ways they’re figuring me out. They’re probably listening to me via my phone. They’re probably monitoring every way I use my phone and using algorithms to figure me out. I get all that. THAT makes sense.

It’s when I get pushed something on Tik-Tok that seems to not only reference something from within my internal monologue, but takes it to the next level of referencing, say, the appetence of a lost love that is floating around in my mind all the time. How does an algorithm figure THAT out?

And, if you want to got that route, if “algorithms” have gotten that advanced, then that, in itself, is a serious issue. That’s not an algorithm, that’s AI and that needs to be discussed and, if necessary, regulated.

Or, put another way, I’m beginning to think we’ve already reached a “Soft Singularity.” A combination of oligarchy, greed and fear of the public’s reaction is causing Big Tech to keep this fact away from the average person. But it seems that if they keep fucking leaning into their ability to Black Mirror shit that there will, at some point, come a moment of reckoning.

But I’m a nobody. No one listens to me.

The Implications Of Big Tech Concealing A ‘Soft Singularity’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me qualify what I’m proposing — I’m simply looking at what appears to be happening (Big Tech can read our minds via our phones) and then playing out the implications of such a theory.

I could be totally wrong. It’s very possible. But some of Tik-Tok’s apparent abuses of digital telepathy have made it seem so obvious to me that some sort of Soft Singularity has happened without anyone telling us that I have to talk about it.

Let’s review the evidence as to why I think a Soft Singularity has happened. First, Facebook some time ago patented mind-reading technology. Second, repeatedly over the last year or so, I’ve noticed being pushed ads that are so specific to what I’ve been THINKING about that no possible algorithmic explanation makes any sense.

What’s more, especially with Tik-Tok, there is an abstract nature to some of the things I’ve been pushed that is alarming. If you work on the assumption that my mind is being read by my phone, it’s not like they know the word “GIRL” is at the forefront of my mind, it’s as if they actually are rooting around my mind to the extent that they can push videos of “GIRL WHO LOOKS LIKE ANNIE SHAPIRO.”

The prospect of that going on with millions of Tik-Tok users, not just me, is extremely dark and surreal. It starts to make you think about the moral implications of Big Tech (especially a Big Tech company so close to the Chinese government) knowing that much about a big chunk of the American population.

Not, at this point, let me be absolutely clear — if I’m missing some way that they can simply figure out that I like girls who look like a specific woman that I think about a lot via algorithmic assumptions, then, so be it. I will feel a lot better. But, even then, the algorithms would be so good at their job, that that, in itself, would be cause for alarm.

So, I guess what I’m suggesting is it’s at least possible that technology has advanced a lot further than we think.