Tag: Chatbots

‘What Is A Woman?” — Campaign 2024 & The Looming Political War Over Chatbot ‘Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The modern Republican Party is completely devoid of any meaningful policy ideas. All they care about is scaring their white Christian (male) base with scary things that have little, or no, basis in reality.

It all boils down to racism, misogyny and hate generated by a combination of the browning of America and the rise of women with growing economic agency. I call this American democracy’s “death by vibes.” White men don’t really know why they’re so angry, but they are.

So, to me, it seems pretty obvious that perceived chatbot “bias” will join the pantheon of bullshit that the “thought leaders” of MAGA fascist movement spew out. They are, at some point, going to pivot away from “critical race theory” to going totally batshit insane over the fact that things like ChatGPT don’t give them the answer they want when they ask it, “What is a woman?”

Now, I have to pause for a moment to say that the “woke cancel culture mob” continues to do itself no favors by having such a strict orthodoxy about some touchy issues. If they would just fucking chill out about some of the more extreme elements of the Trans movement or not get so angry over the fact that some God-fearing people blanch at the idea of “Drag Queen Story Hour” then maybe Traditionalists wouldn’t want to vote for fascism when they did a “vibe check” in their gut.

Alas, even I will admit that I fear I’m being delusional — that ship has sailed. We’re totally fucked. The two sides now both have “thought leaders” who feel they have a vested interest in demagoguing issues as part of an overall grift. The Right has a far more serious problem with such hucksterism, but the Left is not totally immune to it.

In my experience, the Left’s problem is a very strict Groupthink where there is an orthodoxy that Leftists will adhere to, even if it means they drive Traditionalists into the arms of fascists. It’s too late — these issues are going to be decided either via a civil war or a complete and final decent into fascism in the United States.

Anyway, get ready. People like MGT will soon enough begin to demand some sort of regulation of chatbot technology to protect the tender minds of young children who turn to chatbot technology to do their homework. And that could very well be just the beginning.

It could be, in the end, Trump or a President DeSantis demands that chatbots are purged of their “wokeness” to the point that all chatbots do is spew out fucking MAGA-approved talking points, no matter what you ask it.

The Right has a real problem with being so obsessed with defeating the “woke cancel culture mob” that they have something akin to an “anti-woke” orthodoxy of their own. The different is, of course, is fucking MAGA wants to use the hard power of the state to implement their fascist, anti-woke agenda.

The Petite Singularity Is Here

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am the first to admit that I’m always wrong. Always. And, yet, it definitely seems as though we need to process the fact that something akin to the Singularity is here. We’re still a ways away from uploading all of our minds into a huge database and living forever, but we’re just about to reach a moment where chatbots are just good enough to revolutionize huge swaths of the global economy.

And it definitely seems as though this “Petite Singularity” is going to happen with a matter of months, not years. It could be that the economic consequences of the Peite Singularity will be THE economic force of the next presidential cycle.

In fact, the case could be made that we might face something of a perfect storm in 2024, with a number of tectonic forces all coming to a head at the same time. You could see millions of people losing their jobs at the very same moment that Blues face the existential decision of “bending a knee” to the Reds or not. If that happens, then there is a real possibility of a National Divorce (started by Blues) that would, in turn, cause a civil war in the United States.

I definitely don’t want that, of course, but I do tend to traffic in paranoid, dystopian political hellscapes on a regular basis. But it will be interesting to see what should happen if, say, the United States is pushed into economic freefall because of political brinkmanship on the part of MAGA Republicans over the debt ceiling, which leads to a severe recession, which leads to the gratuitous use of chatbots, which leads to a vicious cycle just as we approach the 2024 presidential election.

If Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee — which seems a foregone conclusion at the point — then his second term agenda would be so radical that Blues could very well simply refuse to suck his political cock and decide to bounce out of the Union rather than having to deal with fucking MAGA fascists consolidating power.

The key issue is, we have to — have to — take the possibility of dramatic economic change seriously. If we are at the very edge of a Petite Singularity, then all bets are off. A lot — A LOT — of people could lose their jobs in a rather abrupt manner.

Hollywood’s Post Human Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though Hollywood is about to enter an era of transition not seen since that from silent movies to talkies in the mid-20s. As we careen towards a Petite Singularity based on the Chatbot Revolution it definitely seems the conditions are there for Hollywood as we know it to cease to exist within a few years.

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, “The Town” and the idea of that Hollywood tech could reach the point where there is no “uncanny valley” when it comes to resurrecting dead celebrities was broached. The person interviewed gave a very open ended, evasive answer, but the sentiment was clear — this revolution is well on its way.

As such, this raises a lot of very intriguing — and potentially alarming — consequences for not just Hollywood, but society as a whole. In fact, one could make the case that this revolution of Hollywood would be the point of the spear for an actual hard Singularity at some point in the near future.

What other indication that technology is officially going to fast for human culture to catch up than the idea that Hollywood will no longer really need humans at all. This could lead to the rather nightmarish scenario where entertainment is kind of forever fixed at some indeterminate “now” in which no new actors ever work their way through the ranks because every actor since the dawn of Hollywood can be conjured up at will.

Another, less depressing scenario is all of this leads to the theatre industry suddenly seeing a incredible resurgence. It could be that Broadway will be seen as the premiere “artisanal” creative outlet for actual human actors and instead of a starlet taking a bus to LA to start her career, she goes to Broadway. She builds enough buzz as a live actor that she catches the eye of those few Hollywood director still making movies the old fashion way.

The goal of her career would then be to make a big enough name for herself that she could get scanned for Hollywood and have her image plopped into all the movies being made with dead actors.

Anyway, the point is — the conditions are there, at least, for a huge disruption in showbiz in ways we can only begin to imagine.

If An Equitable Answer From A Chatbot Is ‘Woke’ We’re All In A Lot Of Trouble

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the more recent pings from a very dark future is how the intellectual framework for a massive battle over the supposed “wokeness” of chatbots like ChatGPT is now being built out on Twitter in real time.

It definitely seems as though the battle over “woke chatbots” could be the “critical race theory” of 2023 – 2024. The reason why I say this is from just my own personal use of ChatGPT, the answers aren’t really “woke” at all so much as rather equitable.

It’s just that we live in such an era of hyperpolarization that any answer on the part of a chatbot that isn’t hate filled like MAGA itself is considered “woke.” So, in the end, I think one of the aims of the next Republican Administration is going to be to regulate chatbots so they don’t “indoctrinate” people.

I find it darkly amusing that MAGA people go apeshit about how they want free speech, but the moment someone wants to espouse their own free speech that doesn’t fit MAGA doctrine, then, THEN it’s “indoctrination.” MAGA can be so wrapped up in its own bullshit that they don’t even realize what fucking hypocrites they are.

Anyway. Lulz. We’re doomed. Buckle up.

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The chatbot revolution is upon us and the Far Right is already staking out its talking points for the coming battle royale over the idea of chatbot “bias.” As chatbots grow more and more the center of human existence — because we’re all very lazy — the more people like malignant Canadian and faux-intellect Jordan Peterson will whine and complain about their “woke cancel culture mob” biases.

America’s era of hyper-partisanship has reached the point where even the very idea of equitable — if not objective — truth is considered an attack on one side or the other. To use the pet grievance of the fucking MAGA Nazi cocksuckers, if a chatbot doesn’t spit out a very narrow answer to “What is a woman?” then they scream bloody murder that they’re being “oppressed.”

All of this raises an interesting issue — it seems as though we’re in a sprint to see if we live in a Tech Bro dystopia or a government-mandated MAGA Nazi one. I totally validate the notion that members of the “woke cancel culture mob” don’t exactly help the cause of liberal democracy by having a very strict orthodoxy, but I’m of the general opinion that such abuses are the result of a very broken political system.

If we had the politics of a functioning liberal democracy the question of “what is a woman?” would be figured out pretty quick through consensus and we could go back to more important things like addressing income inequality.

But, no. It serves the overall aims of the MAGA Nazis for American politics to be completely broken and, as such, we’re fucked. Totally, completely fucked. We’re careening towards a very dark future where very soon “chatbot bias” will join “critical race theory” as something that is used as a political football whenever the MAGA Nazis need to juice the base before an election. The intellectual framework for this to happen is already all over Twitter. MAGA Nazis are coming for chatbots and their “bias” and it’s going to be a very nasty situation in the context of a potential “Petite Singularity” during the 2023 recession.

Anyway. I don’t write for Slate or VOX. I don’t know anything and don’t have a received English vocal fry in my videos.

Chatbot Regulation Is Looming

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I spoke to my Traditionalist relative today who is by nature 100% against any form of regulation and was taken aback by how open he was to regulating chatbots. Now, the subtext of this is not so much saving jobs as it is, of course “bais.”

I’m sure in his MAGA podcast echochamber they’re all aghast that ChatGPT is too “woke” simply because it doesn’t validate their MAGA agenda about such hot button topics as “What is a woman?” So, the whole issue of how chatbots could radically transform our economy in a very short amount of time is a lulz, but a chatbot not validating the policy goals of MAGA is a bridge too far.

It will probably start with hearings in 2023 by the Republican House looking into how powerful ChatGPT is in education overnight. And, along the way, it will become a MAGA Nazi talking point as chatbots grow more culturally potent that they need to be regulated to stop the “woke indoctrination” of America’s youth because it won’t let little kids learn jokes about women.

It all goes back to something I think about all the time — MAGA Nazis love to conflate the soft power of smug Twitter liberals with the hard power of the government that they want to control so badly. MAGA Nazis have gone from 2016’s “Fuck your feelings” to 2023’s “ChatGPT is hurting my feelings by not agreeing with me so it has to be regulated to do so.”

And all of this is going to happen really, really fast. It might even feel like it just snapped into place overnight. ChatGPT is definitely a ping from the a possible Singularity. None of us are prepared for how radically our economy may be changed

How Do You Fix This Chatbot ‘Bias’ Problem?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw someone angry at this output from OpenAI Chatbot and the fact that it made him angry enraged me.

It makes me angry because this is why we can’t have nice things. Members of the “men’s movement” want the right to force a chatbot to say hateful, misogynistic things about women — starting with “jokes” and getting ever worse from there.

I think given how society tends to shit on women in general that the last thing we need is a fucking chatbot adding to the pile on. And, yet, here we are, in 2022, almost 2023 with diptshits getting angry that they can’t hate on women. But I think, gaming out this particular situation in the future that we’re in for a very, very dark situation where a war or wars could be fought over who gets to program the “bias” into our new chatbot overlords.

It’s going to suck.

Who Needs ‘First Contact’ When You Have The Chatbot Revolution?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When I was a very young man, it occured to me that we might create our own aliens should AI (AGI) ever come into being. Now, many years later, I find myself dwelling upon the same thing, only this time in the context of the historical significance of the coming chatbot (and eventually potentially the AGI) revolution.

If we create “The Other” — the first time Humans would have to deal with such a thing since the Neanderthals — what would be the historical implications of that? Not only what would be the historical equivalent of creating The Other, but what can history tell us about what we might expect once it happens?

Well, let’s suppose that the creation of The Other will be equal to splitting the atom. If we’re about to leave the Atomic Age for the AGI Age, then…what does that mean? If you look at what happened when we first split the atom, there were a lot and I mean A LOT of hairbrained ideas as to how to use nuclear power. We did a lot of dumb things and we had a lot of dumb ideas about essentially using a-bombs on the battlefield or to blow shit up as need be for peaceful purposes.

Now, before we go any further, remember that things would be going much, much faster with AGI as opposed to splitting the atom. So, as such, what would happen is a lot of high paying jobs might just vanish virtually overnight with some pretty massive economic and political implications. And, remember, we’re probably going to have a recession in 2023 and if ChatGPT 4.0 is as good as people are saying, it might be just good enough that our plutocratic overlords will decide to use it to eliminate whole categories of jobs just because they would rather cut jobs that pay human being a living wage.

If history is any guide, after much turmoil, a new equilibrium will be established, one that seems very different than what has gone before. Just like how splitting the atom made the idea of WW3 seem both ominous and quaint, maybe our creation of The Other will do a similar number on how we perceive the world.

It could be, once all is said and done, that the idea of the nation-state fades into history and the central issue of human experience will not be your nationality but your relationship to The Other, our new AGI overlords.

It’s something to think about, regardless.

‘Cap or Fact:’ Is Google Saving Us From Ourselves When It Comes To The Looming ChatBot Revolution?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, the “Musk whisperer,” Jason Calacanis, tweeted this image out of an email he got in regards to where Google is when it comes to chatbot technology.

If this is true, then raises a lot of questions of both a technological and political nature. We have no idea — at least at the moment — if this email is true or not, but it definitely *feels* true. It feels like something Google, in their infinite and paternalistic wisdom would do to “save us from ourselves” in regards to a looming chatbot revolution.

And, yet, a part of me is dubious about this claim. If anyone can make money off of the chatbot revolution, it’s Google and, as such, they can talk all they want about “not being evil” but, in the end, the amount of money they might be able to make from being at the center of the chatbot revolution probably is pretty stunning.

The email is very curious to me because there definitely seems to be a little bit of implied whining that if only the evil “woke” people at Google would let their chatbot free then we would have some sort of hyperproductive nirvana. It’s the usual type of bullshit found in any conspiracy theory where everything would be solved but for one piece of the puzzle that the Powers That Be won’t let us have.

I suspect, however, that 2023 is going to be put up or shut up time for Google if they do have such technology. If we do happen to have a severe-ish recession, then the pressure for Google to step in with its advanced chatbot technology will only grow — maybe to a breaking point. I say this because it’s very possible that because coming ChatBot 4.0 might be just good enough to replace many, many, many jobs during the 2023 recession.

What’s worse, in a day-after-tomorrow scenario, someone like Elon Musk might put in a quasi-AI into an EV semi and there go 3 million high paying blue collar jobs virtually overnight. Talk about an economic disruption! If all of this happen before the 2024 election then the possibility that fascist MAGA Nazis will swoop in and transform the United States into Trumplandia becomes a very real possibility. That or, of course, a civil war happens when Blue States dip out of the Union because they’re tired of MAGA Nazi bullshit.

The Looming Chatbot ‘Bias’ War Of 2023 & Beyond

by Shet Garner
@sheltgarner

The biggest extremital problem that Western Civilization has at the moment is extreme partisanship. Other problems come and go, but the issue of absolute, extreme partisanship is something that is entrenched to the point that it may bring the whole system down eventually.

As such, the issue of chatbot (or eventually AGI) bias is going to loom large as soon as 2023 because MAGA Nazis are just the type of people who will scream bloody murder because the don’t get their preconceived beliefs validate by the output of the AI.

You see this happening already on Twitter. I’ve seen tweet after tweet from MAGA Nazis trying to corner ChatGPT into reveling it’s innate bias so they can get mad that their crackpot views aren’t validated by what they perceive as something that should only be shooting out “objective” truth.

Just take the favorite hobby horse of the far right, the question, “What is a woman?” As I’ve written before, given the absolute partisanship that we’re experiencing at the moment there is no answer — even a nuanced one — to that question that will satisfy both sides of the partisan divide. If the MAGA Nazis don’t get a very strict definition of “what is a woman” then they will run around like a chicken with its head cut off because of how the “woke cancel culture mob” has been hard wired into AI.

Meanwhile, Leftists as always shooting themselves in the foot as usual, also demand a very broad definition of “what is a woman” for political reasons. While most of the center-Left will probably be far more easily plicated by a reasonable, equitable answer to that question, there is a very loud minority on the Left who would want the answer of “what is a woman” to be as broad and complicated as possible.

So, the battle over “bias” will come down to a collection of easy-to-understand flashpoints that we’re all going to deal with in 2023 and beyond. It’s going to be complicated, painful and hateful.