Tag: ChatGPT

Will A.I. Lead To The End Of The Knowledge Economy?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though we’re lurching towards a future in which the looming A.I. revolution is going to consume the knowledge economy. What’s worse, we could very well face something of a Perfect Storm in late 2024, early 2025 in which we experience a Petite Singularity at the same moment the United States may face the existential choice between civil war or MAGA-themed autocratic rule.

Now, I suppose it’s possible that the Peite Singularity could be punted down the road a few years as we address the whole autocracy or civil war conundrum which might also happen in the context of a potential Third World War. In that case, it would be similar to what happened with TV and WW2.

But there are two issues we have to think seriously about now.

One is, the need to mull the need for a Universal Basic Income. If virtually all knowledge economy jobs become moot, there’s going to be a need for a UBI. The whole issue of UBI could come rushing towards at such an abrupt speed that we won’t have any way to process properly. Our politics are already broken to the point of crisis that the added weight of having to figure out UBI may be too much for it. It could very well be we just don’t have the wherewithal or political will to institute a UBI in the first place.

Meanwhile, there is the risk that MAGA will be replaced with some sort of neo-Luddite movement that will be a direct reaction to the rise of AI. If 3 million high paying transportation jobs go poof! overnight, then the idea of a neo-Luddite movement definitely becomes a very real possibility.

One thing that is going to be interesting to see is if even journalism is transformed to the point that we get all our news from AI. That seems like a very dangerous situation going forward. If we defer things like journalism and law to A.I. there is a real risk that catastrophe might strike us.

It will be interesting to see how things progress. I just don’t think we’re ready for what is on the cusp of happening.

Of AI & Dave Chappelle

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something about how Twitch freaked out over how the AI generated Seinfeld “forever episode” said some pretty dumb anti-gay, anti-liberal and anti-trans jokes I find alarming. It’s not so much the jokes themselves that are at issue, but the idea that there was such a kneejerk reaction when it came to something dumb that an AI did.

Dave Chappelle

I’m extremely sex-positive and I honestly don’t give a shit what you do with your body as long as everyone is of age and it’s consensual. Love is love and all that. What bothers me is this incident feeds into the MAGA narrative that the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to turn everyone gay.

It’s already a struggle for me to talk to me Traditionalist relatives about ANYTHING without having to spend 10 minutes hearing from them about how the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “groom” little kids. It’s all part of the broader “Gay Scare” that we’ve been living through the last few years. It sucks, yes, but that doesn’t change that there are are well meaning Christians who still think being gay is a “sin” and no longer believe in democracy because of the “gay agenda” of “woke people.”

What if the AI was, instead of doing rather bland Seinfeld-like jokes was programmed to do a never-ending Dave Chappelle-like set? It seems in today’s “woke” environment that that would be damn near an impossible thing to do. All of this is very corrosive and makes me fear that when the time comes in late 2024, early 2025 that it will be a near foregone conclusion that the United States will either slip peacefully into autocracy or have a National Divorce that prompts a civil war.

This is also sort of a quintessential “chatbot bias” issue. The very thing that the “woke cancel culture mob” freaks out about — telling jokes about gay people — is the very thing that MAGA wants to wallow in. And if they can’t get an AI to write a poem praising Trump, they’re going to want regulation to force the issue. Remember, Trump to this day crows over how he was able to get people to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

So, chatbot “bias” is just the sort of thing that MAGA is going to scream about at the top of their lungs at some point in the very near future. It could be just a matter of days before Trump or DeSantis picks up the “chatbot bias” standard and starts to scream about how this is just another thing that the “woke cancel culture mob” want to use to “groom” little kids to be gay.

UGH.

These are macro trends were dealing with and there really is nothing we can do about it. Either American democracy survives the 2024 presidential cycle, or it doesn’t. In other words — we’re fucked.

Forget Turning All The Matter In The Universe Into Paperclips, The Real Issue Is Chatbots Won’t Say ‘The N-Word’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Where to begin with this one. So, rather than hashing out the important implications of the looming chatbot revolution like the potential need for a UBI, here we are fighting over how a chatbot wouldn’t use a racial slur to save millions of people.

For a group of people who grow ever-so-offended at the suggestion that they’re fucking racists, MAGA people sure do think up reasons to use racial slurs out of the blue.

This is so monumentally dumb and so much one of those things that is at the nexus of Incel-MAGA-Pothead culture that the fact that I feel forced to address it makes the whole issue even more grating on the nerves.

The reason why this is so dangerous is it’s simple for idiot MAGA people to process. Remember, for four years the president of the United States ranted about people not saying “Merry Christmas.” So, as such, it’s easy to imagine Trump ranting about how if only chatbots weren’t bias (relative to racist, misogynistic MAGA cocksuckers) there would be peace on earth and America would never again be threatened by a Chinese balloon.

And something something Hunter Biden’s laptop and or peen.

The chatter about “woke chatbot bias” is growing at alarming rate on Twitter. So, logically, even ding-dong Trump is going to eventually pick up the idea of “ending chatbot bias” as a political issue in the 2024 election. The more cultural weight we give chatbots, the more the calls for “regulation” to “end chatbot bias” will grow.

The question of course, is the enteral “who watches the watchers.” If the very idea objective truth doesn’t exist in the minds of MAGA, does that mean the only way you can produce a chatbot that doesn’t have a “bias” is if they are bias in favor of MAGA?

That particular question answers itself, I’m afraid.

So, if we don’t have a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025, we’re probably going to be an autocracy and, as such, whenever we use a chatbot we’re going to have to wade through it saying the n-word for a few minutes before we get the answer to the question of “why is the sky blue?”

All About ‘Chatbot Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is beginning to dawn on me what, specifically, has been delaying the chatbot revolution up until now. People like Google wanted their chatbot to be something akin to a utility that was devoid of the nastier elements of the human experience. Because it just did not seem feasible to do it, they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and kept the technology to themselves.

Then came ChatGPT.

And so we’re now off to the races with something akin to an arms race, to mix metaphors.

With this arms race, the idea of “chatbot bias” is now careening towards the forefront of everyone’s minds because we’re so hyper polierzied that the very thing that Google and others tried to prevent is also the very thing that people on the extreme Right want chatbots to wallow in.

Any hint that a chabot won’t spew on the hate of MAGA talking points is enough to make MAGA cocksuckers freak the fuck out. In fact, we are so close to the Right pivoting away from screaming about Critical Race Theory to screaming about “woke chatbots.”

In fact, I would suggest it’s just a matter of time at this point. As chatbots grow in culture significance as humans defer more and more decisions to an “objective” chatbot, the demands to regulate chabots so they aren’t “woke” is going to grow and grow.

And, in fact, that might be one of the first acts of America’s autocrat at some point after 2025 — demanding legislation that requires chatbots to spew out MAGA taking points and the ever-important poem praising Donald Trump. Ugh.

Now, obviously, the center-Left isn’t exactly innocent in all of this, either. There are elements of the far “woke” Left that will pitch a fit no matter how equitable the chatbot’s answer to the ever-pressing, “what is a woman” question might be.

Or, put another way, rather than solving actual problems, we’re all going to yell at each other for a few years about how “woke” the chatbots that are slowly taking over the world may, or may not, be.

Welcome to the future.

Actors As ‘Ringtones’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Everyone in Hollywood needs to read David Brin’s scifi novel “Kiln People.” One could posit it as an allegory for what may be about to happen to Hollywood within a decade or so. In the novel, as I recall, scans of actors are treated much the same way as ring tones were in the past.

As an aside, I think we’re all going to have to get used to the idea that Hollywood may soon be in an eternal “now” in which the stars that existed about the time of the AI revolution are forever making the same content over and over and over again as if they live forever.

The need for this to exist for Hollywood was grazed — but not touched directly — by Matthew Belloni when he said, rhetorically, that it’s not like Michael C. Hall is going to want to make Dexter shows for the rest of his life.

Well, lulz, what if he didn’t? What if the producers of the show just used his body scan and kept making the show forever — or at least as long as it was profitable — allowing Hall to live passively off the use of his scan?

I think that is a very, very real possibility. There may be a pause in the adoption of such technology because we have a Second American Civil War and WW3 to get through, but in the end, I think AI could totally transform the very idea of what entertainment is.

Or, to put another way, instead of paying $15 for a monthly Netflix subscription, you will pay the same amount for a license of the body scans of your favorite actors to use in, I don’t know, the metaverse or some shit.

All of this plays into my belief that we’re careening towards a Petite Singularity. Things could change so dramatically in the infotainment industry that we just can’t keep up.

Is ‘Moneyball’ Coming For Hollywood?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had an interesting Space conversation (below) with someone where we stumbled upon an interesting idea — is it possible that Hollywood is about to get “Moneyballed?” What I mean by this is, if you gut Hollywood from its human element outside of digital body scans that are used like ring tones, is it possible that cold, hard metrics will the be-all and end-all.

Two things.

One, I suppose one of the reasons why so much of Hollywood sucks these days is that already exists. The corporate suits look exclusively at the bottom line and that’s it. But this idea I’m proposing would take things to the next level because there would be ZERO human involvement when it comes to the production of the collection of entertainment we consider “Hollywood.”

The other idea is that Hollywood isn’t going down without a fight. It’s possible a lot of carve outs to be mandated via regulation. This would happen as part of a broader effort on the part of the greater knowledge economy to prevent its complete consumption by the AI revolution.

The issue is that Hollywood could very well get suckerpunched by the tsnuami that is the looming use of AI in showbiz. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the injection of AI into showbiz is what happens Next after the Streaming revolution.

Now, obviously, if we have a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025 then lulz, it may be like the advent of TV before WW2 — we’re just going to have to wait for things to get sorted out before we get to experience it.

Will A.I. Bring A Broadway Renaissance As Hollywood Fades?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As is suggested in the movie “La La Land,” there is still a lot of truth to the myth that young people with a few bucks in their pockets make their way to Los Angeles in hopes of making it big in Hollywood. The rise of A.I. generated entertainment might change all of that, however.

Instead of going to Hollywood, young people in the near future might flock to New York City in hopes of making it big on Broadway and leveraging that fame to get a full body scan that will allow them to live passively off the scans use for years to come.

I say this because I wonder if the potential death of mass media because of A.I. generated entertainment might might lead to people turning to live theatre in a way not seen since before the advent of Hollywood in the first place.

I’m not saying I think this will happen for sure, but it’s definitely a possibility. It’s very easy to imagine a future where AI has grown so powerful that we have a “Her” movie situation. Instead of paying $15 a month for Netflix, we will pay a similar amount for access to the “scans” of actors over the years that we can use to populate our very, very specific movies.

Now here’s another interesting idea — will there be any market for mass media entertainment at all outside of the theatre or will everyone just use A.I. to generate very personalized entertainment? There won’t even be a need for a prompt — your digital personal assistant will just know you so well that you sit down and watch entertainment it generates on the fly based on what it knows about your personality from use.

But I still think it’s possible that live theatre — and Broadway specifically — could balloon in cultural significance as we transition away from Hollywood having any humans involved.

A.I. Killed The Hollywood Star?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had a really interesting Space conversation on Twitter with a guy who proposed the following provocative concept: the rise of AI generated technology will mark the end of Hollywood as we know it.

He posits that the entire celebrity parasocial edifice will come crashing down as everyone can tailor their entertainment to be very personal and without any “real” actors. Everything will be generative, no IRL humans involved.

This is a really interesting idea. And I like it because it forces me to challenge some basic assumptions and to come up with and answer to this guy’s very valid observations.

The more I think about it, the more I think Hollywood celebrities have nothing to worry about, for no other reason than they still have time to warp the advance of technology such that they thrive. For instance, just because you may be able to create a completely generative movie or TV show in the near future, doesn’t mean you will want to, especially if there’s a huge marketing campaign to make you feel that your generative actor isn’t as “special” or entertaining as a scan of a real person.

In fact, there is a novel by David Brin that deals with something like this. It’s called Kiln People and it has some really thought provoking ideas about the nature of celebrity. Anyway, I think in the near future when we Petite Singularity is in full force that instead of Hollywood being burned to the ground that the basic elements of Hollywood celebrity culture will simply exist in a different form.

So, when you sit down to watch a TV show or movie, yes, you will create something generative…but you will also probably be willing to pay a premium for a scan of, say, Harrison Ford (and other actors) to plop into your generative, personalized content. In fact, one could even go so far as to say that in the future you will be paying a flat monthly fee not for Netflix, but for access to the scans of a multitude of actors you might use for your movies and TV shows that you generate via a prompt

And, what’s more, once AI technology reaches something akin to that seen in the movie “Her,” you might simply tell your personal assistant to create the content for you using voice commands and you can be even more lazy.

I still think that instead of going to Hollywood in the near future that young starlets will head to New York City to see if they can make a name for themselves on Broadway then get scanned into the Big Hollywood Database and then live off the passive income of their body scan. I don’t feel enough people are listening to me about this possibility.

Anyway. It definitely seems as though the future of entertainment is going to have a lot of twists and turns.

‘ChatGPT is WOKE’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate being right. I continue to see chatter on Twitter among MAGA fascists regarding how angry they are at the “woke” nature of ChatGPT. Which makes me wonder where all of this is going to end.

I suppose that once we turn into a MAGA fascist autocracy that all chatbots will somehow be regulated to prevent the evil, pernicious forces of “wokeness” from being involved. As an aside, I have to say that all this talk about this or that thing being “woke” is total and complete bullshit. The fucking fascists call anything they disagree “woke” because they’re completely devoid of any meaningful policies other than expressions of hate.

There is, of course, the possibility that technology will solve this particular problem in the sense that everyone will have their own personalized chatbot in the near future, so if you want a “woke” chatbot, you can have one and if you want a chatbot that spews your own hate back at you, then you can have that, too.

But the point is — I can totally see Trump picking up the cause of “chatbot bias” the moment he’s back on Twitter — or sooner. It’s just the type of easy to understand and vacuous bullshit MAGA fascists love to traffic in. The great irony is, of course, that I was listening to the New York Times’ “Hardfork” podcast and they were talking about chatbot bias and I realized I was on the same page as them.

Because I am a drunk loser in the middle of nowhere I am going to get zero credit for having thought all the political implications of chatbot bias well before all the cool kids.

Ugh.

‘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.