Tag: Space Karen

Could Elon Musk’s ‘Grok’ AI Save Twitter?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw with keen interest the news that Space Karen will soon release an AI called Grok for “premium” users of Twitter. Of all the weird, bad things Space Karen has done to ruin Twitter, this one seems the least destructive — and potentially, actually, lucrative.

Or it could be a total disaster.

But, on paper, making an AI organic to the Twitter UX seems like a golden opportunity to kill more than a few birds at one time. Grok is supposed to have real-time access to Twitter’s content, so, that could come in handy.

I will note, however, that Twitter is full of shit, so, I don’t know how they will accommodate that cold hard fact. But I do think that we are careening towards a “Her” future where *everyone* has a highly personal DPA with a great personality or at least one we can modify to our personal desires and needs.

Grok may be the first step towards that future.

Twitter (‘X’) Is Now Nothing More Than A Sewer of Disinformation & Bots

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I honestly don’t know why I continue to use Twitter or “X.” It is now nothing more than just a sewer of MAGA disinformation and bots that like my tweets in a weird attempt to catch my attention.

Or, if they’re not bots, they’re catfishing me. I say that because I seem to attract the putative accounts of way too many cute Asian girls who just got onto Twitter in the last month or so and have almost no followers. It’s enough to make me a little bit paranoid.

It makes me wonder if people with ill-intent read this blog and are for some reason trying to fuck with me. Maybe it’s a co-ordinated effort at a mind fuck from whomever that person in California who is obsessed with this site is. But, hopefully, that’s just me being paranoid.

I’m really — at the moment at least — all that important. That’s why anyone who gives me sudden, unexpected attention is suspect. I think that may be my age showing, if nothing else.

It’s too bad that that it’s now impossible for any real innovation in the social media space that doesn’t involve AI. Unless Space Karen unexpectedly pulls the plug on X, we’re stuck with Twitter as a very shitty global town square.

Let Them Fight

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In a growing sign of how surreal the modern world is, and how difficult it is sometimes to get through news headlines with a straight face — Elon Musk has blocked Catturd on “X.”

This comes after Space Karen made a big deal about how he wants to eliminate the ability to “block” someone on X. (I still have to do a double take whenever I write out “X” instead of “Twitter.”)

Anyway, the whole thing is bonkers. Both that Musk would block Catturd and the idea that Musk would do away with Blocking in favor of “enhanced Mute.” For someone so smart, Musk totally misses what is going on with social media at the moment.

If I was Musk, I would be a lot more focused on dragging X into AI era than I would screwing around with basic, existing features like Block. It is very easy to imagine a scenario whereby you could organically make an AI prompt a central feature of the text-based X.

And, yet, here we are, yelling at each other about the “who shot John” specifics of being blocked or even having the ability to block someone. We are living through the twilight of social media and Space Karen would be smart to leverage the user base of X in preparation for the next technological era, rather than worrying about dumb feature issues.

But, then, it’s not like I had $42 billion on hand to buy Twitter, only to drive into the ground.

Ugh, Everything Is So Dumb!

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

MAGA Nazis are such fucking crybabies. They are equal to some of the more extreme elements of the Trans movement when it comes to being willing to destroy everything in the name of “vibes.” Take, for instance, their reaction to the prospective new CEO of Twitter.

MAGA has some sort of vague sense of ideological purity that if they don’t get they freak the fuck out. They also love to gaslight when it comes to the issue of “free speech.” They want the absolute right to spread hate to the point that if you even bring up the idea of some of guardrails, they freak the fuck out. They see “free speech” as nothing more than an means to and end when it comes to establishing a fascist MAGA Nazi state.

The tragedy of the commons and all that.

The whole thing is completely fucking bonkers. It proves a point I’ve been making for some time — MAGA Nazis are politically ascendant and it could be that if we have a “National Divorce,” it will be Blues, not Reds who decide to serve papers.

I will note in passing that I’m worried about the next Republican president establishing an autocratic state using hard power, at the same time my conservative relatives — who I love dearly — are freaking out about “woke” corporations ruining their lives.

Everything is so dumb.

AI & Our Coming ‘Mindfulness’ Overlords

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve given it some thought and, really, there is only one thing that humans can do that AI can’t do — use judgement. In fact, given how from a capitalists point of view, it is the very brutal nature of AI and chatbots that make them so attractive so it is inevitable that as the revolution progresses that we’re all going to realize that judgement is valuable.

I could see it happening this way — soon enough, because humans are lazy, we defer 99% of our decisions, economy, culture and politics to AI. But the one thing that we couldn’t defer to an AI would be good judgement. In short, “mindfulness” might suddenly become a very lucrative profession.

I don’t know exactly how this would all play out, but if there comes a point when almost all human activity is done through a blackbox AI, then the time of someone with good judgement to help manage and guide that AI would be very valuable.

Here’s where we come to something really intriguing — is it possible that if we create the “Other” via AI, that some attempt to unite Humanity might arise in an effort to unify our response to AI. At the moment, it’s difficult for the US to do anything about AI because if we do, then some other country, maybe Estonia, will swoop in and do all the kinky AI stuff we blanch at doing and we’ll fall behind.

But if there was some sort of global response to AI, then we would all be on the same page as to who would be the people we used to use AI in a “mindful” manner.

Is Twitter Dying? And What Happens If It Dies?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the mysteries of the tech world at the moment is what, exactly, Space Karen is up to with Twitter. While sometimes it feels like Space Karen might just pull the plug on the whole operation out of pique, more likely he would turn around and sell Twitter at a massive loss.

But, as I’ve said before, there is definitely a window of opportunity for someone to come up with a better mouse trap in the near-realtime discussion space. But it’s extremely narrow. You would have to strike almost immediately — things like AI and AR / VR are about to dramatically revolutionize everything.

I still think that if you cherrypicked the best UX elements of the old Usenet discussion service, you could really rock the world in a very quick manner. But, alas, it’s dawned on me that I should just shut up and work on my novel when it comes to shit like that.

It could be that even if Twitter “dies” it will all be moot because we’ll be wearing Apple VR / AR headsets that replace how we interact with media altogether. Or, hell, we might even be wearing mindcaps as far as I know.

There’s just no juice in social media. There’s definitely a need for a Twitter-like service without the baggage of Space Karen, but it could be that, like most things in life, we’ll just muddle through. But I do think that we’re in the process of lurching forward into a new, uncertain technological future that will change the everyday life of the average person in ways we can only barely begin to imagine.

Buckle up.