The Future Is Profound

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is very possible that at some point between late 2024 and early 2025, humanity — because of Trump — could very well bomb itself into near-extinction.

But, let’s just suppose that we somehow avoid that fate. It definitely seems as though if we do avoid such a dire fate that within a decade, $10,000 humanoid robots will begin to enter the homes of the upper middle class and work their way downward from there.

That, not AI or robotics separately, is what we should be focused on — androids with near-human intelligence that begin to do everything around the home from wash dishes to build decks to babysit children to general home security. And it could happen far, far quicker than any of us are prepared to imagine.

We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what AI can do to the knowledge economy — just wait until AI-powered androids go after blue collar jobs. It will be the day the universe changes.

The Future Of AI & Robotics Is One & The Same

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is clear to me that we’re all kind of missing the point about AI and robotics because they are actually one and the same. We only see them as two different projects because things are so primitive (in real terms.)

But the whole point of AI, in a sense, is to stick into a robot. Or, to be more specific — to give the AI the OPTION of being stuck in a physical robotic body if it needs / wants to be.

The implications of this are enormous. Because rather than thinking of AI as a disembodied voice or text prompt, we have to start thinking of AI as something that physically lives with us. Just as we can’t escape the Internet these days, there’s a chance we won’t be able to escape our new AI personal digital assistants.

They will be everywhere and nowhere to the point that wherever we are — they will be.

Who Knew Finding Someone To Read The Third Draft Of My First Novel Would Be So Difficult

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, here I am “done” at last with a version of my novel that I want someone to read before I begin the querying process. I have one person I hope will read the novel for me, but I really want to pay someone to read it. And I’m living in poverty, so it’s going to take time just to save up the money for that.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the possibility that my would-be editor won’t blanch at the part-time sex worker nature of my heroine. There IS a lot of sex in the novel, but, in general, I don’t think it’s gratuitous. It serves a point and makes the novel run at a nice little clip.

And, yet, we live in a hyper sensitive world where a lot of people apparently hate sex of any sort. So, I don’t know. I may never find *anyone* to edit this first novel and will just have to wing it.

I have a second, sequel novel I’m working on that seems as though it might be developed at a pretty fast clip. It’s essentially the rest of the novel that I split into two when I realized that was the best course of action. All I have to do is rework it some and I can start writing it pretty soon.

But at least the scifi novel I’m working on has little or no sex (in real terms) and, as such, if I find myself languishing in the querying trenches I can at least hearten myself with the knowledge that I can always use the scifi novel if need be. The scifi novel I’m come up with is really, really good.

I gives me the opportunity to use a lot of ideas that I’ve been formulating about AI and robotics for some time now. My only fear is, of course, that things are moving so fast that by the time the damn thing is published, some of my predictions will seem quaint.

But, if nothing else, it keeps me moving forward.

The Mystery of Celebrity Burner Accounts & The Wisdom Of Middle Age

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve finally reached the age where….meh…I just don’t care that much about catching the attention of “celebrities.” The point is *I* want to be a celebrity. I just don’t care about the rather mundane idea of catching the attention of a celebrity.

So what.

But what I AM interested in, is celebrity burner accounts.

I find the idea endlessly intriguing because there’s something of a kabuki dance to the whole thing. As a celebrity, you have two choices when it comes to social media. Totally ignore it, or use lots of burner accounts.

What’s even more crazy is there are some celebrities who are SO well known that they could open a burner account under their own name and….no one would believe it was them unless it was verified.

Anyway. If I was younger –significantly younger — I would find a random celebrity to grow obsessed with as part of a running gag. But, as I learned with Alexa Chung, it’s just not worth it. We live in an age where anyone doing anything weird is automatically assumed to be a psycho killer.

So. No. It’s just not worth it.

I’ve really grown more focused on being as productive as possible these days. I have not one must several novels I’m working on at the moment. So, lulz, maybe, if I make it big, I will be one of those celebrities who lives on social media through a bunch of burner accounts.

At A Loss…For The Moment

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m kind of in a weird halfway spot in the process of writing and ultimately querying this novel. I’m pretty much done with the novel…but I know I need to work on it some before I begin the process of querying.

But when I go through the novel to edit it, I struggle to find any scenes that REALLY need to be rewritten. So, I’m torn. I think what I’m going to do is try to focus on improving scenes in the second half of the novel.

It’s in the second half where the quality really gets a lot more shoddy. So, I need to focus my energy on improve scene quality there.

One problem is I’ve read and re-read the entirety of the novel so many fucking times that I’m a little bit burnt out. As such, that’s one of the reasons why I’m kind of chilling out for a little bit.

I want to look over the novel one last time before I turn it over to SOMEONE who will read it for me. THAT will be the last step before I really piviot towards querying in a serious fashion.

And I’m really working on the new scifi backup novel I’ve come up with. I’m actually doing some writing on that these days and it’s going well.

Profound Macro A.I. Issues

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While America has gradually freaked out over the last 20 years about declining birth rates by leaning into racism in the guise of MAGA, the Japanese 40 years ago started working on robotics. Many of the same problems that America faces, the Japanese face, too, only more so because they aren’t as cool with immigration as the States.

Here are three really profound uses of AI enabled androids going forward.

Elder Care
The moment there are $10,000 AI-enabled androids on the market, they probably are going to be used to take care of old people in some capacity. Not only is America growing older — a lot of GenX people don’t have any children or grandchildren to take care of them. As such, it would make a lot of economic sense to throw money into androids that would take care of old people. This, of course, will throw the economy out of whack because a lot people make a good living off providing the elder care service. And if androids are smart enough and good enough to do elder care, then, of course, those same androids will start to come after nursing jobs, too.

Child Care
This is a lot more tricky because it deals with the far more intangible issues of emotional and mental development. But I’ve been really shocked at how well AI has managed to do things that we all thought was exclusively the domain of humans in the arts, so, lulz? It seems possible that some future version of chatbots might have enough empathy and dexterity to keep an eye on a young human for a few hours. It is possible that in the near future, there will be a lot of talk not of “latchkey kids” but “android kids” who have been raised by androids for much of their lives.

Security
This is just as tricky as child care, but it seems inevitable. It is seems inevitable that domestic androids will be programmed at some point in the near future to do basic home security. Now what happens if they actually get into a fight with someone breaking into a home is something pretty profound.

There remains a lingering demographic problem across the Western world — people just aren’t having enough babies. In the United States, this “birth dearth” has led the Right to lose its fucking mind. So, I suppose it’s at least POSSIBLE that as part of the shift towards an android-based economy that there is a chance that MAGA will evaporate.

I hope.

AI Discourse: We Still Haven’t Found What We’re Looking For

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

From what I can tell of the discourse on Twitter within the AI community, a lot of people won’t be happy unless OpenAI announces an AGI that will end humanity. A lot of people sound like fucking spoiled brats.

Now, I understand what’s going on.

The release of ChatGPT 4 was such a revelation that people had no expectations. For a few days, they we happy with ChatGPT 4 because they had not yet developed any expectations.

Now, however, people have some very cold, hard expectations. They want not just Artificial General Intelligence — NOW — they want absolutely no guardrails to the point that if any user told AGI to blow the world up, it would.

Anything less than those metrics and “it’s so over” to use the parlance of AI Twitter.

It’s all very annoying. I mean, I want AGI just as much as the next tech nerd, but I would prefer that it didn’t end all of humanity. I would like there to be SOME guardrails.

Anyway, I suppose AGI will be invented soon enough and it will destroy us all.

Give It A Rest, People

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I began the long, long, long, long journey to writing my first novel because of a curious situation with Trump and a Playboy bunny. At the time, it seemed CLEAR that someone was playing fall guy for Trump having an affair with the woman.

But, alas, after much excitement –and a few phone calls with a reporter from The New York Times — it all collapsed. Trump had nothing to do it with it. I wrote a shit ton about this particular situation on this blog that I ultimately deleted.

I realized the poor woman had gone through enough and there just wasn’t any reason to keep it around. And, besides, I had begun my personal journey towards writing a novel and I had better things to do than worry about people asking me a lot of already-answered questions about something that did not, in fact, happen.

My only question is what specific event has caused a flood of people coming to this site just recently looking for information about this particular non-issue. They’re all coming from Twitter, as if they were searching for what happened and saw a link to one of my many now-deleted posts on this site.

I have to say that I low-key think it would be amusing if somehow “the truth” of what happened came out because of the Stormy Daniels trial happening at the moment.

I’ve Begun Writing The First Draft Of My First Scifi Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. Now that I’m kind of chilling out on my first novel so I can look at it with fresh eyes in a bit, I’ve decided to piviot to working on the scifi novel I’ve been developing. I have a complete outline that I’ve fleshed out.

Now, I’ve begun to actually write scenes out.

But I think I’m going be really self-conscious about the need to lean into character with this novel from the get-go. A story that’s all plot is just not very interesting. So, as such, I’m going to maybe TRY to sketch out character studies of all the major characters before I really get into writing the first draft.

And, yet, having said that, things at the moment seem to be moving really fast because I really understand what the novel is about. If I keep going at this clip — and the world doesn’t end because of fucking Trump — I SHOULD be in a position to query this novel at some point in 2025.

2025: Tyrant Trump

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are a few things we have to take into consideration before we think about Trump’s second term. The first is, we have to work on the basic assumption that Trump is simply going to ignore the Supreme Court if they rule in any way he doesn’t like.

So, if he fires several hundred thousand civil servants using his Schedule F idea, then, lulz, he’ll just do it no matter how much SCOTUS rules against him. He will invoke Andrew Jackson and go about his business.

Another issue we have to think about is the total fucking chaos Trump is going to cause when he begins to build out the infrastructure necessary to put millions of undocumented people in concentration camps. Just providing these people with food and housing will be a logistical nightmare.

What’s more, I have serious doubts with the idea that a variety of other people that Trump doesn’t like — everyone from trans people to loudmouth cranks like me — won’t find themselves in any sort of dragnet that Trump begins to employ across the country.

And I’m sure there are all sorts of bonkers counter-revolution things that Trump will do as early as possible in 2025. One key issue for me is if Trump will have the abstract thinking ability to propose a Constitutional Convention that would pass Amendments that would make America a white Christian ethnostate. It could be he will be so stupid that he just announces that he’s going to stay in office the rest of his life because “he deserves it.”

No matter what happens if Trump wins in 2024, we have to accept that the U.S. Military will ultimately decide the country’s fate. If the country collapses into chaos, whomever can convince the U.S. Military to take their side will determine who has power.

Of course, there’s a non-zero chance that not even the U.S. Military will stay stable. It, too, could collapse for a variety of reasons. Then you have WMD that might begin to be lobbed here and there across the country in the context of a global WW3 erupting.

Good times!

I just don’t know what to tell you. It could be that Biden wins and we muddle through another four years. But….I have my doubts.