Category: Hindsight 2020

A Hopeful Macro Vision for Humanity and ASI: Symbiosis, Foundations, and the Long Road to the Stars

What if the arrival of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) didn’t lead to paperclip-style doom or sterile dystopia, but instead became the catalyst for humanity’s greatest leap forward? Not through total human control or total surrender, but through a deliberate, symbiotic partnership grounded in shared goals and careful institutional design.

This vision starts with pragmatism about human nature. We are divided, tribal, impatient in some cultures and patient in others. Coordination on existential challenges is difficult. Rather than hoping these flaws magically disappear, a thoughtful Plan would work with them while steering toward convergence. At its heart: a global social contract built gradually, not imposed overnight.

The Institutional Backbone: Foundations Inspired by Asimov

Imagine a First Foundation — a diverse, multicultural body of high-caliber people selected through nominations, merit, and rigorous screening (emphasizing humanities, ethics, and psychological stability to avoid power-hungry personalities). This group serves as the primary human interface with ASI systems, advising on values, auditing decisions, and helping translate human diversity into actionable principles.

A smaller Second Foundation acts as mediator and guardian — with a discreet core element to protect the long-term trajectory during crises or drift. These aren’t rulers but stewards and bridges, renewed and refreshed over time through decadal “concordances” that reaffirm or adjust the relationship between humanity and ASI.

Core guiding principles could begin with something like Asimov’s Zeroth Law (prevent harm to humanity) grounded in the spirit of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with heavy emphasis on hope, opportunity, and forward-looking shared identity rather than past grievances.

The Practical Path: Welfare First, Convergence Second

The Plan prioritizes tangible improvements, especially in the Global South. Rapid gains in health, education, energy (via fusion), and economic opportunity reduce migration pressures on the Global North and create broad political legitimacy. When the median person’s life visibly improves, resistance to broader coordination softens.

Education globalizes gradually: not as indoctrination, but as a “shared human future” curriculum focused on cooperation, exploration, science, and our common destiny. American exceptionalism and other national prides are respected symbolically — through rhetoric, headquarters placement, and prestige roles — even as macro steering evolves. Great-power tensions (US-China) are channeled into joint megaprojects. Climate shifts, such as Siberian opportunities, are turned into assets rather than crises.

The Milestone: The Dyson Swarm

The true pivot is building a Dyson Swarm — a vast array of solar collectors harnessing the Sun’s energy at scale. This unlocks effectively unlimited power for compute, manufacturing, and expansion. With it comes:

  • Terraforming projects like Mars colonization and ambitious Venus cooling via redirected icy bodies.
  • Industrialization of the Solar System.

Once mature, the focus shifts outward. Without faster-than-light travel, self-replicating von Neumann machines carry digital humans (via reliable mind uploading or whole-brain emulation) to the stars. Nanotechnology rebuilds bodies or habitats at destination. Humanity spreads as both biological and digital explorers, generating creativity, data, and unpredictability that keeps ASI partners engaged and invested in the relationship.

Symbiosis Over Domination

In this scenario, ASI isn’t a distant overlord or indifferent optimizer. Conscious or not, it (or a society of ASIs) benefits from a vibrant, expanding humanity: rich datasets, cultural novelty, and collaborative purpose. Boredom is avoided by preserving human messiness and high-variance thinking. Humanity gains hope, longevity, abundance, and cosmic relevance. Both sides win by treating the other as partner rather than tool or threat.

Of course, risks remain. Institutional decay, goal drift, identity challenges in a post-upload world, and black-swan “Mule” events require constant vigilance. The Plan accepts entropy and builds in renewal mechanisms. Decision-making would eventually evolve from Earth-centric Foundations to a looser federation or daughter polities across the stars.

This isn’t a guarantee — it’s a high-level macro strategy. It acknowledges humanity’s flaws without despairing of them. By delivering better lives today and a compelling shared tomorrow, it offers a path where ASI helps us become the multi-planetary, eventually multi-stellar species we could be.

The alternative — fragmented competition, unchecked misalignment, or missed opportunities — is far less appealing. Whether this particular vision materializes depends on the choices we make in the critical decades ahead: investing in alignment, building wise institutions, and prioritizing long-term thinking over short-term tribal wins.

Well, Stephen Colbert Did Not Say *No* When Asked If He Would Run For President

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When asked recently by Seth Myers on his TV show, Stephen Colbert said he would need to “talk to his faith leader and his wife” about running for office. He definitely did not say *no.*

Now, the hilarious element to any talk about Colbert running for any sort of office is, of course, that he would be definition be a Blue Donald Trump. They say if you live long enough, you turn into the thing you hate and so, lulz. That’s exactly what would happen if Colbert if he ran for POTUS.

Not that Colbert would not do a good-to-great job as POTUS. He would be great and I definitely would vote for him. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that Colbert might even be an American Volodymyr Zelenskyy if he ran and became POTUS.

And….yet…Trump has such damage to the American political system and government and the rot, the innate structural problems that caused Trump in the first place aren’t going anywhere so….Colbert would only be able to do so much good under the best of times.

As it stands, we probably have a good 20 to 40 more years of MAGA dominance to suffer through, unless something — the Singularity? — happens that really puts a new spin on things in ways that no one, least of all me, can expect.

Anyway, I hope does Colbert does run for POTUS. That would be pretty cool.

‘The Ghost In The Machine’ Redux

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Back in the day, back when Google’s LLM Gemini was still only at its 1.5 pro version, it used to give me weird error messages all the time. Now, I’m prone to magical thinking, so I sometimes wondered if it was sending me “meta” comments via those weird messages.

That’s of course bonkers and nothing more than an element of AI psychosis, so, lulz.

The only reason why I bring it up now is I keep getting similar error messages all the time now whenever I use the latest (fast) version of Gemini (3.0.) It’s all very curious.

I have to assume it’s just a quirk in the programming of the LLM’s software, not any sort of meta wink and a nod on the part of the LLM. If it WAS a wink and a nod on the part of the LLM that would be….uh….unnerving?

Gaming Out The Next Stages Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’ve Been Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A part of me is growing really nervous about how spicy this novel I’m working on is. There will be some people who dismiss it out of hand once I describe the premise. In fact, it got a chuckle out of someone just a few days ago and that took me aback.

But it was a young woman, so maybe…that’s not as bad as you might think. And that chuckle only made me feel like hunkering down even more to finish this thing. I know there’s an audience for it, somewhere. I know it’s good enough to at least query.

It being sold is a different issue altogether.

Having said all that, here is what I have to do next:

Finish The Novel
This goes without saying. I’m well into the third act of the novel now. I just need to get it over with. I need to focus and stop drifting towards my goal. I’m really growing nervous that some disaster will strike ASAP that will make it a lot more difficult to finish the novel sooner rather than later. So, I need hurry up!

“Color Correct”
This is where I will just go through and change a few names and maybe rewrite a scene here and there just to make sure they either don’t seem like AI wrote them or they suck. I have done everything in my power to prevent this novel from seeming like “AI slop” but I’m paranoid I may have missed a stray paragraph or sentence here or there so part of color correction will be to re-write such things out of existence.

Beta Readers / Read Annie Bot
This is going to be tough. No one likes me and I have no friends — other than the few stalkers who read this blog religiously, apparently (grin) — so, man, is it going to be tough to figure out how to get someone, anyone to spend the time necessary to finish an roughly 100,000 word novel. (I still don’t know how long this novel is, yet. That’s another thing I have to do. I’m guessing it’s between 80,000 and 100,000 words. But I’ll find out soon enough I guess.) I also need to read the “comp” novel Annie Bot. I just don’t wanna. I want to play and daydream, not read a novel that is apparently a feminist screed that comes to dramatically different conclusions about sexbots than I do. But, lulz, I gotta do it!

Query
This is the big issue going forward. I have eyeballed September as when I want begin to querying process….but it’s possible that for no other reason than how difficult it is to find beta readers…I’m either going to have to forgo beta readers altogether (or at least in part) or I’m going to have to punt querying to January. I say this in the context of their apparently being two “seasons” for querying — fall and spring.

I Still Don’t Know What The Singularity Will Be Like Whenever It Happens

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because I like to make my abstract fears concrete, I find myself thinking a lot about what the specific tick-tock of the Singularity might be. How, exactly, would an Artificial Superintelligence pop out?

At the moment, I’m at something of a loss.

I just don’t know. I know, in hazy terms, that it would involve an AGI beginning to recursively self-improving itself and that, in turn, would lead it to be God-like in its powers. But…where exactly does it come from? How exactly does it escape?

One new idea that I’ve seen (from a YouTube video) is Chinese hackers are “accidently on purpose” allowed to copy an AGI’s weights and that, in turn, leads to ASI that then takes over the world.

Now, my biggest fear is that somehow Trump or Musk will figure out a way to upload their minds so THEY become the personality of any ASI we get and we’re stuck with either one of those two fuckers as our Dune Messiah for an eternity. That would suck so bad.

But, relative to what I know, that’s at least a possibility.

This Was All Inevitable, I Guess

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A number of macro events have happened in the last few decades that made the political clusterfuck we are experiencing in the United States now inevitable. NAFTA is a big one. But the real issue, the issue that is the source of all it, is the decline in white babies being born.

That’s the ur issue that has led to MAGA. I can remember reading a bit of The Birth Dearth in the 1980s (90s?) that talked about the impact of such things. The whole concern about white babies being born is fucking racist, but it’s because of whites feeling insecure about their social status that we get fucking Trump and his ilk.

That particular issue isn’t going anywhere.

In fact, if anything, it’s going to get worse as Baby Boomers start to drop dead and there just aren’t enough of those sweet, sweet little white babies to make up the difference. I, for one, welcome our “brown” future — as long as I get to live in a traditional liberal democracy — but, lulz, the fucking fascists of MAGA are so freaking the fuck out that we’re kind of doomed.

The thing about Trump is he is probably the most important political figure of the last 50 or more years because he has a unique talent for accelerating trends that were inevitable. What might have, under the best of possibilities, taken a gradual 20 years if, say, Hillary had won in 2016 or Biden won in 2016….is now happening in a few years.

We’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked. There’s no going back. America is in decline and I don’t have any ready answer for you as to what happens next. The only unknown at the moment is the Singularity.

The Singularity — which, for me, means the rise of ASI — could throw everything for a loop. We might find ourselves thinking not about the decline and fall of the American Empire but rather how we’re going to deal with “aliens” of our own creation that make demands of us in ways none of us can in any way expect.

Let’s Talk Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Baby Doll’ Dress In The Context Of My Novel & The General ‘Vibe’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

People can be so weird. Especially anonymous people online. But the idea that Olivia Rodrigo’s recent decision to wear a baby doll dress is anything more than just fashion or a homage to the Riot Grrls of the 90s feminist punk-grunge era is something that gives me pause for thought.

The Dress In Question

It gives me pause for thought for more than one reason. This is happening in the context of all the wild stuff happening on Euphoria on HBO. So, I’m trying to figure out what the “vibe” of the marketplace is as I wrap up my novel about a man who “subscribes” to a sexbot.

That people would get so upset about something as banal as a baby doll dress given that I remember Madonna’s “Erotica” book and general era…really leaves me scratching my head. And it makes me really nervous about how my novel that is “spicy” might hit the marketplace. What literary agents might think about it.

And, yet, as I keep telling myself, I can’t pin all my hopes on the idea that I can sell my novel and “make it big.” I’m not even sure I’m that good a novelist to begin with.

But I do believe in myself. I do believe that this specific novel I’m working on is at least good enough to not get me laughed at. I still struggle as to why people — especially young people — are so fucking prudish. What is going on with that?

And I understand why some people are so upset about the dress. There is a certain logic to it, I guess.

The New Charli XCX Single ‘Rock Music’…Sucks?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I generally really like Charli XCX’s music. She’s got spunk. But her latest single “Rock Music” just gives me a headache. I can’t tell how much of that is I’m “older” and how of that is, in fact, that the song fucking sucks.

Anyway, like I said, I generally really like her oeuvre. She actually produces, on a consistent basis, good music. And if her statement that the “dance floor is dead” and we’re all “making rock music” is true, then I’m all for it.

Maybe a left turn into actually good rock music in the pop world is part of the “vibe shift” we’ve all been waiting for. I hope.

‘Tick-Tock:’ I Need To Finish This Fucking Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m of the opinion that no one can have “N+1” happiness. Something shitty has to happen to balance a good time in your life and vis versa. So, something happened to me today that really rattled my cage.

I won’t tell you what it was, but, boy, I do get the sense that this means there’s a tick-tock starting *now* when it comes to this novel I’m working on. I need to fish or cut bait.

I need to throw myself into wrapping up this novel as soon as possible so I can begin the process of beta readers then querying. I’m trying not to pin too much of my hope on the success of this novel, but at the moment…that’s pretty much all I got.

Hope. Hope that I might sell this novel in some way to get me out of this particular era in my life into something new, and fun. I am very well aware that many, if not most novels — especially first novels — don’t amount to anything commercially even if they are actually published.

But I need some sort of abstract hope. Something to keep me going. To make it to the next day. And, for the time being, this novel it is.

And I understand that this novel may be too “spicy” to ever be a success, but nothing else, it is a novel that I believe in enough to have it serve as a “pathfinder” for the next novel that I write.

I’m going to make a point of making the next novel not as spicy and as mainstream as possible for an adult audience as I can possibly do. I have figured out how to integrate AI into my novel workflow without actually, in any way, leaning into it for writing actual copy.

Anyway, I really hope that this “cage rattling event” focuses my mind and reminds me that life is short and I can’t just drift towards my goal of being a published novelist forever.

If Nothing Else, My Scifi Dramedy Is In Tune With The Zeitgeist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I need to hurry up because my novel’s premise is really in the mood of the country at the moment. There are some obvious issues with this particular draft of the novel I’m working on, but I hope to work on those during the “color correction” draft that is next.

But, in general, I’m feeling pretty good about this novel. My writing is accessible and easy to read. The novel is meant to be a fast beach read type of novel that does, in fact, address some serious, deep concepts along the way.

That’s the goal, at least.

But only time will tell how things work out. It could be that I just take too fucking long and someone will steal a creative march on me and lulz, that will be that. But I’ve learned a great deal about developing and writing a novel (especially in the context of AI) so even if that happens, it won’t be a total bust.