A Native OpenAI ChatGPT Prompt Built Into Twitter Is An Intriguing Idea

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I just saw on Twitter an interesting use case for OpenAI ChatGPT — native integration into Twitter itself. I say this because people are already used to the Twitter prompt so the ability to ask ChatGPT questions directly from Twitter would be a very smooth addition to the Twitter UX.

It would make a lot of sense for Musk to add ChatGPT to Twitter.

Given that Elon Musk has a connection to both Twitter and OpenAI, this is a gimmie. It’s something that once ChatGPT is far more scalable could happen pretty much with the flip of a switch.

As an aside, it’s interesting how similar people’s speculation surrounding ChatGPT is identical to what people talked about with the late, great Blab. Everyone assumes that it will be pay-to-play soon enough. In fact, some people are pretty much begging it to be that way.

This raises a very interesting issue — what if, just like with the Internet, the actual service itself is free and the money is made from the things you can do with it. This is what caused the death of the online services of the 1990s — the Internet was open and it was, unto itself, the “killer app” that everyone seemed to believe was going to happen at some point in the future.

There is a lot I still don’t know about what is going to happen with chatbot technology. At the moment, it definitely seems like it’s going to be very disruptive — the only question is the degree. But I also don’t know if there will be ONE AGI or a multitude.

The whole thing is very intriguing.

It’s Humans We Have To Worry About

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What’s so interesting to me at the moment is how ready humans are to abuse the OpenAI ChatGPT. People keep thinking up different horrible questions for it to answer in an equally horrible way.

This had led to calls for severe restriction of the technology, but that’s a fool’s errand. The cat is out of the bag, as they say. For me, the question is where are we, in real terms, when it comes to the development and adaptation of this technology.

Is this the release of the first Netscape Navigator in 1994, or is it the original opening of the Internet to the public earlier than that? A lot depends on when we reach a point where we a lot of the quibbling complaints about chatbot technology are no longer applicable.

One ominous aspect of chatbot technology is, of course, the potential for it to make otherwise hard jobs — like programming — very, very easy. Once making new software is simply a matter of asking a chatbot a question, then, well, “learn to code” as a MAGA Tech Bro retort for any issue they feel uncomfortable about will be moot.

Combine humans being horrible and lazy with the possibility that an AGI might radically transform the global economy a quick clip — especially if there is a severe recession in 2023 — and you have the makings of a very alarming situation. It grows even more alarming if you put it in the context of late existential choice facing America of autocracy, civil war or military junta.

I still find myself wondering how many, in the end, AGIs there will be. Will there be one general AGI overlord, or will everything have an AGI built into it in the end? Will all these androids that people seem so determined to build be hooked up to a broader network, or will they be automatous AGIs?

But we still don’t know how difficult it will be to design an AGI in the first place. Right now, we have faux-AGI in the sense that to the average user it’s easy to mistake things like OpenAI ChatGPT as a hard AI, when, it fact, it’s very much not one.

The creation of true AGI would be at least equal to the splitting of the atom and would probably cause just as much change in human life across the globe.

A Disturbance In The Force

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Besides seeing my ever-present stalker who seems WAY TOO INTERESTED in me for some reason, I’ve noticed something else a bit odd in my Webstats. Now and again over the last few days I’ve seen people obviously looking at links to this site from a Slack discussion. I’ve also seen some very random views from Microsoft of all things.

My best guess is all my ranting about AGI has caught someone’s attention and they are curious as to who I am. This is extremely flattering, given that absolutely no one listens to me for any reason. Some of the things they have looked at, however, are extremely random, which leads me to believe there’s a lot going with this site that I just can’t see using my Webstat software. It’s possible that there’s a lot more poking a prodding of my writing — to the point of potential due diligence — that I’m just not seeing.

Anyway, I’m generally grateful for any attention. As long as your not an insane stalker.

Maybe I Should Become An AGI Ethicist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my favorite characters in fiction is Dr. Susan Calvin, robot psychiatrist. Given how many short stories there are to potentially adapt, I have recent come to believe that Phoebe Waller-Bridge would be the perfect person to play the character in a new movie franchise.

A future Dr. Susan Calvin?

I am also aware that apparently one hot new career field of late is being an “AGI Ethicist.” But for, well, (waves hand) I think I would be a great one. I love to think up the worst possible scenario to any situation and I think a lot. But I’m afraid that ships has sailed.

I’m just too old and it would take too much time to learn all the necessary concepts surrounding the field to do formalize my interest. So, it’s back to being an aspiring novelist — if human novelists are even a thing by the time I try to query this novel I’m working on.

Given we may be about to enter a severe recession in 2023 and recessions are usually when there’s a lot adoption of new technology…I may not be too hysterical to fear novelists may be quaint by late 2023 – early 2024.

It does make one think of what jobs will still exist if you combine AGI, automation and robotics. These are macro trends that are all coming to a head a lot sooner than any of us might have otherwise expected. Given what’s going on with chatbot technology the current moment in time definitely seems like the quiet before the storm.

The years 2023 ~ 2025 could be some of the most significant in human history if we’re trying to solve the political problem of Trump at the same time the Singularity is happening all around us. Good luck.

What The Web’s History Can Tell Us About The Future Of OpenAI ChatGPT

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was one of the first people to use the World Wide Web around 1994 when it was just beginning to gain in popularity. I was in college and I can still remember the transition from the text-based Gopher to Mosaic and then finally to the .08 release of Mozilla (Netscape Navigator.)

It was a very exciting time, to say the least. And, but for the way my mind is designed, I probably would have rushed to Silicon Valley after graduating from college and tried some sort of startup. But, alas, I’m a writer not a coder.

But here’s what I can tell you about what I think might happen to technology such as what is associated with OpenAI ChatGPT.

The first thing is — whatever happens, is probably going to happen a LOT quicker. Instead of about 20 years for the full impact of ChatGPT (and associated technologies) it’s probably going to be closer to five-ish years. A lot depends on how long it takes for true AGI to happen as well as how long it takes for someone to hook something like ChatGPT to the Internet and let it run wild. That connection to the Internet is going to be key.

While the the design of true AGI is rather abstract and could be something we always JUST about to see happen, connecting some better successor to ChatGPT to the Internet would be a practical way for Silicon Valley to change the lives of millions.

In fact, I suspect once ChatGPT-like technology is connected to the Internet, there will be a mad landrush like there was when it became apparent around 1994 that the Web was going to mainstream the Internet in a big way. There will probably be a number of ChatGPT-like faux-AIs that people use, which will lead to the earliest forms of market segmentation.

Then the typical capitalistic dynamic will occur and there will be HUGE speculation and maybe even a Tech Bubble 2.0 which will pop in the end, causing its own problems.

But this process could be sped up pretty quickly. Yet I will note that we just aren’t quite there when it comes to ChatGPT being a new Netscape. There are too many problems with it, it’s too easy for people in the know to poo-poo it as not being what useful. Though, I have to note, the first version of Netscape Navigator didn’t have the ability to print and it still managed to take off like wildfire.

My chief concern — and I have a LOT of concerns about ChatGPT at the moment — is when the tipping point on the jobs front will happen. If business begin to shed jobs not because of a recession in 2023 but because, lulz, the next version of ChatGPT makes those jobs moot, well, we’re all in for shitshow in late 2024 – 2025.

I say this because if we’re going through an epic economic and technology transformation just as we’re also figuring out if we’re going to have a civil war, turn into an autocracy or have a military junta established….then, well, late 2024, early 2025 could be one of the momentus few months in human history. I know that sounds pretty hysterical, but the conditions are there, at least, for something pretty dramatic to happen.

But only time will tell. I’m always wrong.

Social Darwinism 2.0 In The Age Of AGI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We just are not taking seriously the possibility that we’re going to see Social Darwinism 2.0 should Artificial General Intelligence take off in a big way anytime soon. The return of Social Darwinism would occur in the guise of MAGA Nazis demanding that any “wokeness” be purged from an AGI.

This would be very important if, say, AGI pretty much came to dominate global human life. This could happen in a number of different ways. There is a spectrum of outcomes. They range from AGI always being a “tool” for humanity to a “Her” type outcome where AGI has such hard AI that it has agency and will do whatever the fuck it wants regardless of the wishes of humans.

But my fear is that as AGI grows in power that because humans are so fucking lazy that extremists on both sides will use the opinions of AGI as “validation” for their extremism. This would be very much similar to what happen with Darwinism and the Nazis.

So, my fear is we’ll wake up at some point in the near future with some extremist group — be they far Left or far Right — using the “bias” found in an AGI to justify horrific actions similar to what the Nazis did.

And remember, if you combine the law of unintended consequences with the innate laziness of humans in general, then there is a real risk that something Nazi-like might happen a lot sooner than you might think. The seeds of such horrific events can already be seen in the political discourse around OpenAI on Twitter.

I hate extremism in general. I hate extreme “wokeness” just as much as I hate fucking MAGA Nazism. In fact, it’s rather unusual for me that I’ve become something of a “radical moderate” in recent years in the context of the mainstreaming of MAGA Nazism.

Anyway, we have to start taking the risk of neo-Social Darwinism seriously. And it will happen in the context of a potential, massive upending of the global economy as AGI is able to perform more and more functions that we once thought were exclusively human.

Now, The Hard Part

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve finally finished a solid, stable first draft and, as such, I’m going to try — try — to pause writing for a month to prepare for the dive into the second draft. I hope to read a whole lot so when I sit down to write the second draft in early January 2023 I will have significantly expanded my author toolkit.

But reading — especially, ironically enough, reading fiction — is really tough for me. I like to produce content so much that reading someone else’s content is a real stretch for me. But I have to do it, I just have to. I can’t continue to be delusional and not know what other people in my genre are producing. I can only read The Girl With Played With Fire so many times.

And, yet, reading a lot of different types of things over the course of roughly the next month should be a lot of fun. It will really hit home how this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten with this project to date. And I think actually doing all this reading that I should have done some time ago will be a way to remind myself of that.

Of course, I probably am going to start gaming out the next novel in this six novel project over the course of the next month AND think seriously about a scifi novel I’ve been dwelling on for some time. I have three or four sold scifi novels rolling around in my mind and this particular one really appeals to me at the moment.

I wish I was younger, I would also be working seriously on overcoming the learning curve connected to screenwriting. But the only way I would write a screenplay at my age is if I became a big success really quickly as a novelist and that opportunity became viable.

Of course, in the back of my mind I have a lingering fear not only of a fucking civil war happening in the United States in 2024 – 2025, but the entire concept of being a human writer becoming moot once AGIs can spit out a movie, TV show or novel simply from an inputted logline.

But anyway, wish me luck. I wish I could stop myself from writing and about writing all the time but I’m 100% extroverted and whatever happens to be on my mind at any particular moment is going to somehow, someway pop out.

Paranoia Will Destroya

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been feeling pretty paranoid since I saw someone from Hollywood snooping around this blog in my Webstats interested in how long it’s going to take me to start querying my first novel. My fear is that when I sent my outline to a manuscript consultant, she sent it to someone she knows in Hollywood and they’re going to use it as the basis of a screenplay.

This is completely bonkers for a number of reasons.

One, I’m making a connection that I just have no idea is there. Just because I sent the outline to her, doesn’t mean she took the next step of sending it to someone else. And I have no idea if she has any connections in Hollywood she could send it to in the first place. I do know, however, from personal experience that the moment you send something to someone, it inevitably gets passed around.

But, still, I’m giving the two events a connection and a narrative that just doesn’t exist in real life. I can’t let my personal insecurities about such things overwhelm me.

I guess some of it is what happened with ROKon Magazine. Annie Shapiro really did “steal” the magazine from me, bringing it back in secret behind my back, so once bitten twice shy and all that. And I suppose I just have to process the possibility that Hollywood might “steal” my idea, even though it’s definitely just a “possibility” and not a “probability.”

I just can’t let this irrational fear consume me. It’s embarrassing how much time I’ve thought about this the last few days. But I just can’t allow such an irrational fear stop me from moving forward. As I keep saying — make decisions on what you do know, not on what you don’t know.

And I think I’m probably be a bit full of myself to even think it’s possible that Hollywood would “steal” my idea in the first place. I know how hard it is to get ANYTHING produced and my outline wasn’t THAT good.

It’s possible that the person I saw in my Webstats from LA was simply curious when the novel I’m working on might come out and that’s it. No nefarious plot against me. That definitely seems to make a lot more sense than my paranoid delusions.

The Quest For Fire

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing I’ve noticed about the OpenAI chatbot is how badly people want to use it instead of Google, even though for various reasons that’s just not practical at the moment. But it is telling that this gives us some insight into where the market wants to go.

In the mind of the consumer, there would be a natural progression from Google to something like the OpenAI chatbot. To the point that real-world consumers are chomping at the bit to replace Google with it, even though it’s not connected to the live Web at the moment.

The key thing reason why OpenAi’s chatbot is a tipping point is it’s the first time when people can see for themselves in a real world setting what existing AI is able to do. As such, it definitely seems as though soon enough Google is going to face an existential choice — either come out with its own chatbot style interface for search or risk being eaten alive.

Because it definitely seems as though the rush is now on for different companies to come out with chatbots that are open to the public. And I think that’s something people are being a little naïve about — they are seeing the OpenAI in a vacuum, as if Google, Facebook and Apple aren’t all going to eventually come out with their own chatbot techology.

In fact, Google already has a chatbot so advance that someone thinks it’s AGI! So, it’s reasonable to assume that OpenAI should enjoy its moment in the sun while it can. It’s very possible that within a few years there will be a number of similar advanced chatbots for people to chose from.

The reason issue is, of course, who develops the first true hard AI, the first true AGI. THAT would be the Singularity and whoever managed to pull that off would find their company cited in the history books as pretty much re-inventing fire.

Burn Hollywood Burn: Death By AGI Logline

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The conventional wisdom is that there is going to be a massive Hollywood writers’ strike in 2023 because of the rise of the popularity of streaming. If the leaders of that strike had some foresight they would add something else to their list of demands: a ban on the use of AGI to develop and write movies and TV.

Because if they don’t do something about the use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its successors producing media, the very notion of what it means to be a showbiz writer might be revolutionized — and not in a good way. Instead of hiring potentially hundreds of people to develop, write and produce movies, movie studios will simply get an exec to sit down in front a computer and write a logline.

A few moments later, an entire two hour computer generated movie pops out.

I know this sounds extremely hysterical, but it’s better to get such a ban now instead of waiting when the transformation has already begun and Hollywood writers will lack any leverage to get their will.

But no one listens to me. I’m just an aspiring novelist in the middle of nowhere. It will be interesting to see, however, what comes of Hollywood when the only person who is needed is someone to walk the Red Carpet.