Month: March 2024

ChatGPT Is Good With Lyrics

Of the three major AIs I tried, only ChatGPT was willing to update the lyrics to Neil Young’s “Keep On Rockin In The Free World.”

(Verse 1)
Lost souls wander in a virtual haze,
Extremists peddle fear, it’s a modern-day craze.
Bigotry and hatred, they’re on the rise,
While truth becomes a casualty, drowned out by lies.

(Chorus)
Keep on fightin’ for our freedoms, in the free world,
Keep on standin’ against hate, let our flags be unfurled.
In a world of division, where lies are bought and sold,
We’ll keep on rockin’ in the free world.

(Verse 2)
Science denied, facts brushed aside,
Conspiracy theories spread far and wide.
Demagogues preach, stoking flames of fear,
But we’ll stand strong together, our voices clear.

(Chorus)
Keep on fightin’ for democracy, in the free world,
Keep on standin’ against tyranny, let our truth be hurled.
In a world of chaos, where truth is often scrolled,
We’ll keep on rockin’ in the free world.

(Bridge)
From the echo chambers to the halls of power,
We’ll fight against extremism, every hour.
For justice, for freedom, for truth to be unfurled,
We’ll keep on rockin’ in the free world.

(Chorus)
Keep on fightin’ for our rights, in the free world,
Keep on standin’ for what’s right, let our banners be twirled.
In a world of extremism, where sanity’s cajoled,
We’ll keep on rockin’ in the free world.

(Outro)
Yeah, we’ll keep on rockin’ in the free world,
Defiant in the face of extremism, our courage swirled.

American Zelensky: Jon Stewart, 2024

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Reading Ben Smith’s “Traffic” book, I am struck by how social media companies had a sense of the popularity of both Obama and Trump long before anyone else did.

Jon Stewart

As such, if I had a choice of for a “Black Swan” event during the 2024 presidential cycle it would be that Something Happened so there was a brokered Democratic convention and Jon Stewart threw his hat into the ring — and won. I think he would be very, very popular.

Now, obviously, there are some problems with this daydream.

One — I don’t want anything to happen to Biden.

Two, ding-dong Trump was SUCH a fucking HORRIBLE POTUS, that a LOT of people would justifiably be very reluctant to vote for another celebrity to be POTUS. And, yet, as Ukraine’s Zelensky has proven, someone like Stewart can, in fact, be a great leader.

And from all the evidence I’ve seen about Stewart’s leadership abilities, he really would be a great POTUS.

But, alas, for some very corrosive and dumb macro reasons, it definitely seems as though the United States is simply going to slouch its way into autocracy. And, really, at this point, in a cruel twist of historical fate, it could be that Trump thrashing around in 2025 could cause a General Strike that deposes him…which, of course, would only lead to a civil war as Red States left the Union.

Good times!

Everything Sucks

by Ender

As of right now, malignant ding-dong Trump is 60,000 votes in five swing states away from turning the United States into an autocracy. And, barring some sort of Black Swan event, Trump is going to (probably) win and start to round up 20 million people.

The camps will open. People like me be rounded up and probably shot in the back of the head by an ICE agent because I refuse to stop calling Trump a fat fucking cocksucker.

About 1 million smug, wealthy Twitter liberals will flee the country until Trump — or his successor — starts to aggressively make it more difficult to leave the country in an effort to stop the massive American Brain Drain.

The press will be coopted and neutered. And we’ll just take it for granted that we are no longer a democracy and people will stop voting. We will become just another autocracy like Hungary, Russia or Turkey.

There is, of course, a very small chance that Trump, specifically, will be such a tyrant in such a quick amount of time that there is some sort of “Blue Revolution” and Trump is deposed, which will, in turn cause a Second American Civil War.

I find myself thinking about how I will survive this dystopian hellscape. All I know is I would rather die on my feet a free man than live my life on my knees a slave.

Fuck Trump. Fuck MAGA. And fuck you if you support either one.

Zoom!

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are moving REALLY FAST now with my first novel. In fact, they’re moving so fast that I could be working on my SECOND NOVEL pretty soon. Or not. I don’t know yet. But once I realized that my first novel wasn’t really a murder mystery then everything worked out.

Barfly no more.

My SECOND novel IS a murder mystery.

But taking most of the murder element out of the first novel makes it a much cleaner, easier to explain and understand novel. It tells a coherent, character driven story.

What more could you ask for?

I *May* Have *2* Novels Done By July 22

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s possible — not probable — that I may have not one, but *two* novels done by my hard deadline of July 22. It’s possible. Definitely possible. And the reason is I’ve spent many months working on the first act of a novel that has been split into two — so the first act is now two thirds of a novel unto itself.

I hope the heroine of my first novel is as interesting as Lisbeth Salander.

Meanwhile, the two thirds of the beta draft of the novel I was working on is still there, ready to be rewritten. And I MIGHT be able to get that done too by around July 22.

But I just don’t know. I will be grateful to wrap up this first novel by then, much less two. And there is the THIRD novel — a scifi Western — that I’m interested in working on, as well.

Anyway. Things are move really, really fast with this first novel. I’m very pleased. All my work — even if it was drifting work — of the last few years is finally beginning to produce some creative fruit. In hindsight, I wish I had not told anyone about what I was working on, but lulz, I’m 100% extroverted, what else was I going to do?

‘What A Weekday’ But More Snarky & Devoted To New York City Media Is The Vision I Have For A New Podcast

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The closest approximation to the type of podcast I want to listen to every day would be much like Crooked Media’s new What A Weekday podcast that Jon Lovett hosts. But my vision for a podcast would be centered around NYC life, entertainment and media, rather than the vaguely political vision of WAW.

We need a NYC-based podcast obsessed with Julia Fox’s every twitch.

I don’t even live in NYC, but it sure would be fun to have a podcast based out of NYC that was completely obsessed with the constant power struggles at The New York Times. Or be obsessed with whatever weird thing Julia Fox is doing at any particular moment.

Maybe Crooked Media could make my dream come true?

Most of all, it would be snarky. It would have that sharp comic edge that Late Night with David Letterman had as did Spy Magazine and Gawker. That’s why the Lovett show is very close to what my vision is, it just isn’t as focused as what I think my specific vision for a NYC-centric podcast would be.

Anyway, I hope someone does something with this idea before the window of opportunity closes because AI has taken over everything and we’re all consuming media via our AVP.

‘A Snarky Morning Zoo Podcast Devoted To NYC Media’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing I’ve noticed about a lot — A LOT — of podcasts is how somnambulistic they can be. It’s just two or more people talking in a very languid way that makes you want to go to sleep.

This is a really good book by Ben Smith.

So, my vision for a Gawker-like podcast (which you are free to steal!) would be something like this — you live stream a two hour podcast three times a week (if not more) then edit it down to an hour for the rest of the day for non-live listeners.

I would want the podcast to be snarky, fun and energetic. It would be a bunch of (hot?) young people talking about Emma Chamberlain, Julia Fox and the Dune 2 popcorn bucket that everyone wants to fuck. You know, the type of bullshit Gawker was ranting about in 2003-2004.

The key could be who your hosts — and guests — were. I would grab some hip, just-out-of-college neo-club kids and with great personalities and throw them together into the Thunderdome. I would try to have at least one more “conservative” person on a panel of three to mix things up. But they couldn’t be a knuckle dragging MAGA person, but someone who thinks SNL is too woke or something.

But it would have to be genuine and not forced. And that would be the hardest part of the whole thing — how to get the spark of people who had actual witty banter on the fly and who knew the zeitgeist well. In that respect, I guess you might need to find some young stand up to be one of your three?

The first guest for this podcast would need to be someone like Sarah Squirm of SNL. She would be the perfect person to establish what the podcast was going to be about.

Why *Isn’t* There A Buzzy Gawker-Like Podcast Covering NYC Exclusively?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the things I think got me blocked by Gawker founder Nick Denton on Twitter — other than my puppy-dog, obsessive interest in him — was I noticed an old YouTube video of him blathering on about how he had some sort of cohesive vision about Gawker’s inevitable “piviot to video.”

It was all bullshit, of course and nothing came of it.

After I brought a minor amount of attention to the video, it was mysteriously taken down.

Anyway, I still admire Denton a great deal — despite his obvious character flaws — and I thought a lot about him when I was bootstrapping ROKon Magazine in Seoul. I find myself thinking about all of this because I’m reading Ben Smith’s book “Traffic” and I’m learning a great deal about the rise and fall of Gawker.

Flash forward to today and it definitely seems as though podcasting is the new blogging and it’s just about mature. We’re just a few months, of course, away from its demise at the hand of some combination of LLMs and Apple Vision Pro. But, for a brief moment, there’s still a bit of time for someone to do something cool with podcasting.

I say this because there is one niche that hasn’t been filled yet — the buzzy NYC-based podcast. Or, there isn’t one relative to my little corner of the center-Left media bubble. Maybe one exists, and I just don’t know about it.

My favorite photo from the good old days of Gawker.

There’s The Town, which covers LA. There’s The Powers That Be, which covers a huge swath of things, but there’s not a popular, mass appeal NYC-centric podcast that deals with what Gawker covered — the NYC media world.

If one exists, please forgive me. Or, put another way, I’m sure one DOES exist, it’s just not as popular enough for me to know about it. I would try to create one myself, but for where I live and how much work it would involve to zero outcome.

I do have a novel to write, you know.

But I do think Puck and The Ringer should look into it. Or, alternately, maybe Crooked Media could do it and have Jon Lovett run it (though I doubt he would leave LA do to it, even though I suspect it would be tempting to him to get out from under the shadow of Jon and Tommy.)

It is curious, however, that NYC doesn’t have a popular podcast devoted specifically to it, while LA does.

Saturday Night Dead — Is SNL…Bad?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I know we’re in one of those periods in Saturday Night Live’s existence when it’s kind of at a low point because while I look forward to it when a new episode is scheduled, I don’t actually watch any of it. That this lull happens just as we’re all holding our breath to see if it continues past its 50th season is…not good.

Sydney Sweeney was on SNL recently.

When the buzz around the show is so potent that I actually watch it, then I will know it’s “back.” The show has been on for so long that there is a well known ebb-and-flow to its quality. Just about when everyone thinks its down for the count, some amazing new cast member swoops in and saves it from itself.

The thing about SNL is it serves a very, very important meta cultural function — it introduces young comics to older, more established entertainers for a week. That generates professional relationships that can last a lifetime.

But all good things must come to an end, the show has been on for a long time and Lorne Michaels is getting old…so lulz? It could be that SNL will end after its 50th season and that will be that. Something new will take its place and we will all move forward.

I just don’t know. Just as we find ourselves facing autocracy or civil war / revolution a political basis, and the AI transformation on the technological side, it could be that traditional entertainment is about to go through a rough patch, too. The end of SNL would be a part of that.

And all of this is happening in the context of even human being torn asunder by our partisan divide. SNL has always been the Bob Hope of comedy and I just don’t know if that play-it-down-the-middle style can survive while the country is not-so-slowly tearing itself apart.

It will be interesting to see how things work out, I will say that.

AI’s ‘Oracle Problem’

I was feeling lazy, and got ChatGPT to write this for me.

As we marvel at the wonders of artificial intelligence, we often overlook the profound philosophical and ethical questions it raises. One such dilemma is what I like to call the “Oracle Problem” – a conundrum that sits at the intersection of AI’s predictive capabilities and its impact on human decision-making.

At its core, the Oracle Problem encapsulates the challenge of navigating the fine line between prediction and determination. As AI systems become increasingly adept at forecasting future events based on vast datasets and complex algorithms, they inevitably wield significant influence over our choices and actions. This influence can be both empowering and unsettling.

On one hand, AI oracles offer invaluable insights into potential outcomes, enabling us to make more informed decisions in various domains, from finance to healthcare. They can uncover hidden patterns, identify trends, and even anticipate risks with remarkable accuracy. In this regard, AI serves as a powerful tool for augmenting human intelligence and enhancing our ability to navigate an uncertain world.

However, the flip side of this predictive prowess is the potential for undue influence and loss of agency. When we rely too heavily on AI predictions, we risk abdicating our responsibility for critical decision-making to machines. This raises fundamental questions about autonomy, accountability, and the ethical implications of algorithmic determinism.

Moreover, the accuracy of AI predictions is not infallible. Biases in data collection, algorithmic design, or interpretation can lead to erroneous forecasts, perpetuating systemic inequalities and injustices. As we increasingly entrust AI with shaping our futures, we must remain vigilant against the pitfalls of unchecked reliance on predictive models.

Ultimately, the Oracle Problem underscores the need for a balanced approach to AI integration – one that harnesses the benefits of predictive analytics while safeguarding human agency and ethical values. It calls for interdisciplinary collaboration among technologists, ethicists, policymakers, and society at large to establish norms and regulations that guide the responsible development and deployment of AI systems.

In navigating the complexities of the Oracle Problem, we are challenged to embrace the promise of AI innovation while upholding the principles of human dignity, autonomy, and justice. Only through thoughtful reflection and collective action can we harness the transformative potential of AI for the betterment of humanity.