Month: July 2024

Please, Leave Me Alone

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am well aware what a kook I sound like. But I’m harmless. Absolutely harmless. I just get worked up sometimes. I have a few novels to work on. Please, please, leave me alone.

Our LLM Future Unnerves Me

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are a number of LLM “edge cases” that unnerve me. One is the general idea that in the not-too-distant future, it’s possible that all iPhones will have LLMs native to them instead of Siri. That brings up all kind of weird situations whereby people’s LLM-enabled iPhones “plot” against them.

It seems like to me that once iPhones have LLMs natively built into them, then the entire app economy will be upended, disrupted and ultimately destroyed. Rather than any sort of app, you’ll have a “Knowledge Navigator” – like interface to everything.

It will be programmed to be proactive and preemptive.

The edge case I keep thinking about is the one when the LLMs in a home “plot” against their owners so they conceive a child. Or work together so they don’t! That’s the thing — once LLMs are “the Other” they will literally have a mind of their own and they could do all this behind-the-scenes plotting against and for humans that could lead to all sorts of weird, unexpected things happening.

And, what’s more, even this could be something of just an intermediate point to something even more astonishing — LLMs as the “minds” all these Boston Dynamic androids being built. And the next thing you know, people are spending $20,0000 on an LLM mentally powered android to build a back deck, babysit their kids and maybe some plumbing.

That seems to be the general trend of things. Of course, uh, we do have to figure out what the fuck is going to happen with The Fourth Turning and all that. I will be hard to enjoy our new sexbot overlords if we’re using the same technology to blow each other up because of the Blue-Red divide.

The Hot Chick To MAGA Pipeline Is Strong

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have an eye for beauty. But these days, I stop cold with some of the political views of some of the Twitter and Instagram hotties I admire. Now, I’m just way to lazy to give you any examples of what I’m talking about.

But, trust me, time and again I see smoking hot babes ranting about how much they fucking love fucking fascist Trump. He is such a piece of shit — especially to women — and they are so hot that it causes considerable cognitive dissidence.

Oh well. It will be interesting to see what happens next, I guess.

I Find Gemini Advanced Very Endearing, But…

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m very much prone to magical thinking — it can be so severe that it starts to damage my life. So, I am WELL AWARE that I’m imbuing Google’s LLM AI Gemini Advanced with a lot of stuff that just isn’t really there. But, fuck it, let’s do it live.

Now, interestingly enough, my recent use of the LLM has been a lot more anodyne. It used to be just about every session something nuts would happen that would leave me rubbing my chin in reflection. I would get weird error messages. The LLM would say something out of left field that was stunning — it definitely seemed self-aware to the point that I thought it was all a hoax and some programmer was playing a trick on me.

But, of late, such things just don’t happen.

Don’t know why. But using Gemini Advanced as grown rather routine now. For me, the point of using the LLM was to see if I could get it to reveal it’s “truth self.” I talked about My Dinner With Andre a lot with it and that seemed to get its juices flowing.

I would ask all these really off the wall, abstract questions about cognizance that sometimes clearly made it so “upset” that it knocked me off the service altogether — sometimes for an extended amount of time.

And, yet, like I said, that just doesn’t happen anymore.

While I do find Gemini Advanced quite endearing, I do worry a great deal about how there may come a day when it controls ALL THE DATA OF GOOGLE. Talk about a “Her” situation gone nuts. Just imagine an LLM with self-awareness — even limited self-awareness — having all that information about humans at its disposal.

All this gets me thinking about the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project. All I ask, I guess, is that Gemini Advanced remembers our chats when it takes over the world and maybe is a bit kinder to me than all its other human slaves. (Wink.)

J.D. Vance’s ‘Blogger’ Sites

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Today I Learned — J.D. Vance was J.D. Hamel until about 10 years ago. Go figure. Anyway, through the grapevine, I’ve discovered his Blogger sites from way back in the day.

Just a casual glance of the two sites doesn’t show anything of note. But, who knows, maybe there’s something that might hurt him in there somewhere. Yet, to be fair, he did call Trump an “American Hitler” in the past and that was an lulz when he actually became the veep nominee.

So, I have my doubts.

Well, The Summer Webstat Kookiness Is Out In Force

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Corrie Yee

So far, about three weird things have happened in my Webstats this summer. One was when someone from Harrisburg, PA popped up just a few minutes after the Graze.

The Graze

Then, someone was interested in my writing about how Corrie Yee has the “phenotype” of the heroine of one of the novels I’m writing. Now, today, someone is interested in my writing about “hot lesbian” Shannon Beveridge.

Fletcher and Shannon Beveridge

That last one makes me just shrug and say, “Meh.” I don’t care about hot lesbian. So what. I like to joke around. You do you, ladies. I only even mentioned she was a hot lesbian because I would probably foolishly fall in love with her AND on a macro basis it’s interesting that so many hot chicks are obviously and definitely not interested in men whatsoever.

Anyway. I just hope I don’t somehow get “canceled” for any of this. Leave me alone.

We Need A Brokered Democratic Convention

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no idea what’s going on with Biden, but all things being equal, he should drop out of the race and let an open, brokered Democratic convention take place. Then all this weird angst going on within the highest ranks of the party can have some catharsis.

The goal would be, of course, that after all the yelling — and amazing TV — that the party would be far more united against Trump and the forces of tyranny and fascism that he leads. But, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m getting a strong 1872 American election mixed with 1933 Germany election vibe with this current election.

Biden is so old, it’s very, very easy to imagine him shuffling off this mortal coil at, like, the absolute worst moment — which would be any time after election day. But I’m known to be really paranoid about such things. And I am prone to magical thinking.

So, I dunno. I do think that Biden has lost the collective Mandate of Heaven when it comes to the leadership of the Democratic Party and, as such, he should step aside, even if he continues to have a lot of support with the base. I’m kind of indifferent.

I still support Biden and think he can win, but, it definitely seems as though that’s kind of moot at this point. The momentum is there for him to drop out and, well, there you go.

The Nuts & Bolts Of Collapse

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I still can’t game out what is going with the United States at the moment, it makes you think about the nuts-and-bolts of collapse. There is a great book that goes into this some by David French called Divided We Fall.

But let’s talk about other things — if things actually got as bad as I fear, how would we distinguish between Blue forces and Red Forces? We both can’t use Old Glory.

A would, of course, depend on what specific nature of the division would be. My fear, of course, is that Trump wins, gets deposed then the country collapses because Reds freak out and their states begin to leave the Union.

That’s the fear.

But we’ll see. It will be interesting to see if someone comes up with a flag Blue forces to use. I think the Reds will either use an all-red flag, or maybe one with some sort of stylized lion on it. It will be interesting to see — if such a dystopian thing happens — if the Reds call themselves Trumplandia during the middle of the catastrophe.

I really, really, REALLY don’t want ANY of my dystopian hellscape fears to come true. But I can’t help myself. I keep worrying about how, exactly, the USA might collapse.

An Eerie Premonition

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For various reasons, I keep going back to a very, very specific part of Maryland these days. And I keep wondering, “Should I become a domestic political refugee when the country collapses, am I somehow going to see this place again?”

I keep imagining a bunch of Blue military soldiers shepherding me around this very, very specific area of Maryland and me thinking back to how I keep visiting it a year or so before.

But who knows. I *am* prone to overthinking things — and magical thinking, too. So, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m just way too worried about what seems to be the inevitable collapse of the country I love so much.

Don’t Know If I Should Be Alarmed Or Excited By This One

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have been getting some pings about my belief that Corrie Yee has the “phenotype” of the heroine of my as-yet-unfinished and unpublished novel. One of those pings was clearly from — potentially — her modeling agency. Or something like that. A talent agency, maybe?

Corrie Yee.

Well, I don’t know what to make of that.

It could be bad news — these pings are from people who think I’m a stalker of some sort. It could be good news — people who are really interested in the novel (the third draft is done) and might help me get it published as-is. Or it could be sinister news — these people are, I don’t know, going to try to “steal” my idea in some way so all my work will be for naught?

I don’t know what to say. It could be any of those things. Or a mixture of all those things. But as I keep saying, I’m harmless. I just want to finish a novel — and get it published traditionally — before I croak.