As a liberal arts creative person, I sometimes absolute fucking loathe smug tech bros whose answer to every problem is, “learn to code.” Fuck that and fuck them.
So the news that it’s at least possible that the blackboxes that are LLMs might, in the future, made the programming profession moot…fills me with a delicious liberal arts joy.
But I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. And the moment there was some sort of threat of that happening, there would be a lot lobbying for human carveouts and my dream of a world dominated and controlled by creative arts people will be prevented from happening.
It seems clear to me that we’re going to need legal carveouts for humans in the near future when it comes to much of the jobs that are available. Or we’re going to have to implement a Universal Basic Income.
One of the two.
The natural progression of capitalism is to economically screw over as many people as possible and what could be better — for a select few plutocrats — than for there to be NO jobs because a combination of AI and robotics made (humans) doing the jobs moot.
I am know to be hysterical and I’m not known for being able to predict the future. So, lulz, who knows. But the point is — we need to start thinking NOW about what we’re going to do when AI and robotics take all our jobs.
I still believe it’s possible that the far Left and the far Right may fuse into the next stage of MAGA, which would be anti-technology — a neo-Luddite movement, if you will. One thing is for sure — things are moving really, really fast.
It definitely seems as though we’re just one severe recession away from a massive disruption in not just the knowledge economy because of AI, but the broader economy as well. Throw in advancements in robotics and, lulz.
As such, it also seems possible that we may see MAGA evolve into something akin to an anti-technology neo-Luddite movement that demands strict regulation of AI and maybe human carveouts as well.
But our political system is so broken that, lulz, who knows what will happen. It could be that we won’t even be able to cobble together the political will to establish a UBI, even when only legacy plutocrats have enough money to eat.
I think we’re one (severe) recession — or less — away from Hollywood being reduced to two types of people plutocrats and programmers. And, given how fast LLMs are approaching the ability to wrote code — Hollywood may just be plutocrats who license their content to LLM companies.
It could all happen a lot sooner than any of us want to think about. It could be by the end of the decade that we just don’t really have a “human” Hollywood anymore, to the point that the far Left and the far Right will come together in some new anti-tech MAGA movement that demands legal carveouts for human workers in entertainment.
Or not. What do I know. But I, in general, the trends do seem to indicate that Something Big is going to happen with “human Hollywood” in the near, near future.
The thing about late 2024, early 2025, is *the conditions* are there for a massive clusterfuck. But, it could be, that we just muddle through like we usually do. That’s the outcome I want.
I worry about an Election of 1872-type situation in 2024.
If we managed to punt our problems down the road another four years, that would be great.
I’m worried. I’m really worried.
I’m worried for a number of reasons. One is President Biden’s age. Another is the instability caused by the bonkers “Free Palestine” people. Another is Trump’s age. The list goes on.
I keep thinking about what happened during the election of 1872 and what we would do if something similar happened today. It’s a formula for a “Not great, Bob” situation.
But who knows. It could be that I’ve really worried a great deal for no reason. Yet if Trump wins in 2024, all bets are off. Just the idea of Trump attempting to deport 20 million people sends shivers down my spine and keeps me awake at night.
And, yet, here we are, with Trump preparing to do that very thing the moment he can. I don’t know what to tell you.
There are PLENTY of VALID reasons for tech people to be angry with the output of Google’s Gemini. But, sometimes, they think up the most asinine things just to prove a point — they want the right to be hateful for no damn reason.
Why is it so important to tech people to have the ability to say the n-word to save the world or to be able to generate an endless amount of Nazi propaganda? It’s very, very annoying.
And, what’s more, it will all be moot when AI is so commoditized and personalized that if you want your chatbot to say the n-word to save the world, it will. You may not be able to share all your hateful vitriol, but, lulz, you’ll at least get to be a hateful asshole to yourself.
One thing that ding-dong Trump has been strangely quiet about is the rise of AI. It definitely seems as though if MAGA freaks out about all their high paying blue collar jobs going poof because of AI and androids that the movement may drift into something akin to an anti-technology neo-luddite movement.
AI has problems, sometimes.
There are signs that AI is about to take over the world in the sense that we’re one severe — and maybe not so severe — recession away from millions of jobs being disrupted an eliminated because of some combination of AI and robot technology.
It’s all potentially very dystopian and could happen really, really fast. In fact, the only thing that might slow things down is just regular old inertia. It just takes time for major changes to happen, no matter how quickly they COULD happen.
But I do think we’re one severe recession away from millions of jobs being replaced with some combination of AI and robotics. That is the fundimental nature of capitalism — to screw people over.
Monday is my birthday and, as such, I feel like I have to really focus on finishing the third draft of this novel by around July 22. That’s 20th anniversary of my first trip to South Korea that lasted about three-odd years. This dovetails really well with some other things, like the fact that The Fourth Turning and the rise of AI may make all my hard work on this novel very, very mood.
The heroine of my novel has a sleeve tattoo that resembles this one, even though I thought up the idea first.
And that doesn’t even begin to address the possibility that somehow, some way someone my “steal a creative march” on me pretty soon.
So, as such, I need to buckle down. I need to really focus on giving my life some structure ASAP. It’s the only way I’m going to wrap this third draft up before the entire world comes to an end or AI generates all human art.
I make a lot of dark, dystopian predictions on this blog about the future. I can’t predict the future, so I don’t *know* what will happen. But I am…uneasy about our future. All the *conditions* are there for some sort of collapse of the United States for various reasons.
As such, my big concern if THAT happens is the DPRK will take advantage of the situation and start lobbing H-bombs in our direction. It will be a lot more difficult for Blues to win over Reds if, say, LA and NYC have been vaporized.
So, lulz? I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t predict the future. No one can. But I am very, very concerned that the future could be a far, far darker than we’re willing to accept at the moment.
It could be that about 1 billion people will die directly because of ding-dong Trump. Buckle up.
We’re doomed. We’re fucking doomed. The Republican Party is now a fascist one with one agenda and one agenda only — to establish the United States as an autocratic, MAGA-themed white Christian ethnostate.
The key thing to remember is that we can only punt this particular problem down the road so much. Even if we “vote harder” and beat Trump at the polls, the Republican Party is so fascist and radicalized that it’s inevitable that the pressure to transform the US into an autocratic white Christian ethnostate will remain.
So, if it’s not 2025 that we turn into an Christian autocracy, it will be 2029.
As such, there is a part of me — not a very big part — that feels like throwing down the gauntlet NOW so at least if we are going to have a big political / military fight over the choice of autocracy or freedom at least ding-dong Trump will be in charge of the fucking fascists, not someone with any sense about them.
But I only think that when I get really fucking frustrated with the chipper do-gooders who think that if we only “vote harder” that that will fix everything. But it won’t. There’s a good chance that even if the “vote harder” strategy works that Trump will demand a National Divorce to avoid prison time.
Or, put another way — the issue is, that barring some sort of Black Swan event pretty soon, late 2024, early 2025 could see some of the most dramatic events in American — if not human — history. I can’t predict the future. Who knows.
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