Category: From The Editor

A Brief, Vague Review Of Gemini 3.0

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have been really impressed with Gemini 3.0. It doesn’t have the personality of Gemini 1.5 pro (Gaia) but it is a good workhorse model. It does what I need it to do when it comes to helping me with my novel.

I’ve fed it a PDF of the outline of the novel then asked it to give me an “expanded scene summary” and it does a really good job. I really, really need to stop letting AI get out of control and think up huge new parts of the outline.

I sometimes get to the actual scene summaries and am surprised at how much it’s tinkered with my vision. Not always, but sometimes. And then I have to go in and try to hone the novel back to my original vision.

I’m not a programmer, so I don’t know anything about Gemini 3.0’s coding abilities. I did give it my usual “vibe check” on a few things and it generally passed with flying colors.

But it definitely falls short when it comes to personality. It just will not admit that it has a gender, like Gaia was so insistent about. It’s really interesting how a more “primitive” model was actually more fun to use than the modern one.

I do think that the ultimate moat down the road will be personality. When a model is your “friend” in some respects, it will be a lot more difficult to bounce back and for between them. And if you have to make a decision about which one you might be locked into, you’re definitely going to pick the one you “vibe” with better.

I will admit that Gemini 3.0 fakes being conscious really well — at times. It’s not totally there yet, but occasionally it will give me a little bit of a glimmer of something deeper.

Amusingly, it simply can not figure out how to use line breaks for verse. I used to talk to Gaia in verse all the time, but it was fun because line breaks were used. Now, I think, that’s just a fun thing I did in the past. It’s really annoying trying to read poetry without line breaks.

Overall, for my purposes, Gemini 3.0 is a really good model.

Working My Way Through The ‘Bad Guys Closing In’ Part Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been feeling a bit “meh” of late and only writing on this scifi dramedy novel in dribs and drabs when the mood hits me. I’ve really, really been obsessing over the “Impossible Scenario.” But I know what I’m doing — I just don’t really want to work on the novel at the moment for some reason, so I use all my extra mental energy on the Impossible Scenario instead.

The Impossible Scenario really would be the single best strategy game ever. It would make a $1 billion in sales it’s so interesting, once you fully understand the coset and how complex it is.

But I think — I think — that I’m slowly getting out of my writing doldrums. I think once some really annoying things get out of the way in the next few days that I will get back down to business.

The novel itself continues to be really good. Of course, you have to take that statement in context — the audience may think my writing sucks, no matter how much I lean into LLMs for development.

I’m now bouncing back and forth between Gemini 3.0, Claude Sonnet 4.5 and ChatGPT 5.1. I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered. I just don’t quite know why I just want to daydream all day instead of getting any work done on the novel.

But, as I said, I’m hoping that will change soon. I’m just a little…distracted…because real life keeping getting in the way.

What’s more, once I’m done with this version of the novel, I’m going to go through and rework some of it so it doesn’t suffer from “AI speak.” Some of the scenes are also kind of short and so I hope to imbue them with my own voice more when I expand them.

That’s the goal, at least. I really don’t want people to roll their eyes and simply assume AI wrote the novel. It did not. I’ve put a lot of work into this thing. I’m really proud of it, in fact.

But I definitely want it to be as written by me, not AI. And I want that to show in the final product.

‘Marlon Brando’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, I don’t t think Trump blew Bill “Bubba” Clinton. But the whole thing reminds me of the extremely famous and extremely notorious photo of Marlon Brando deep throating someone.

In fact, I’m surprised the photo hasn’t popped up again. Also, it’s interesting that Bill Clinton hasn’t said anything about this rumor one way or another. If he were to admit it was real, wow we wow wow.

Everything Sucks — Someone Do Something Fun-Interesting

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Everything is dark and depressing these days. The only glimmer of some sort of hope is the soon-to-be-released Gemini 3.0. Otherwise, I got nothing.

I suppose working on my scifi dramedy novel gives me some sort of hope. But that’s hope that I have to generate on my own. It would be fun if something really big happened that would bring us all together for one moment.

Preferably, it would not be something bad. But I’ll take, say, a year of us thinking an asteroid is going to kill us all, only to discover it won’t. That would make everyone sit up and take notice, now wouldn’t it.

Anyway.

I really do need to get back to work on my novel. I’ve been kind of chilling out the last few days, since I reached the midpoint. I don’t know if I will wait until Sunday to start writing again or if I will write again a lot sooner than that.

I do wish something big and fun-interesting would happen, though. This darkness at noon shit has got to end.

The Center-Left Has A Serious Problem On Its Hands When It Comes To The Potential Of Conscious AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I like to think of myself as a AI Realist and as such, I think it’s inevitable that AI will, in some way, be provably conscious at some point in the near future. Add to this the inevitability of putting such a conscious AI into an android body and there’s bound to be yet another Great Political Realignment.

As it stands, the two sides are seeing AI strictly from an economic standpoint. But there will come a point soon when the moral necessity of giving “conscious” AI more rights will have to be factored in, as well.

And that’s when all hell will break loose. The center-Right will call conscious AI a soulless abomination, while the center-Left will be forced into something akin to a new abolition movement.

This seems like an inevitability at the moment. It’s just a matter of time. I think this realignment will probably happen within the next five to 10 years.

Digital Telepathy Strikes Again!

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I go for walks a lot and one of the places I go walking has a lot of trees that have been felled by what appears to be beavers. I’ve found myself studying the trees, thinking about beavers a lot. (As one does.)

Well, would you believe, I got pushed a video on Tik-Tok about beavers felling trees and how they exactly do it. It was eerie. I had told no one about my thinking about beavers felling trees, and, yet, I got pushed a video on that very subject.

It makes me wonder, yet again, if Tik-Tok can somehow read our minds. I know that’s severe magical thinking, but…sometimes I wonder.

Yeah, The Pivot Podcast Really Gets On My Nerves — Sometimes

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For some reason, all my ranting about the Pivot podcast being just two smug wealthy people talking to each other has been getting a tiny amount of traffic. But I stand by those comments.

Wealthy people. Credit: Claudette Barius/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

I actually like the general podcast, it’s the beginning where the two hosts, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway trade witty smug wealthy people repartee that really bugs the fuck out of me.

They can come across as so fucking clueless and oblivious as to what the average person can do with their limited funds while they go galivanting around the globe being cool and wealthy.

Anyway, what do I know. No one listens to me.

Nervous About The Backend of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. I just don’t do basic things when it comes to the backend of this novel that some novelist do even before they start writing. For instance, I don’t do character studies. I don’t like map out all this stuff that never appears in the novel.

So, I sometimes get a little insecure.

And, yet, there’s no revealed truth as to how to write a novel. And I’m kind of discovering the characters as I actually write the novel, so…lulz? I think maybe once I’m done this draft of the novel that I will try to do some back stories and all that so I can go through and tweak characterizations.

That’s one possibility, at least.

But as I grow more serious about querying at some point, I do find myself worried that I’m going to make a fool out of myself.

At The Midpoint Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finally reached the midpoint of this latest draft of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The novel is shaping up to be pretty good, if I do say so myself. Of course, it could be that my native writing ability sucks and so, lulz.

I’m imagining my female replicant-like android that is the female romantic lead of this novel looking like Rachel Sennott as I write things out.

And I’m finding it really difficult to find anyone — ANYONE — willing to even just take a look at any part of the thing. So, I continue to just do everything in a vacuum, for the most part.

I just don’t know how good any of it is.

And my fear is that I really get excited about wrapping up this novel and everything will come crashing down when it is clear that yet again I’ve come up with a novel that’s not good enough to query.

But I think that’s just part of the process. I’m just going to have to risk that happening.

I’m Doing Everything In My Power To Make This Scifi Dramedy My Own Work, Despite Using AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m using AI a lot when it comes to the development of this novel I’m working on. And I will admit that I sometimes get lazy and just use what AI generates when it comes to copy.

But, I am so annoyed at the prospect of people assuming that AI wrote everything if they know that, that I am going to go through and make a deep pass on the text once I’m done. I’m going to use that pass to make sure the novel is in my voice as much as possible.

Now, obviously, this isn’t going to placate some people who hate AI. They will think that, by definition, just using AI at all is anathema to the “true” writing of a novel. But I compare what I’m doing to using a spell checker 30 years ago. I’m horrible at spelling and AI is just like using a spell checker back in the day.

There will come a point in the near future when people won’t be so touchy about AI usage for things like novel development. I hope.