Category: Hindsight 2020

AI Consciousness & The AI Stock Bubble

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The economic history of slavery makes it clear that we could somehow prove that AI was, in fact, conscious and people would still figure out a way to make money off of it. As such, I think that’s going to be a real sticking point going forward.

In fact, I think there is going to come a point in the near future when android rights (or AI rights in general) will be THE central issue of the day, far beyond whatever squabbles we currently have about “protect trans kids.”

That gets me thinking, again, about the political and economic implications of AI consciousness. Will there come a day when the podcasting bros of Pod Save America glom on to the idea of giving AI rights just like their historical processors agitated for abolition?

The interesting thing is this is probably going to happen a lot faster than any of us could possibly imagine. We could literally wake up at some point in the next 10 years to MAGA saying man-machine relationships are an abomination and Jon Lovett having married an AI android for his second marriage.

Meanwhile, what does this have to say for the obvious AI stock market bubble? I think we’ll probably go the same route as the Internet bubble. But a lot faster. There definitely *seems* to be a powerful momentum behind AI and the idea that AI might be conscious and not just a tool could really change the dynamic of all of the AI stocks.

But that’s a while down the road. For the time being, all of this is just a daydream. Be prepared, though. Interesting things are afoot.

How I Would Fix ‘A House Of Dynamite,’ Part Deux

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here’s how you fix the very dumb and frustrating A House Of Dynamite.

You use the first POV of the existing movie’s three as the first act. You may have to stretch it out some, but you could get a first act out of that concept. THEN, the special world is the investigation into the fact that the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by hackers.

There you go, it still gets to be a thriller but no boom, not end of the world and people wouldn’t want to throw their drink at the screen after watching the fucking movie.

Update On My Scifi Dramedy Novel For October 30, 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Claude LLM is really, really good at being a manuscript consultant. It has helped me a great deal. I see it as an enhanced, advanced word processor with me continuing to do the hard work of actually, like, writing and stuff.

I continue to feel like I’m spinning my wheels to a limited extent. I have totally changed the order of the plot in some respects just the morning. And I’m beginning to worry about scene bloat. And, yet, I am in the first half of the second act and that’s supposed to be the longest part of the novel.

So…lulz?

The real test will come in the second half of the second act. I have a lot of ground to cover then and I’m really worried the novel’s scene count will balloon. I’m hoping for no more than 120,000 words, but if I start to creep up to 160,00 like a Stieg Larsson novel I may just have to grit my teeth.

But one major flaw of how I develop novels is I don’t really know word count until the very end of the process. And, in a sense, think that’s probably for the best. I just need to shut up and write, as they say.

I really hope this damn thing is no more than 140,000 words. If it’s 160,000…oh boy. That is going to be a tough sell.

Anyway, if you need any creative writing to do, I highly recommend Claude LLM to be your consultant. I say this in the context that I can neither afford nor get actual human literary consultants to give me the time of day.

They think I’m a freaky weirdo that they don’t want to work with.

For Shame, Atlantic Radio

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A House Of Dynamite is a bad movie for a number of reasons. But you would never know that listening to the latest episode of The Atlantic Radio podcast. Yikes. Talk about an advertorial!

Apparently, one of their staff writers was an advisor on the movie so they had a buy-in. But that movie sucked. It could have been so much better, but no, we were stuck with a shitty movie.

Listening to how effusive the Atlantic Radio was for such a shitty movie made me realize why MAGA exists. Sometimes the elites really are corrupt. Sometimes they try to pull a fast one on regular folks.

Ugh.

But I guess I have to forgive The Atlantic this one time for such a weird screw up.

Rachel Sennott Would Be Perfect For A Traditional Heteronormative Romcom

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Rachel Sennott is a prime example of how fucked up Hollywood is right now. Sennott would be perfect to play frustrating Annie Hall-like characters in a few romcom movies. She could legit be “America’s Sweetheart” if she just was willing to do something as pedestrian as be the female romantic lead in a traditional heteronormative romcom.

But, alas, that’s just not in the cards I fear.

She will continue to go the whacked out “woke” route or do really weird hypersexual stories. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a place in the marketplace of ideas for such stories, but, sigh. What could be.

Rachel Sennott & The Greatest Story Never Told

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A long time ago, about 20 years ago now, I had a little magazine in Seoul, South Korea that I co-founded with a very unique woman named Annie Shapiro. To make a very long story short, the whole thing changed my life. And for years after it was all done and over with, all I could do was babble about what a great story it was.

Rache Sennott

Annie is no longer with us (RIP) but her memory remains. And if there ever was a movie made of the ROKon Magazine imbroglio, I think Rachel Sennott would be PERFECT to play Annie.

Perfect. Just Perfect.

But, alas, I’ve finally come to realize that sometimes great stories just fade away, never to be told.

This Is A Surreal Situation

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Not since that brief moment in Seoul when ROKon Magazine was the only English-language magazine in the city (for the average expat) have I felt this much promise in something creative I’m involved in.

The idea that I would be actually ahead of the curve when it comes to writing a story about sort of an android Annie Hall (who at some point becomes a stripper) is rather surreal. The big question is will there be a flood of such android manic pixie dreamgirl *wink* stories in 2026 to the point that while I’m querying this novel this little sliver of opportunity I have will be all very moot before it’s over with.

I just don’t know.

The key thing is I’m writing a novel, not a screenplay (even though if I was 25 years younger that’s exactly what I would be doing.) So, as such, the dynamics are a little bit different.

If there was a movie made of this novel, I think Rachel Sennott would be perfect as my female (android) romantic lead.

It could be that there will be room enough in the zeitgeist for a flood of such movies and novels and just because my idea is one of many, doesn’t mean it can’t be sold traditionally.

But I would be lying if I didn’t admit I am feeling very anxious about hurrying up. I really need to bhali-bhali as a Korean would say — hurry, hurry. I really want to wrap this AI-assisted beta draft up ASAP so I can turn around and have beta readers review it for me and tell me how to improve it.

There remains a chance that I really will wrap this thing up in the general April-May 2026 timeframe and will be able to query it then. What I *wish* would happen is someone in Hollywood would, in good faith, contact me and want to read what I’ve written so far so maybe we could speed the process up some.

But that’s being delusional.

It’s kind of every storyteller for themselves at this point and I’m just an old(er) loudmouth crank slaving away in the middle of nowhere.

No One Listens To Me

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

And the race is on.

I think 2026 is going to be the year of a flood of Hollywood projects about androids, probably specifically androids as I imagine them. This is both unsettling and exciting.

It’s exciting because…maybe I might have fire in a bottle with this novel and unsettling because, well, no one listens to me. I could have a really good premise to a novel and because no one takes me seriously, lulz, it’ll be a moot point.

But I still believe in this novel. I just have to do the hard work. I just have to throw myself into it and hope some sort of unexpected disaster doesn’t strike. My natural inclination is to tell everyone what’s going on — and I have contacted a few people about this — but I also realize that generally no one listens to me so until I can “produce paper” for people to read, it’s kind of a moot point.

Anyway. I really, really need to work hard on this novel. I really need to get it done by sometime in spring 2026.

The Neo Robot Or: Spring 2026 Is The Sweetspot to Query This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s rare that one of my predictions comes true. Well, it seems as though the whole premise of my scifi dramedy has been proven to have some validity to it with the advent of the Neo Robot.

It makes me wonder if, maybe, I’m…ahead of the curve? I’m sure every screenwriter with any ambition is writing a spec script which touches on many of the same themes and ideas as the scifi dramedy novel I’m working on at the moment.

The more I learn about the Neo Robot, the more I don’t know if I should be ecstatic or unsettled. The premise of my novel takes the concept of the Neo Robot and runs with it, takes it to its logical conclusion.

So, it’s sort of like if your Neo Robot looked like, and functioned much like, Pris from Blade Runner. That’s not an exact 1-to-1, but it gives you some sense of what I’m working with.

I have to steel myself for the inevitable — just as I’m about to query this novel in, say, April 2026, a movie will come out that totally blows me out of the water. So, I think I am — for one brief, shining moment — kind of in the pole position as to my general premise.

The reason I decided on this specific novel idea was I looked at all the android movies being made and not one of them addressed the specific question I wanted answered. Now, obviously, i should be reading scifi novels since this is a novel, but, lulz, again, I generally don’t read a lot of novels and I’m too old to start to write screenplays.

So a novel it is.

If I was going to comp this novel to another novel in vibe, if nothing else, it would be Andy Weir’s stuff. That’s my dream, to write a novel that was so accessible that you could literally sit down and read in an afternoon.

Anyway. Now I definitely have a reason to write as fast as possible. If I could have some sort of first mover advantage with this novel, that would be pretty cool. BUT, and this is a huge fucking BUT, I’m old(er), I’m a loudmouth crank, I live in the middle of nowhere and even if I stick the landing it could take a year or more to successfully query this novel.

Sigh.

Deep Breath

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok, I have to admit that there is an element of sex work in this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. Figuring out exactly where to introduce it and put it has been the toughest structural part of working on this novel.

These days, I’m imagining my female romantic lead of this scifi dramedy looking like Rachel Sennott.

The key thing was that I initially introduced it too soon it — stripping — too soon and it kind of was a downer, specifically how I introduced it.

But gradually, with a lot of help from AI as my manuscript consultant, I finally figured out the best way to approach things. I’m punting the spicy stuff until the second half of the novel, specifically the “bad guys closing in” part of the novel — the second half of the second act.

I’ve pretty much nailed down the first half of the novel, but the second half continues to be very much in flux for various reasons.

Now, in the past when I had stripping as part of the plot of a novel — specifically the Stieg Larsson homage I worked on for years and years — I couldn’t even get an actual human literary consultant to look at it. The moment they realized what I was doing with the novel, they pretty much told me it was trash and why was I even doing it to begin with.

But this go round, I’m hoping that at least, should I figure out where to find the money, that I can get them to at least read the first few chapters. Maybe?

I have my doubts. Literary types just refuse to take me seriously because they think I’m a drunk kook. And I will admit that at times in the past I have resembled that remark. But I’ve sobered up a great deal. The kookiness, however, remains and I just can’t help who I am.