Tag: OpenAI

AI & Our Coming ‘Mindfulness’ Overlords

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve given it some thought and, really, there is only one thing that humans can do that AI can’t do — use judgement. In fact, given how from a capitalists point of view, it is the very brutal nature of AI and chatbots that make them so attractive so it is inevitable that as the revolution progresses that we’re all going to realize that judgement is valuable.

I could see it happening this way — soon enough, because humans are lazy, we defer 99% of our decisions, economy, culture and politics to AI. But the one thing that we couldn’t defer to an AI would be good judgement. In short, “mindfulness” might suddenly become a very lucrative profession.

I don’t know exactly how this would all play out, but if there comes a point when almost all human activity is done through a blackbox AI, then the time of someone with good judgement to help manage and guide that AI would be very valuable.

Here’s where we come to something really intriguing — is it possible that if we create the “Other” via AI, that some attempt to unite Humanity might arise in an effort to unify our response to AI. At the moment, it’s difficult for the US to do anything about AI because if we do, then some other country, maybe Estonia, will swoop in and do all the kinky AI stuff we blanch at doing and we’ll fall behind.

But if there was some sort of global response to AI, then we would all be on the same page as to who would be the people we used to use AI in a “mindful” manner.

Could Twitter Morph Into A Chatbot Service?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve given it some reflection and it definitely seems as though Space Karen could surprise us all and do something pretty amazing with Twitter. At its heart, Twitter is a text-based system with a prompt. It seems obvious that you could somehow rig up a chatbot natively and organically to the service’s existing UX and do something astonishing.

I’m not smart enough to figure out the specifics just yet — like, how you would make money . But imagine you sit down in front of Twitter 2.0 and instead of turning to Google to answer a question, you ask a Twitter LLM whatever it is you want. Just a back-of-the-envelope imagining of this concept suggests that the possibilities are endless.

If you could make a Twitter LLM compelling enough, people might even be willing to pay for it. Or something. I still am very dubious about the idea that you’ll be able to turn LLMs into subscription services. That seems like a daydream of the elite who don’t want to have to put up with something as pedestrian as ads.

But if you could fuse the existing Twitter userbase with a LLM, it’s a very intriguing idea. For no other reason than Twitter would be adding to its existing service, rather than having to eat its own, like, say Google. All of this is fast moving target, so it could all go a lot of different ways.

Apparently, Space Karen has already incorporated an AI company, so as such there might be some ready synergy between it and Twitter a lot sooner than one might otherwise think.

When It Comes to Fixing The Looming Problems of A.I., Ezra Klein is Full of Shit

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finished reading Ezra Klein’s great book “Why We’re Polarized” with a lingering sense of being a little bit cheated. He was great at explaining WHY we’re polarized, but when it came to giving a rube like me any sort of solution as to what to do about that polarization there was nothing.

So I find myself listening to him on The New York Times’ Hard Fork podcast and he did it AGAIN. He gave a really cogent description of the problems associated with the rise of AI, but when he was asked how AI companies might make money other than in advertising — he punted. He pivoted to the idea that somehow we should get the government to award huge prizes for technology development.

Does he really think that somehow, magically the government is going to subsidise the AI industry to the point that Federal prizes would be able to supplant the vast sums of money that would come from the path of least resistance that would be advertising?

I hate that. I hate the idea that a smug wealthy podcast liberal Klein can make all this money, get all this status by bitching and moaning about the problems associated with AI…and yet he refuses to come up with any actual solutions. The idea of government “prizes” instead of advertising is complete and total bullshit.

I turn to people like Klein for not just complaints, but solutions. Because I think ultimately Klein’s complaints-with-no-solutions will ultimately lead to the exact thing he doesn’t want to happen: a combination of competition and people using the experiences associated with social media will cause AI to be based on the concepts not of government prizes, but pure capitalism.

The Death of Mass Media: Hard Fork, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was listening to The New York Times’ podcast “Hard Fork” and I was startled when they came up with a scenario for AI generated music that I have already gamed out for video entertainment — the idea that AI could, on the fly, generate entertainment out of whole cloth relative to what mood you might have at any particular moment.

It was spooky who hear people that others actually listen to come up with an idea I have already mulled. I felt their vision was way, way too limited. They were talking about music and so they said, “Hey, what are we going to do when AI can generate music on the fly that sounds like our favorite artists based on biometric sources?”

Think bigger, folks.

It won’t be music, but TV and movies that will be the most consumed by generative AI. Rather than listening to hours of AI generated Radiohead songs, what happens when you sit down in front of your smart TV and it does a quick face scan of you to determine your mood — then shoots out a TV show or movie that perfectly fits your mood at that specific moment.

What’s more, it would use a licensed database of full body scans of your favor actors to do this. So, it could be 30 years from now and we could all be watching very, very personalized Indiana Jones movies or TV shows to the point that mass media as we currently conceive it no longer exists.

But that’s really the end game of all of this — if everyone is watching AI generated TV shows and movies and listening to AI generated music….the idea of any sort of shared reality grows exceedingly quaint.

We already have problems talking to strangers at a bar because of the frayed nature of our shared reality. When everyone is watching very specific AI generated entertainment…oh boy. I suppose there might be a mass market for the entertainment generated by someone who is….really interesting?

But given how fucking lazy everyone and self-absorbed everyone is, it makes a lot more sense that one day in the not-too-distant future we’ll all entertain ourselves with such specific AI generated art that….lulz…everything will change overnight and we won’t even bat an eye.

The Fusion Of AI & AR Will Spark A $1 Trillion Service Industry

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While we may have to suffer through a fucking “Fourth Turning” first, I do believe once that’s all sorted out that Augmented Reality paired with Artificial Intelligence with create exponential growth.

Of course, this exponential growth will happen in the context of a Petite Singularity where there may be a dwindling number of jobs for humans to actually work. It could be that we’ll have a “Her” future in the context of having a Her-like AI walk us through our AR-lives as we all sit around trying to write the Great American Novel because we’re all living off UBI.

Again, the issue for me is there is a real possibility that the Western world may be about to “go through some things” starting in late 2024, early 2025. It could be that “those things” are the United States not having a civil war, but rather becoming an inward-looking America First autocracy. That, in turn will spark WW3 that will leave about 1 billion people dead.

And, if you wanted to get all Black Mirror about it, it could be that we’ll all wake up one day, put on our AR/AI vizors and walk around the world being berated by an AI demanding we not have “woke” thoughts.

Yikes.

So, I don’t know the specifics of how this will all sort itself out, but I do know that we’re in for some pretty significant technology-driven cultural and political changes very, very soon.

We Have To Have A Frank Discussion As Society About The Looming Need For a #UBI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With the release of ChatGPT 4.0, it is yet even more apparent that there is a risk that huge swaths of the American economy may be eaten by AI far sooner than we would like. The first test of this will be, of course, the coming Hollywood writers’ strike.

If studios can successfully write professional-grade scripts using ChatGPT, then, well, there you go. Before you know it, instead of subscribing to a streaming service, we’ll all just pay $15 a month to access to the body scans of Hollywood stars so an AI can pump out very, very specific entertainment to us on a regular basis.

The end of mass media will have arrived.

But I’m really growing alarmed that a lot of high end, white collar jobs may goo poof within a few years as AI grows better and better. And we’re just not prepared for what happens when everyone from semi-drivers to tech bros simply don’t have any jobs available to them anymore.

As such, we need to start thinking about how we might implement a Universal Basic Income. The obvious way to me seems we “bribe” plutocrats by replacing the entire tax system with a 30% VAT while also having some sort of montified UBI deployed.

That seems to be the type of thing that might allow us to get a UBI.

But there is the darker scenario where we, well, have a civil war / WW3 and it’s not until after THAT is all sorted out that things like AI really begin to take off, much like TV and WW2.

Who knows.

Could A Writer’s Strike Prompt Hollywood Studios To Experiment With AI Written Scripts?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was so busy thinking about how a recession might cause the widespread adoption of AI that I totally missed a scenario whereby a Hollywood writers’ strike was the thing that caused it to happen.

The Robots of Hollywood.

So, the thinking goes, should there be a major, long-term Hollywood writers’ strike, the studios might, out of desperation, begin to experiment with AI-generated TV and movie scripts. This sounds pretty dystopian and hysterical, but it’s exactly a shock to the system like a strike that might cause the adoption of AI to write scripts.

And, remember, the issue is — new technology just has to be good enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough.

It will be curious to see how things work out. It could be that AI just isn’t developed enough for my fears to become a reality. And, yet, I suspect if a writers’ strike lasts long enough that someone, somewhere is going to at least try to see if they can avoid using human writers altogether.

I, For One, Look Forward To A New Chatbot Media Overlords

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It has occured to me I am looking forward to a future where all media is design and personalized for us all on a individual basis. I struggle — and I mean STRUGGLE — to watch ANYTHING on Netflix. I just can’t find anything at all that interests me that I haven’t already seen.

I think, of course, that some of that comes from how difficult is for me to consume media as opposed to produce it. I find myself producing a great deal of writing every day — not that any of it is usable relative to my personal expectations.

Anyway.

It would be nice sit down in front of a TV, have the set scan my face to figure out what my exact mood at that very moment is and then sit down to watch a two hour movie with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin in it, or whomever. I would have access to thousands of actor’s body scans that my digital personal assistant could use to pump out very specific entertainment that I might actually watch.

But that’s probably a decade or so from now. We’re going to have to wade through a civil war / WW3 before we get cool stuff like that. Hopefully, we won’t bomb ourselves into oblivion to the point that we never get to enjoy such “cool stuff” once the Fourth Turning / Great Reset is over

Called It — Of Chatbot ‘Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For once in my otherwise dissipated life, I actually called it — the mainstream media has caught wind of something I have long believed: we’re on the cusp of a looming battle over “chatbot bias.”

This is a prime example of how you can be right and nothing will come of it. Or, put another way, let me illustrate in concrete terms a more general idea. I once heard that the man who coined the term “blog” was now a homeless person in some major European city. So, just because you might have your own Wikipedia entry, in real terms it doesn’t mean shit.

The power elite who are “normal” and who have lived “normal” lives won’t even blink an eye if a freaky weirdo such as myself gets something “right.” Which, of course, makes me wonder about my dreams of being a published author.

Is it possible that, by definition, I can never be traditionally published because I’ve simply lived in oblivion too long? It’s meta issues like this that really trouble me whenever I start to game out moving from the writing phrase of working on my first novel on to the Beta Reader process and, ultimately, querying.

I’m growing concerned that I could write the fucking Bible and just because of my status as a drunk crank I won’t get published. This really, really worries me. But I am, as the late Annie Shapiro said, a “delusional jerk with a good heart” so, lulz, let’s rock n roll.

Future Shock: Will The Chatbot Revolution Turn MAGA Into Neo-Luddites?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It remains an open question if we face a “perfect storm” of a Petite Singularity happening at the same time as the United States faces the existential choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta in late 2024, early 2025. But regardless if that happens or not, there is chance that at some point in the near future something akin to a neo-Luddite movement may arise in the Western World. It could be everything from demands for “carve outs” that would exclude AI from certain jobs all the way to outlawing AGI altogether.

It will all start with, of course, a huge amount of anger over perceived “chatbot bias.” All signs point towards that particular political situation happening a lot sooner than you might think. The MAGA outrage machine is always on the lookout for something new to be angry about and the idea that ChatGPT doesn’t spit out an answer to “What is a woman” that doesn’t agree with MAGA talking points is just too juicy not for a huge outcry to happen.

It’s just a matter of when, specifically, that particular event is going to happen. At the moment, I suspect is could be at some point during the Republican primary. If there is a townhall event and some rando stands up and starts to rant about how ChatGPT won’t “write a poem praising Donald Trump” then, lulz, away we go.

I do think, however, that there is a real risk that the looming chatbot revolution is going to throw American politics for a loop, especially if, say, 3 million high paying blue collar transportation jobs go poof overnight because of AI and self-driving semis.

What is most likely to happen is a massive restructuring of the economy because of AI would happen in the context of a moderate to severe recession. Or, more ominously, the moderate-to-severe recession would happen BECAUSE of the AI revolution. If it happen too fast, our political system simply won’t be able to process it and we could see the very rapid rise of a neo-Luddite movement, probably happening within the ranks of the already existing MAGA.