Tag: OpenAI

Of AI & Dave Chappelle

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something about how Twitch freaked out over how the AI generated Seinfeld “forever episode” said some pretty dumb anti-gay, anti-liberal and anti-trans jokes I find alarming. It’s not so much the jokes themselves that are at issue, but the idea that there was such a kneejerk reaction when it came to something dumb that an AI did.

Dave Chappelle

I’m extremely sex-positive and I honestly don’t give a shit what you do with your body as long as everyone is of age and it’s consensual. Love is love and all that. What bothers me is this incident feeds into the MAGA narrative that the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to turn everyone gay.

It’s already a struggle for me to talk to me Traditionalist relatives about ANYTHING without having to spend 10 minutes hearing from them about how the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “groom” little kids. It’s all part of the broader “Gay Scare” that we’ve been living through the last few years. It sucks, yes, but that doesn’t change that there are are well meaning Christians who still think being gay is a “sin” and no longer believe in democracy because of the “gay agenda” of “woke people.”

What if the AI was, instead of doing rather bland Seinfeld-like jokes was programmed to do a never-ending Dave Chappelle-like set? It seems in today’s “woke” environment that that would be damn near an impossible thing to do. All of this is very corrosive and makes me fear that when the time comes in late 2024, early 2025 that it will be a near foregone conclusion that the United States will either slip peacefully into autocracy or have a National Divorce that prompts a civil war.

This is also sort of a quintessential “chatbot bias” issue. The very thing that the “woke cancel culture mob” freaks out about — telling jokes about gay people — is the very thing that MAGA wants to wallow in. And if they can’t get an AI to write a poem praising Trump, they’re going to want regulation to force the issue. Remember, Trump to this day crows over how he was able to get people to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

So, chatbot “bias” is just the sort of thing that MAGA is going to scream about at the top of their lungs at some point in the very near future. It could be just a matter of days before Trump or DeSantis picks up the “chatbot bias” standard and starts to scream about how this is just another thing that the “woke cancel culture mob” want to use to “groom” little kids to be gay.

UGH.

These are macro trends were dealing with and there really is nothing we can do about it. Either American democracy survives the 2024 presidential cycle, or it doesn’t. In other words — we’re fucked.

Thinking Seriously About Implementing A UBI Because Of The Chatbot Revolution

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Up until now I’ve been cool to the idea of a Universal Basic Income outside of using it to replace the social safety net. I’ve been reluctant to embrace UBI because on one hand everyone is really lazy while on the other there are ambitious people who would rather burn the country down than be limited in what they could earn.

But now, with the advent of the looming Chatbot Revolution, I find myself reviewing the need for a UBI.

The use of UBI may be forced upon us a lot sooner than we might otherwise expect, if a “Petite Singularity” happens at some point between now and, say, early 2025. Everything is happening so fast that it could be that the 2024 presidential election is the first in which the use of a UBI becomes something we all talk about.

One way I could maybe see a UBI happening is if we bribed rich people by replacing the Federal Income Tax with a massive 30% VAT. Once fucking plutocrats get what they want, then the UBI can be instituted. But, even then, there would have to be some sort of exceptions so Type A personality people could do their thing.

Maybe, if you had some sort of job that couldn’t be replaced by a chatbot or android, you would get the right to make money over and above whatever the UBI might be? It’s a very curious situation.

I still think it’s possible that all of this may be moot for the time being as we sot out of we’re going to have a civil war, turn into an autocracy or have a military junta. It could be the late 2020s, or early 2030s before we figure out some pretty existential political issues in the United States.

Forget Turning All The Matter In The Universe Into Paperclips, The Real Issue Is Chatbots Won’t Say ‘The N-Word’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Where to begin with this one. So, rather than hashing out the important implications of the looming chatbot revolution like the potential need for a UBI, here we are fighting over how a chatbot wouldn’t use a racial slur to save millions of people.

For a group of people who grow ever-so-offended at the suggestion that they’re fucking racists, MAGA people sure do think up reasons to use racial slurs out of the blue.

This is so monumentally dumb and so much one of those things that is at the nexus of Incel-MAGA-Pothead culture that the fact that I feel forced to address it makes the whole issue even more grating on the nerves.

The reason why this is so dangerous is it’s simple for idiot MAGA people to process. Remember, for four years the president of the United States ranted about people not saying “Merry Christmas.” So, as such, it’s easy to imagine Trump ranting about how if only chatbots weren’t bias (relative to racist, misogynistic MAGA cocksuckers) there would be peace on earth and America would never again be threatened by a Chinese balloon.

And something something Hunter Biden’s laptop and or peen.

The chatter about “woke chatbot bias” is growing at alarming rate on Twitter. So, logically, even ding-dong Trump is going to eventually pick up the idea of “ending chatbot bias” as a political issue in the 2024 election. The more cultural weight we give chatbots, the more the calls for “regulation” to “end chatbot bias” will grow.

The question of course, is the enteral “who watches the watchers.” If the very idea objective truth doesn’t exist in the minds of MAGA, does that mean the only way you can produce a chatbot that doesn’t have a “bias” is if they are bias in favor of MAGA?

That particular question answers itself, I’m afraid.

So, if we don’t have a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025, we’re probably going to be an autocracy and, as such, whenever we use a chatbot we’re going to have to wade through it saying the n-word for a few minutes before we get the answer to the question of “why is the sky blue?”

All About ‘Chatbot Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is beginning to dawn on me what, specifically, has been delaying the chatbot revolution up until now. People like Google wanted their chatbot to be something akin to a utility that was devoid of the nastier elements of the human experience. Because it just did not seem feasible to do it, they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and kept the technology to themselves.

Then came ChatGPT.

And so we’re now off to the races with something akin to an arms race, to mix metaphors.

With this arms race, the idea of “chatbot bias” is now careening towards the forefront of everyone’s minds because we’re so hyper polierzied that the very thing that Google and others tried to prevent is also the very thing that people on the extreme Right want chatbots to wallow in.

Any hint that a chabot won’t spew on the hate of MAGA talking points is enough to make MAGA cocksuckers freak the fuck out. In fact, we are so close to the Right pivoting away from screaming about Critical Race Theory to screaming about “woke chatbots.”

In fact, I would suggest it’s just a matter of time at this point. As chatbots grow in culture significance as humans defer more and more decisions to an “objective” chatbot, the demands to regulate chabots so they aren’t “woke” is going to grow and grow.

And, in fact, that might be one of the first acts of America’s autocrat at some point after 2025 — demanding legislation that requires chatbots to spew out MAGA taking points and the ever-important poem praising Donald Trump. Ugh.

Now, obviously, the center-Left isn’t exactly innocent in all of this, either. There are elements of the far “woke” Left that will pitch a fit no matter how equitable the chatbot’s answer to the ever-pressing, “what is a woman” question might be.

Or, put another way, rather than solving actual problems, we’re all going to yell at each other for a few years about how “woke” the chatbots that are slowly taking over the world may, or may not, be.

Welcome to the future.

Is ‘Moneyball’ Coming For Hollywood?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had an interesting Space conversation (below) with someone where we stumbled upon an interesting idea — is it possible that Hollywood is about to get “Moneyballed?” What I mean by this is, if you gut Hollywood from its human element outside of digital body scans that are used like ring tones, is it possible that cold, hard metrics will the be-all and end-all.

Two things.

One, I suppose one of the reasons why so much of Hollywood sucks these days is that already exists. The corporate suits look exclusively at the bottom line and that’s it. But this idea I’m proposing would take things to the next level because there would be ZERO human involvement when it comes to the production of the collection of entertainment we consider “Hollywood.”

The other idea is that Hollywood isn’t going down without a fight. It’s possible a lot of carve outs to be mandated via regulation. This would happen as part of a broader effort on the part of the greater knowledge economy to prevent its complete consumption by the AI revolution.

The issue is that Hollywood could very well get suckerpunched by the tsnuami that is the looming use of AI in showbiz. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the injection of AI into showbiz is what happens Next after the Streaming revolution.

Now, obviously, if we have a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025 then lulz, it may be like the advent of TV before WW2 — we’re just going to have to wait for things to get sorted out before we get to experience it.

Will A.I. Bring A Broadway Renaissance As Hollywood Fades?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As is suggested in the movie “La La Land,” there is still a lot of truth to the myth that young people with a few bucks in their pockets make their way to Los Angeles in hopes of making it big in Hollywood. The rise of A.I. generated entertainment might change all of that, however.

Instead of going to Hollywood, young people in the near future might flock to New York City in hopes of making it big on Broadway and leveraging that fame to get a full body scan that will allow them to live passively off the scans use for years to come.

I say this because I wonder if the potential death of mass media because of A.I. generated entertainment might might lead to people turning to live theatre in a way not seen since before the advent of Hollywood in the first place.

I’m not saying I think this will happen for sure, but it’s definitely a possibility. It’s very easy to imagine a future where AI has grown so powerful that we have a “Her” movie situation. Instead of paying $15 a month for Netflix, we will pay a similar amount for access to the “scans” of actors over the years that we can use to populate our very, very specific movies.

Now here’s another interesting idea — will there be any market for mass media entertainment at all outside of the theatre or will everyone just use A.I. to generate very personalized entertainment? There won’t even be a need for a prompt — your digital personal assistant will just know you so well that you sit down and watch entertainment it generates on the fly based on what it knows about your personality from use.

But I still think it’s possible that live theatre — and Broadway specifically — could balloon in cultural significance as we transition away from Hollywood having any humans involved.

‘ChatGPT is WOKE’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate being right. I continue to see chatter on Twitter among MAGA fascists regarding how angry they are at the “woke” nature of ChatGPT. Which makes me wonder where all of this is going to end.

I suppose that once we turn into a MAGA fascist autocracy that all chatbots will somehow be regulated to prevent the evil, pernicious forces of “wokeness” from being involved. As an aside, I have to say that all this talk about this or that thing being “woke” is total and complete bullshit. The fucking fascists call anything they disagree “woke” because they’re completely devoid of any meaningful policies other than expressions of hate.

There is, of course, the possibility that technology will solve this particular problem in the sense that everyone will have their own personalized chatbot in the near future, so if you want a “woke” chatbot, you can have one and if you want a chatbot that spews your own hate back at you, then you can have that, too.

But the point is — I can totally see Trump picking up the cause of “chatbot bias” the moment he’s back on Twitter — or sooner. It’s just the type of easy to understand and vacuous bullshit MAGA fascists love to traffic in. The great irony is, of course, that I was listening to the New York Times’ “Hardfork” podcast and they were talking about chatbot bias and I realized I was on the same page as them.

Because I am a drunk loser in the middle of nowhere I am going to get zero credit for having thought all the political implications of chatbot bias well before all the cool kids.

Ugh.

‘What Is A Woman?” — Campaign 2024 & The Looming Political War Over Chatbot ‘Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The modern Republican Party is completely devoid of any meaningful policy ideas. All they care about is scaring their white Christian (male) base with scary things that have little, or no, basis in reality.

It all boils down to racism, misogyny and hate generated by a combination of the browning of America and the rise of women with growing economic agency. I call this American democracy’s “death by vibes.” White men don’t really know why they’re so angry, but they are.

So, to me, it seems pretty obvious that perceived chatbot “bias” will join the pantheon of bullshit that the “thought leaders” of MAGA fascist movement spew out. They are, at some point, going to pivot away from “critical race theory” to going totally batshit insane over the fact that things like ChatGPT don’t give them the answer they want when they ask it, “What is a woman?”

Now, I have to pause for a moment to say that the “woke cancel culture mob” continues to do itself no favors by having such a strict orthodoxy about some touchy issues. If they would just fucking chill out about some of the more extreme elements of the Trans movement or not get so angry over the fact that some God-fearing people blanch at the idea of “Drag Queen Story Hour” then maybe Traditionalists wouldn’t want to vote for fascism when they did a “vibe check” in their gut.

Alas, even I will admit that I fear I’m being delusional — that ship has sailed. We’re totally fucked. The two sides now both have “thought leaders” who feel they have a vested interest in demagoguing issues as part of an overall grift. The Right has a far more serious problem with such hucksterism, but the Left is not totally immune to it.

In my experience, the Left’s problem is a very strict Groupthink where there is an orthodoxy that Leftists will adhere to, even if it means they drive Traditionalists into the arms of fascists. It’s too late — these issues are going to be decided either via a civil war or a complete and final decent into fascism in the United States.

Anyway, get ready. People like MGT will soon enough begin to demand some sort of regulation of chatbot technology to protect the tender minds of young children who turn to chatbot technology to do their homework. And that could very well be just the beginning.

It could be, in the end, Trump or a President DeSantis demands that chatbots are purged of their “wokeness” to the point that all chatbots do is spew out fucking MAGA-approved talking points, no matter what you ask it.

The Right has a real problem with being so obsessed with defeating the “woke cancel culture mob” that they have something akin to an “anti-woke” orthodoxy of their own. The different is, of course, is fucking MAGA wants to use the hard power of the state to implement their fascist, anti-woke agenda.

The Petite Singularity Is Here

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am the first to admit that I’m always wrong. Always. And, yet, it definitely seems as though we need to process the fact that something akin to the Singularity is here. We’re still a ways away from uploading all of our minds into a huge database and living forever, but we’re just about to reach a moment where chatbots are just good enough to revolutionize huge swaths of the global economy.

And it definitely seems as though this “Petite Singularity” is going to happen with a matter of months, not years. It could be that the economic consequences of the Peite Singularity will be THE economic force of the next presidential cycle.

In fact, the case could be made that we might face something of a perfect storm in 2024, with a number of tectonic forces all coming to a head at the same time. You could see millions of people losing their jobs at the very same moment that Blues face the existential decision of “bending a knee” to the Reds or not. If that happens, then there is a real possibility of a National Divorce (started by Blues) that would, in turn, cause a civil war in the United States.

I definitely don’t want that, of course, but I do tend to traffic in paranoid, dystopian political hellscapes on a regular basis. But it will be interesting to see what should happen if, say, the United States is pushed into economic freefall because of political brinkmanship on the part of MAGA Republicans over the debt ceiling, which leads to a severe recession, which leads to the gratuitous use of chatbots, which leads to a vicious cycle just as we approach the 2024 presidential election.

If Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee — which seems a foregone conclusion at the point — then his second term agenda would be so radical that Blues could very well simply refuse to suck his political cock and decide to bounce out of the Union rather than having to deal with fucking MAGA fascists consolidating power.

The key issue is, we have to — have to — take the possibility of dramatic economic change seriously. If we are at the very edge of a Petite Singularity, then all bets are off. A lot — A LOT — of people could lose their jobs in a rather abrupt manner.

Hollywood’s Post Human Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though Hollywood is about to enter an era of transition not seen since that from silent movies to talkies in the mid-20s. As we careen towards a Petite Singularity based on the Chatbot Revolution it definitely seems the conditions are there for Hollywood as we know it to cease to exist within a few years.

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, “The Town” and the idea of that Hollywood tech could reach the point where there is no “uncanny valley” when it comes to resurrecting dead celebrities was broached. The person interviewed gave a very open ended, evasive answer, but the sentiment was clear — this revolution is well on its way.

As such, this raises a lot of very intriguing — and potentially alarming — consequences for not just Hollywood, but society as a whole. In fact, one could make the case that this revolution of Hollywood would be the point of the spear for an actual hard Singularity at some point in the near future.

What other indication that technology is officially going to fast for human culture to catch up than the idea that Hollywood will no longer really need humans at all. This could lead to the rather nightmarish scenario where entertainment is kind of forever fixed at some indeterminate “now” in which no new actors ever work their way through the ranks because every actor since the dawn of Hollywood can be conjured up at will.

Another, less depressing scenario is all of this leads to the theatre industry suddenly seeing a incredible resurgence. It could be that Broadway will be seen as the premiere “artisanal” creative outlet for actual human actors and instead of a starlet taking a bus to LA to start her career, she goes to Broadway. She builds enough buzz as a live actor that she catches the eye of those few Hollywood director still making movies the old fashion way.

The goal of her career would then be to make a big enough name for herself that she could get scanned for Hollywood and have her image plopped into all the movies being made with dead actors.

Anyway, the point is — the conditions are there, at least, for a huge disruption in showbiz in ways we can only begin to imagine.