Tag: Petite Singularity

What The Fuck Is Tik-Tok Up To?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Tonight, I was repeatedly pushed eerie videos on Tik-Tok. Given that I had a long and interesting conversation about Tik-Tok’s ability to push “eerie” content to me with someone today, it’s almost like the service is taunting me at this point.

Here’s what happened.

I had a wide-ranging conversation with someone today over beer and pizza and at one point he mentioned how an online friend he met in person was “tiny” compared to what he expected. Well, lo and behold, what happens today, but I get pushed a video about that exact fucking thing — how tiny another woman was!

Then, I’ve been pushed what seems like six or so videos about elevators, of all things. And what did I think about intensely in the last 24 hours since I’m living in a hotel this weekend?

Elevators!

What the fuck is going on? How could the Tik-Tok “algorithm” figure out that I, specifically, was thinking about elevators a lot in the last few days. Or, more specifically, if you follow the logic that what I’m seeing in aggregated assumption about people like me, then why would there be a few thousand people like me who the “algorithms” thought would be interested in elevators of all things. I have no written about the situation with elevators. I have not spoken to anyone about it. The only metric by which elevators have come into my life at all has been in my thoughts.

I’m still not prepared to go full crank and actually believe Tik-Tok can read our minds, but…I dunno, man, something spooky is definitely going on.

The NSA Reading Your Emails Is So Cheugy, Tucker — You Need To Rant About Big Tech Reading Our Minds


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When it comes to the idea that Big Tech can “read our minds,” I think of what we know and don’t know about UFOs right now. We know something weird is going on in our skies, but we don’t know what. The same with my unease about any possibility of Big Tech to read my mind. I know they have a very, very spooky ability to know extremely-specific-to-me things that have be rolling around in my mind, but I don’t know how.

So, if Tucker Carlson is going to lie about cheugy shit like the NSA reading his emails, of all things, at least he could up his game and lie about Big Tech being able to read our minds. That would make the Deep State sit up and take notice, now wouldn’t it. Wink.

I’ll even go on Tucker’s show to talk about my fears. Now THAT would be interesting. I promise I won’t say “babba booy” once. Of course, there’s a very easy way to check this out — have three different people use Tik-Tok, for a few hours, then switch phones and have them think about something REALLY HARD to see if they get pushed content relative to what they thought about.

But, let me be clear — I don’t really think Big Tech can read our minds. I do think, however, that something spooky is going on that is difficult to understand given what is known. I would even go so far as to say something akin to a “Soft Singularity” may have occurred in the last few years and Big Tech is keeping this information to themselves.

Lulz no one listens to me.

If Tucker Carlson Is So Worried About People Reading His Personal Shit — Wait Until He Hears About Tik-Tok


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In a surreal turn of events, Tucker Carlson is now ranting about how the Biden Administration through the NSA is reading his “private emails.” Add this to how Fox News has turned on the U.S. Military in a rather abrupt fashion and it’s all very bonkers.

I think Carlson is spooked by something. A reporter somewhere is asking questions about something that makes him look bad and he’s freaking out, looking for some explanation for how they know what they know. So he’s blaming the NSA out of desperation, if nothing else. Or, the whole thing is just bad faith bullshit and he’s trying to recon something that is about to pop out in the near term.

Anyway, if Carlson is going to be all paranoid, he should at least be interesting about the idea that Tik-Tok, and Big Tech in general, may have the technology to read our fucking minds. While I don’t seriously think Big Tech can read our minds, they definitely have a spooky ability to figure me out in a very specific manner. Specific enough that I’d like bonkers Tucker Carlson to at least look into it and see what HE finds.

But, in the end, meh.

Why Elon Musk’s ‘Neuralink’ Is Such A Dumb, Misguided Idea


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is so frustrating. Elon Musk wants to rummage around in my brain with something that requires drilling a hole in my head and hooking up directly to my wetware. I find this very dumb and misguided because Arthur C. Clarke in his book “3001: Final Odyssey” comes up with a far more practical — and less intrusive — answer: the mindcap.

Now, some context.

There’s evidence that Facebook has, at least, a patent on some sort of mind reading technology. And hardly a day goes by that I don’t use Tik-Tok and think its reading my mind in some way. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does happen, it’s very spooky.

As such, if it’s possible they’ve figured out a way to read my mind in some way via a non-contact solution, why not develop a form of that technology that involves a skullcap of some sort laced with electrodes (or whatever) that touches my skull and allows the same things we hope for with the Neuralink without the risk of accidently being given a lobotomy.

It seems very obvious to me that if you could sell people at $1,200 mindcap that skips the middle step of wearing MX (VR / AR) equipment. It definitely would aid in the adoption of such technology if you didn’t have to overcome the resistance to wearing bulky goggles and allowed people to “see” and “hear” media using their own minds.

But, go ahead Elon, keep drilling holes in people’s heads.

Tik-Tok Keeps Pushing Me ‘Spooky’ Content That Is Inexplicable Unless They’re Reading My Mind


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, the thing I want to make absolutely clear is I fucking hate conspiracy theories. I think of them as the last refuge of the intellectually dishonest. The only reason why I keep ranting about the possibility that Big Tech like Facebook, Google and Tik-Tok may have the technology to read our minds is I use Tik-Tok and am startled by weird “co-incidences.”

So, there’s a reason for my seemingly bonkers and out of character interest in this particular “conspiracy theory.” It just seems at last possible that something akin to a secret “soft singularity” is taking place. What I mean by this is a number of proto-Singularity technologies are coming to a head without them being promoted by Big Tech. Already, we’re racing towards hard AI via automated cars.

The issue that keeps coming to the forefront of my mind about Tik-Tok specifically is while 99% of the “spooky” things I get pushed can be explained away pretty easily, there is that 1% that simply has no other explanation than maybe, just maybe, they have some way of reading our minds.

But, thankfully, I can make these observations in peace and quiet. I’m a total nobody and I daydream about such things in my little corner of the Internet without anyone caring. Though, I did learn when I was writing a lot about Alexa Chung a few years ago that if you write about anything enough online someone, somewhere will notice. Ugh.

Thankfully, that era in my life is over.

Now I’m obsessed with the novel and writing a breakout hit novel.

I have to admit that I find it very dumb that if there is some sort of “digital telepathy” at work right now that Big Tech won’t tell us about it so they can turn around and sell us $1,2000 “mindcaps” that skip the step of MX (AR / VR) and go directly to having some sort of “mind media” whereby you would see movies in your mind or hear music in your mind using your body’s own “wetware.”

That all sounds very fantastical, but as Arthur C. Clarke would say, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

A Real Life ‘Inception’ & The Dangers Of A Secret Soft Singularity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something occurred to me recently about the possibility of “digital telepathy.” Once you establish that Big Tech can read or minds (which is still in all honesty a dubious proposition) then you have to contemplate the idea that such technology might not be used just to sell us widgets better but it might be weaponized.

It might be reversed.

It might be a real-life “Inception.”

Why stop at just secretly reading people’s minds when you might do research to figure out how to implant ideas into people’s minds. It would take the usual subluminal ratfucking we all know about in the media to the next level. Actual concepts could be snuck into the audience of Tik-Tok, or Google or Facebook.

If you take this one step further, when fucking Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton becomes president and we either have a civil war or an autocracy, I could imagine them using such technology to keep the masses docile.

But all that is really too surreal and Black Mirror or Halloween 3 for me.

That definitely seems more like stuff MI6 or the CIA might look into via DARPA. Being able to read people’s minds then use such technology to directly pop ideas into their heads is both deep and dangerous.

Yet, thankfully, that will never happen.

Right, right?

The Secret, Soft Singularity: Real Talk About Tik-Tok (& Big Tech) & ‘Digital Telepathy’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about what might amount to a secret “Soft Singularity” being perpetrated upon us by Big Tech is if they are doing it they’re probably screwing themselves over in more ways than one.

First, if Big Tech can read our minds then couldn’t that technology be used for some sort of $1,200 “Mindcap” in the future? If they gradually grew consumers used to notion that such technology actually already existed — or was on its way — then they could roll out a Mindcap and start a $1 trillion industry.

Meanwhile, if they keep leaning on their ability to read our minds (if they can, in fact do this) then should the technology somehow become rather abruptly known, then, well, all bets are off. People could freak out at the notion of some sort of “mind rape” taking place on the general public at the hands of Big Tech and that, unto itself, could cause some sort of anti-technology “Neo-Luddite” movement to spring up. It might not be very pretty.

And this doesn’t even begin to address the national security aspect of all of this. If the Chinese government is rooting around the minds of American youth via its so-called “algorithms” that might give an astonishing amount of practical information about what’s going on in the United States.

It’s not too difficult to imagine someone related to NSA or CIA person using Tik-Tok and giving the Chinese government an eyepopping amount of information about the United States intelligence community via their minds.

That sounds bonkers, but something is fucking up with Tik-Tok. Not a day goes by now that I’m not pushed content by Tik-Tok on my For You Page that goes beyond just listening to me via my phone or even monitoring what I’m typing via my browser…it goes straight into fucking reading my mind.

It seems as though Tik-Tok thinks they can get away with reading our minds in part because they reference things we’re embarrassed to admit we’re thinking about. Let that sink in for a moment. If that isn’t a sly way of keeping people from talking publicly about any potential mind reading technology, I don’t know what is.

But let me be clear — 99% of the “spooky” things I’m being pushed can be explained in some way other than digital telepathy. But there is that 1% that simply can not be explained in no other way than something that is not easily explained.

And, yet, I have no proof that I could point to and get the New York Times to look into this idea. But all of this is very concerning to me for various reasons.

Another Spooky Tik-Tok Pushing of Strangely Relevant Content


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I went to a restaurant today and had some tequila. Then, today, on my Tik-Tok “For You Page” what do I get, but an extremely relevant video about, you guessed it…tequlia.

I don’t know. I just don’t know. It seems as though I’m being really paranoid about this — which I probably am — and, yet…it’s spooky.

The Secret Singularity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It never occurred to me until now that a form of the Singularity may be a upon in secret. Or, put another way, Big Tech isn’t exactly going out of its way to tell the general public that some technologies that would be considered a part of the Singularity are already here and being used in ways that are changing people’s lives.

Take, for instance, automated cars.

What happens when hard AI arrives via cars…and we just accept it as a part of life like automated elevators? In other words, what if Big Tech cracks the nut of hard AI and does in a way meant to make us all shrug and continue to curse the meat?

For me, the main reason why this is unnerving is if Big Tech can figure out hard AI to make money, then an autocratic government could use it to control its population more effectively. Given it’s loudmouths like me that always run afoul of autocratic governments, the idea that President Pompeo or President Hawley might have access to hard AI to monitor domestic communication is not cool at all.

So, it’s at least possible that either we’ll find out about the Singularity when some sort of whistleblower pops out or something like hard AI will arrive via a Her-type personal assistant.

But I agree with Elon Musk — unregulated hard AI is probably one of the biggest dangers facing humanity. Too bad it may already be here in secret.

The Implications Of A ‘Secret’ Soft Singularity, or ‘Where’s My $1,200 Mindcap?’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I struggle to figure out what’s going on right now with technology. On one hand, it definitely seems as though Big Tech is pulling a fast one on us with some some pretty fantastical technologies like “Digital Telepathy,” while at the same time…Silicon Valley seems obsessed with the modern equivalent of the old rural party lines.

I want my Mindcap.

So, it’s possible to imagine a rather Dark Mirror-like future where The Singularity arrives…and no one tells us. The power of the Singularity is used deep within the bowels of Big Tech (or an autocratic government) to leech money off of us or to two control us. The general population never knows that hard AI is here and is being used to control us.

Sure, the occasional cool thing may pop out like a “Her” like personal assistant, but the various Singularity-like technologies we’ve been promised will come no later than 2045 won’t be marketed as such. They just will arrive far earlier and be used in some unexpected ways to screw us all over.

The more I think about it, the more chilling it becomes.

Instead of a $1,200 Mindcap, we may simply get the Pompeo Administration using digital telepathy to monitor what’s going on in our minds and if we commit Thought Crime, then, sucks to be you. It’s just wild to imagine something as huge as The Singularity being hidden from us.

It’s like Columbus discovering the New World, then keeping it from everyone in an effort to control the path to Asia. Wow. Just wow.

But I’m a just a nobody. Absolutely no one listens to me.