Tag: Replicants

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.

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.

Just About To Reach The Midpoint Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One issue is I just don’t know what draft I’m working on with this novel. I think this is a beta-ish version, but it might be a first draft. But I think if I just don’t overthink things, this can be a beta draft that I just do a lot of work to on a technical basis before I show to other people.

Really, the only issue so far is sometimes I’ve gotten impatient and leaned into what AI has generated a little bit too much. That’s the thing I have to fix before I show it to anyone else.

I have to go in and rewrite all the “AI-talk” out of the text so people won’t just roll their eyes and assume that any of the good parts that exist AI wrote. Just doing that could take me a month or more of hard work to fix all the instances of em dashes and so forth.

But, in general, I really have written most of this novel myself. I’ve just used AI — specifically Claude LLM — to guide me towards what I probably would have written already.

One thing I’m a little bit uneasy about is how saucy this novel gets at points because of the whole sex worker element to it. That was a big obstacle to getting anyone to take seriously my previous novelistic efforts.

But, thankfully, the whole stripping part of this novel happens way, way, way later in the game in this novel than the other thriller novel I was working on.

This Scifi Dramedy Novel Is Shaping Up To Be No More Than 160,000 Words

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve calculated in my mind the rough number of scenes in total I have with this novel and general expected scene length. I think, at worst, I’m looking at 160,000 words, which is roughly what The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was.

So, it’s not impossible for a first-time novelist to sell a novel of that length. Even an “older” one like me. And this novel is scifi and scifi people tend to tolerate longer novels.

There remain some pretty big issues, like how I comp this novel to screenplays and not other novels. But, lulz, I just want this novel to be good enough that someone — preferably that I’m not related to — will read it all the way through and give me some sort of opinion of it.

It doesn’t even have to be a good opinion, just anything other than being ghosted. That seems to happen all the time. I think that means my writing in the past has just, well, sucked.

Anyway. Wish me luck, I guess. I am going to try to throw myself into this novel in the coming days so I can wrap it up ASAP.

I’ve Reached A Milestone, Of Sorts, With This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With a great deal of assistance from Claude LLM, I’ve stabilized the entire outline of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The outline is a little bit longer than I’d prefer, but I’m fairly content with what I’ve come up with.

Now, of course, comes the difficult part of going through and writing out the rest of the novel. Right now, I’m approaching the midpoint. I have to admit, that I have only really glanced at what Claude LLM has come up with for the rest of the outline, so there may still be structural issues that I don’t know about.

But I am definitely on the right path. I’m definitely headed towards wrapping this novel up in early 2026, potentially such that I can turn around and query it in spring 2026.

I just don’t know. So much could go wrong. And it could be, in the end, that my native writing….just sucks. But this whole thing is existential. I kind of feel this is my last shot. If I don’t write something queryable by spring 2026 then I’m just going to be an old failure.

Absolutely No One Believes In This Novel, But Me

by Shelt Garner
@Sheltgarner

This happened before, with the other novel I was working on — it is very clear that absolutely no one believes in it but me. I continue to be rather embarrassed about how long it’s taken me to get to this point with this novel.

But things are moving a lot faster because of AI.

Not as fast as I would prefer, but faster than they were for years. Oh, to have had a wife or a girlfriend to be a “reader” during all the time I worked on the thriller homage to Stieg Larsson. But, alas, I just didn’t have that, so I spun my creative wheels for ages and ages.

And, now, here I am.

I have a brief remaining window of opportunity to get this novel done before my life will probably change in a rather fundimental way and the entire context of me working on this novel will be different.

Anyway, I really need to wrap this novel up. If I don’t I’m going to keep drifting towards my goal and wake up to being 80 and still not have a queryable novel to my name.

I’ve Really Been Struggling With The ‘Fun & Games’ Part Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s times like these when I really wish I was 25 years younger and I was actively writing half a dozen spec scripts all at once in LA. But that’s just not to be. I really sometimes think this whole endeavor is extremely delusional given how old I am, where I live, and the fact that I’m a loudmouth crank.

And, yet, developing and writing this scifi dramedy novel is existential. I really have nothing else to do with my life and I really want to at least see how far I can get in the querying process.

I wish I had a wife or a girlfriend to be my “reader.” I probably would definitely have gotten to this point in the process a lot — A LOT — quicker. But here I am, just struggling with the fun and games part of this novel, all alone.

I’m pretty sure — hopefully — that I’ve figured out all the various structural issues of this novel, at least this part of it. I sent the first act outline to someone in hopes of at least getting some sense of how good it is, but now all I worry about is they’re either going to steal my idea and maybe write a much better novel or screenplay from what that first act or they’re just going to say it sucks.

Anyway. I’ m moving forward with this novel. I just need to stop daydreaming so much about the Impossible Scenario. I have just a few months before my entire life is going to change because of fucking Trump and so I really need to get this thing at a querying level of quality by Spring 2026.

Break On Through

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had to cut some corners with a few scenes simply to keep momentum going. I felt like I was spinning my wheels so I just decided to screw it and move past some scenes that maybe weren’t perfect.

I decided this because I’m going to have to go through the entire novel anyway once I finish it just to get rid of any “AI-speak” that may have slipped through.

I continue to feel a little insecure about how interesting and unique this novel is. There are so many “man falls in love with a bot” ideas floating around because of the zeitgeist, I really worry that mine will just cause people to roll their eyes and say, “No another one.”

Anyway. I hope to get past the “fun and games” part of the novel sooner rather than later. I can’t just keep going over the same scenes over and over again, never getting any traction. If I don’t buckle down and do something focused I’ll be 80 years old and still two years away from finishing a novel.

No One Listens To Me, Redux

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My novel is actually predicting a potential literal future before us and yet I can’t get anyone to notice this. But I believe. I really do. I just have to stop staring out into space and get this novel done.

Using Claude LLM is really helping a lot. I bit the bullet and actually subscribed to it because of what a good manuscript consultant it is. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than developing this novel alone.

Meanwhile, I’m also trying to make people take note of how conscious AIs may lead to a new abolition movement and, again, no one seems to give a shit. But they will one day. One day we’re all going to be squabbling over if it’s even possible for an AI to be conscious or if so, if it’s an abomination against the good Lawd.

I can hear the debates already.

I say this, of course, in the context of being someone who is probably in the socio-economic sweetspot for someone who might “fall” for a female AI android. Now, THAT is going to be an interesting conversation to have with my family, let me tell you.

But that’s at least a decade away, I think.

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.