Category: Me Myself&I

You mean are. They are transforming lives and labor markets right now.

Essentially, everyone’s skills are going down rapidly in terms of $ value. Overnight, most of my graphic designer friends who used to make good money drawing digital stuff,  are unnecessary. Etc.

The thing is, we’ve been having bullshit jobs for decades now! Put it another way, we’ve already reached a point where jobs are this weird, simultaneously necessary (paying bills) and non-necessary (the job is just sitting there drinking lattes) thing.

So there’s no need for tip-toeing around the fact that this technological advance, is more than significantly changing everything. It blows our covers. It exposes our bottoms. Let’s just get money directly, then.

My sister wrote back to me about GPT and it was so scholar and predictable, GPT could have written it. People seem unable to understand and extrapolate –again, GPT is young AF, imagine what it does once really optimized and specialized in tasks. LLMs are the product of 60-70 years of computerization of our world and eliminate an incalculable amount of jobs, yes.

When computers happened, it changed the world. When spreadsheets happened, it changed the world. When the internet happened, it changed the world. AI is those three at the same time!

It’s all denial everywhere, in tech as well. Mfs are either crying that people didn’t care as much for their crypto schemes (you don’t say?), or are arguing about if we can consider GPT intelligent (me: it’s a tool that solves real-life problems by typing in a box; arguing about its intelligence is some irrelevant ass shit).

I need folks to move away from that phase and harness the responsibilities that we have towards ourselves and our future selves.

Dear climate change/Nature,

My fellow Angelenos and I are absolutely OVER this non-sunny bullshit.

It’s April???

TF is you doing??? It is WET on the GROUND bro. For days!!!

IYKYK.

I’m about to start Elysion, finishing the Hades arc.

Also,

Nobody:

Absolutely no one:

Shun: NEBULA CHAIIIN

I read this term this morning in an excellent book about the genesis of computers and, I guess I am in this state as well.

Constantly stimulating myself. Reading endlessly. Pondering otherwise. This AI tidal wave. My passive house obsession and the need for things to slow down and UBI, all aligning with issues like gentrification and general lack of interest in getting involved because corruption is too damn high.

It makes me feel like there’s not much time left.

lmao. One more time, folks:

• The “platform” is the web. It’s here.
• There’s no (sustainable) money in writing anymore. The end.
• Free speech is on the web. It’s here.

Substack is a BS platform. It is basically unnecessary. Talking about “rewarding great work with money” when you’re unprofitable as fuck (they lost $2M in 2020, $22M in 2021 while crowdfunding last month) is nonsense.

It just hit me: AI makes heavy specialization mostly irrelevant.

I don’t need years and years of making 3D models to build something sound in 3D now. I need 3D understanding and the rest will be taken care of. I can just type and go at it.

Same with everything ChatGPT can help with, which seems currently limitless.

So you want to be good at understanding a vast array of things rather than being hyper knowledgeable about one thing.

Holistic ways are always better anyway, so that’s good. But man, that’s a lot of experts out there who are (or will be soon) seething right now.

Yes, the digital world has always been democratizing things more and more. Sound engineers don’t really exist as a profession because software does the engineering now.

But the acceleration of democratization that ChatGPT unlocks, is batshit insane.

So I want to 3D print my future house, right?

The other day I was looking at CNC machines, Computer Aided Manufacturing and so forth. The way it works is that our computers have the 3D model and translate it to a language that the machine cutting real world 3D, understands. The language is called G-Code.

Well, who has G-Code built-in in its internal software features? ChatGPT.

Yes, as of today, you can type in a ChatGPT box something like “please build a square structure with a length of 5.609 feet, with a side made of glass, the rest being concrete, and make this entire structure earthquake-resistant, thanks!”. And the CNC machine will create that. Probably still buggy in March 2023, but probably quite perfect next year.

I can’t.

I keep thinking about and using GPT-4. The implications. Mane.

• You know how we all mostly start our careers by being someone’s assistant? AI just took that job that allows us to get a foot in the door. What now? Only sleazy bosses will do everything to have a cute blonde to assist them? Good thing is they starve to death, there’s that.
• My mom was an independent accountant for 40 years with the help of one assistant (yeah) and 2 computers. Accounting is mostly about applying latest laws/rules to businesses and crunching numbers. AI can do that basically now. My mom wouldn’t have a sustainable income if she had started in 2023 instead of 1983.
• My ex-wife wrote press releases for a living. A good career in 2009. 95% AI’d and auto-generated now.
• You know how visual art is a huge asset requiring dozens of artists to draw and design constantly in game development? Cool. Have you seen the quality of output from MidJourney? Yeah. Way, way better than even 12 months ago.
• Sound design and music? You still need a “prompt engineer” and it’s still rough, but for how long?
• Therapists and counselors? No one can compete with 24/7, wonderful assistance. No one.

It’s moving so freaking fast, TECH people don’t even have the time to grasp progress, let alone non-tech folks.

Y’all are not ready. And of course, AI is getting better every single day. Sundays too. At night. Yeah!

It’s not the end of the world scenarios that interest me. It’s the fact that due to this rapid acceleration in the continuous shift that we’re experiencing in how we live, we have the very real possibility to turn everything around and create a healthy world for all. That is such a rare opportunity and occurrence in history.

I’m almost losing sleep over this.

I bought myself a $25 80s lamp and it works fine. Turn a switch on, turn a switch off, nice normal light, great.

Meanwhile I realized that yes, that LED multicolor lamp that I always leave on the same 2200K because I’m not fidgety like that, is controlled by a remote that ate about 6 AAA batteries in 18 months.

Before 2000, you used to pop one battery in a remote and be done for 50 years. Not anymore!

So instead of replacing an incandescent bulb every 3/5 years, I replace batteries (no way to turn it on/off without the remote) every year.

The opposite of efficiency, right here. Oh, and also:

LEDs mostly suck. The end.

Yes Bill, it has begun.

The Age of AI has begun | Bill Gates (gatesnotes.com)

In the United States, the best opportunity for reducing inequity is to improve education, particularly making sure that students succeed at math. The evidence shows that having basic math skills sets students up for success, no matter what career they choose. But achievement in math is going down across the country, especially for Black, Latino, and low-income students. AI can help turn that trend around.

Bill, I know that you know better than that. Education barely changes anything around inequality. We have generations upon generations who did better scholarly and are still struggling financially. Here is the most recent example:

5 years ago we were telling students “do CS, you’ll be fine”. Today, they are or have graduated, AI is a reality, and we need ten times less programmers in 2023 than we thought we needed in 2018.

(for those who don’t know, AI is very good at programming)

That means, all those 2018 students are now competing with no end in sight. One will get a job, the next 199 will not. They all did what they were supposed to. They’re all probably good enough to get a job, it’s just that AI exists now but didn’t five years ago. And you know how companies love their employees, right?

BILL, WAKE THE FUCK UP

It is just the beginning and it is already massively disruptive. AI literally doesn’t help the way things used to be, today.

First, we should try to balance fears about the downsides of AI—which are understandable and valid—with its ability to improve people’s lives. To make the most of this remarkable new technology, we’ll need to both guard against the risks and spread the benefits to as many people as possible.

Second, market forces won’t naturally produce AI products and services that help the poorest. The opposite is more likely. With reliable funding and the right policies, governments and philanthropy can ensure that AIs are used to reduce inequity. Just as the world needs its brightest people focused on its biggest problems, we will need to focus the world’s best AIs on its biggest problems.

The solution is called Universal Basic Income. For all who do not own property. Society living on top of jobs that pay for everything, is over. It’s been gradually over with technological achievements decade after decade since the end of WWII, if we want to be honest. And that’s fine. Wealth just needs to be redistributed equally.

AI —that I’m toying with everyday and everyday I’m thinking holy fucking shit— is the nail in the coffin of society propelled by jobs. There’s so much of what’s the point with this tool next to me? Yes, paradigm shift. It’s real.

What’s the next step?

I’d like GPT10 to control and manage the federal banks around the world, balancing interest rates and money in a rational way, providing enough for all, which is totally doable without AI but yup, greedy little bags of meat.

But before that UBI now, y’all.