faceh
5d ago
Perhaps it's a class thing or it's just that me and everyone around me has somehow filtered out the crazy.
That's the one. Its a class thing AND you've also filtered out crazies.
I worked as a public defender specifically on a domestic violence docket for about six months. EVERY single horror story you can think of, both in terms of loved ones beating on each other (not just spouses, mind!) and false accusations ruining lives are true, and indeed are happening daily.
Yet... I know of literally nobody in my personal circle of immediate friends and family who has had to deal with that situation.
The level of dysfunction required for someone to actually physically beat someone they care about, or to falsely accuse someone of same, is actually QUITE high. But, there's the bottom, lets call it quartile of the population in terms of impulse control who will absolutely pass that threshold at times.
So if you're drawing most of your social circle from the top two quartiles, with some dipping into the third quartile, then by sheer selection effects, you probably won't know anybody who actually ended up arrested and in court for DV-related reasons.
And be happy for that, in Florida at least the Court system is NOT optimized for helping ensure domestic tranquility, it is there to throw down barriers and inflict punishments and it is very heavy-handed when applying both, so it is a very unpleasant system to interact with whether or not you're guilty of what you've been accused of.
faceh
6d ago
My maximum charitable take is that they're just giving audiences the thing they've shown they want.
I model most movies along three axes for what justifies said movie's existence and creates the appeal to the audience.
They can be plot driven; They can be action driven; They can be character driven.
Or often, some combination of all 3.
Character driven means we get engaged with a unique/interesting character, who is put into certain situations, has a certain arc, and comes out changed in some way. The plot doesn't have to make sense, we're mostly just focused on seeing the character's reaction to what's happening, how they interact with other characters, and the lessons they learn by the end. Writing needs to be good, but mostly in terms of dialogue, giving the character(s) a recognizable voice and appropriately comedic or dramatic lines.
Action driven, we're there to see a spectacle, the plot is mostly there to set up scenarios for the action, and if the action is sensational enough the audience doesn't notice or forgives plot holes or crappy writing. You write your character some pithy one-liners and give enough of a skeleton of a plot to move things along. Choreography matters a lot more here.
Plot driven, though... we're there for an interesting story. Entertaining events, surprising twists, revelations, and a satisfying conclusion are mandatory. If the twist doesn't land, if there's noticeable holes in the plot, if there's too many boring scenes, it fails. If your audience is watching because they're "invested in the plot" and REALLY want to see where it goes, you have to make it work the entire time, and pay off effectively. In this case, the writing pretty much HAS to be solid, minimal/no plot holes, AND you have to keep your characters acting consistently.
What Hollywood appears to have noticed is that general audiences mostly prefer character and action driven vehicles... and care very little about purely plot-driven ones, where the story, not the characters, is the central draw.
I'd blame it on Marvel, to some extent. People show up to watch Thor or Iron Man or Starlord get into crazy shenanigans, with a big, splashy action fight scene at the climax to justify the cost of the ticket.
If you give them their beloved characters, and give them a pulse-pounding action sequence or two, most audiences will give it a thumbs up. They won't analyze the plot threads or question the film's logic or pick apart character motivations too much. So why bother giving them a tight, logical, completely unique story?
And its much, much easier to write stories for such films, where you don't have to make the plots completely coherent, just make your audience 'have fun' and you're golden.
So I think plot just falls by the wayside, and Hollywood optimizes for putting well-liked characters on screen and making up crazy scenarios to put them in, motivation or logical sense be damned.
Well this explains a lot about your stated positions.
Makes me realize that I probably turned out as weird as I did because I kind of had a one-foot-in-one-foot out upbringing, where half my family was churchgoing patriotic traditionalists and the other was more... bohemian? And both sides seemed pretty happy with their lives and had things mostly held together.
'How does everyone fit into society' is a question that needs to be answered and if you've already decided personal characteristics are the way to go about it, well...
We've talked about basic life scripts before, and in general I think that demolishing those scripts has made life harder, scarier, more uncertain, less fulfilling for most people. Becoming an adult is difficult enough when there IS a direct example to follow. Now you have to do it while explicitly being told there is no one 'right way' to go about it.
When every single day, month, year of your life feels like you're having to hack through uncharted wilderness, and determine your location via a hand-drawn map and dead-reckoning, then yeah you're going to keep second-guessing a lot of decisions and live in constant fear of bear attacks, vs. staying on a well-beaten, marked, and lit pathway. (I overstate the analogy just to make a point).
And as you note, people who LARP Conservativism don't really push a RETVRN to such life scripts, or have a plan for bringing those scripts back. Because telling your viewers "go to church, follow the bible, and accept your given place and role in life without much complaint" is so utterly uncool and, for an influencer, self-defeating. If the audience does that they will start listening to their pastor more than you, right?
In fact, now I think about it: the term "Conservative Influencer" is almost a contradiction.
I don't think this mentality can come back from the government, but only from intermediating institutions that democrats would like to punish for doing their job and pushing this. But this is the key difference; most adults have probably worked it out for themselves but nobody ever says it out loud.
Agreed. But both the right and the left seem to have converged on the idea that the government ought to be the single wellspring from which all morality and practical guidance comes. What to eat, what to wear, how to arrange your affairs.
Again, overstating the case. I have spent a good portion of my adult life groping around for SOME institution, group, maybe even (ugh) ideology that would give me a provably reliable path towards a better life. But very explicitly not wanting to fall into a cult.
The only one that hasn't let me down in some egregious way, and has remained a steadying force in life is, no shit, my martial arts gym.
The gym I teach at provides the following:
- A strong routine. The schedule for classes has been the same for years and years.
- A curriculum of new material to learn (I've mastered basically all of it, but that just lets me reach out and find new stuff)
- A great social group of generally good, reliable people. (If they weren't good and reliable, they wouldn't stick it out. This stuff is HARD).
- A certain amount of moral instruction: "We are teaching you to inflict physical harm on your fellow human, here are the conditions under which you can do so or should do so."
- A system for advancement (there are tests on a regular schedule, and you earn higher belts as you go).
- Which also allows for a benevolent soft hierarchy. Higher belts are more experienced (and theoretically more dangerous) and thus command some respect, but they have a reciprocal duty to help lower belts learn faster. And nobody thinks, for example, a blue belt has the authority to ORDER a yellow belt to do something.
- Also fun.
I'd guess this checks a lot of the boxes for people who want to be able to follow instructions and see improvement in their life circumstances and be rewarded for the progress. There was a period of time where I think Corporations tried to sort of provide that to employees to make them more productive, but the underlying loyalty that requires has dissipated.
Church is still there, but good luck picking one that isn't compromised by political activism or that isn't mostly full of LARPers.
That seems to leave most people with joining up with political activism or getting into politics. Which tends to make everything worse.
faceh
2d ago
I'm curious what you think the counterfactual world looks like, where Trump comes out instead and claims "There were malicious people at work, and it was all orchestrated by [specific actors]."
What would happen next?
And if you're going off the assumption that Trump is being truthful and fully transparent, then why'd you bring up the election issues?
Are YOU saying that his claims of the election being stolen are credible, since you're here saying that he's honest about such serious matters?
His supporters otoh, have ramped up the anti-elite conspiracy to include this assassination attempt, in order to show loyalty/outbid themselves, even here on the motte.
Neat.
Now do the people who don't think Trump was shot at all.
So long as we're addressing conspiracy theories.
faceh
4d ago
i.e. people who got them unwillingly.
I'd say soldiers and sailors who were putting their life on the line and thus could never really be sure if they'd make it back to respectable society would also get a pass, although that also kind of falls in my "symbolic of something meaningful" exception.
Oh, and its worth mentioning how it seems like now full sleeves are kind of the default for Cops, Soldiers, even firemen these days. Like its functionally part of the 'uniform'!
Yeah, I've come to realize that most of the art that we judge to have the deepest meaning and most heartfelt creation is just people working for a paycheck, under a deadline, and with no particular intent on making a masterpiece, indeed no way of knowing if anyone would even care about it after they released it.
Then, when one of these works of arts hits mainstream success, the narrative of its creation is amended to make it seem as though the sole motivation for its creation was the artists' outpouring of their soul and they dug deep into their well of angst and it was a work of pure creative oubrust.
Take for example the Song "Sweet Child O' Mine," by Guns N' Roses, which is undoubtedly a GREAT song on almost every level. Evocative, intensely emotional but energetic. Skill was involved in its creation, no doubt.
But how'd they compose the song and come up with such appropriate lyrics, especially the breakdown?
During a jam session at the band's house in Sunset Strip, drummer Steven Adler and Slash were warming up and Slash began to play a "circus" melody while making faces at Adler.
LITERALLY just goofing around with each other and came up with an neat-sounding riff.
Then:
When the band recorded demos with producer Spencer Proffer, he suggested adding a breakdown at the song's end. The musicians agreed, but were not sure what to do. Listening to the demo in a loop, Rose started saying to himself, "Where do we go? Where do we go now?" and Proffer suggested that he sing that.
The iconic breakdown of the song wasn't so much the process of talented genius... it was an expression of uncertainty and some third party said "run with that."
(Side note, knowing this story makes me find this portion of the song hilarious if you pretend the band is literally asking the audience "hey guys we don't know how to end this song, any thoughts?" like a genuine question.)
How many songs are out there that have similar creation stories... but never got any popularity so nobody knows the story or would care anyway.
So much of life is just that. A confluence of random factors which we then create a retroactive narrative about to seem more meaningful ("authentic") than it really is.
I'm going to go a step further, for controversy's sake, and say that close to zero tattoos truly look good in practice.
Human skin is just not a great medium for artistic expression. The ones that are hyperdetailed kind of look okay if you look from the right angle, but get up too close and they tend to betray imperfections and from further away they all look like jumbles of random shapes and generally don't look like intentional art pieces.
The ones I might grant as appealing tend to be simple designs or patterns that emphasize the underlying physical features. But most people don't have good taste, and someone willing to permanently mark their body is probably even less likely to have good taste about it.
And time ticks by a few years, colors fade, clean lines get washed out, skin deforms and wrinkles and whatever trendy design you had falls from popularity (mileage may vary by how you care for them).
I make some exceptions for tattoos that genuinely symbolize something meaningful or important in the person's life. It is actually interesting to see a unique tattoo, ask about it, and get an actual story about its significance! That serves a 'useful' social purpose. But then, the signalling value is not in the aesthetics of the tattoo itself!
faceh
4d ago
I don't think the 'true' upper class ever really started wearing tattoos, is the thing.
Celebrities, athletes, maybe some actors, but rarely anyone with real 'power.'
I would defy you to find any tattoo worn by an actual human being that actually signals "I am a higher class than you."
I just did a cursory google search and I can tentatively say that ZERO billionaire business magnates have a single tattoo. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Dorsey, not even Palmer Luckey. Wait, Jensen Huang apparently has one, but I can only find the one photo and he clearly states he won't get another.
Not even Steve Jobs back in the day had one.
And these are guys that could hire the literal best artists alive to create absolute masterworks for them. And, goes without saying, couldn't easily be fired for getting one.
faceh
4d ago
On the flip side there's the principal-agent problem.
If you're incompetent and unteachable enough that you need to be governed with direct intervention, and restricted from handling your own affairs, you're also not really equipped to tell if your overseer is making good decisions on your behalf, and even if they aren't actively exploiting you, they can of course be making decisions that are suboptimal for your personal wellbeing, simply because they are not as motivated to do the best possible job.
Maybe there needs to be an overseer-advocate role whose sole job is to audit the other overseers and ensure they're at least complying with best practices.
But this adds extra complexity and expense to this system.
So one really hopes that in the aggregate the added costs of supervising the supervisors and auditing the expenses and otherwise ensuring that the wards are being treated adequately well are actually producing more value than just leaving those folks to their own devices to be exploited.
I can see why institutionalization was a popular solution for this in decades past. If you can put the wards all in one place and lock them in, it takes relatively few supervisors to manage them all, and in theory if you can check in on the conditions regularly and make sure there's no wanton abuses.
In practice, the people most drawn to these jobs would, in many cases, be the most likely to want to commit some kind of abuse.
Far be it from me to criticize the economics of an action film, but yeah, there genuinely CANNOT be enough contract killings needed in this world to justify the number of assassins that populate New York.
I can imagine that intergang warfare flares up from time to time which requires hiring on more talent, but if most of them have enough downtime to just hang out in the city, and need money badly enough to go after the most feared killer alive, there must not be much else going on between gang wars.
And it would nice to portray an assassin who sees the contract to take out John, looks at the monetary amount, shakes his head, and goes back to his crosswords b/c screw that.
My headcanon is that "The Table" gets involved in international politics by taking contracts from nation-states to kill elites/politicians/businessmen in other countries and this is where most of the money in the assassin economy comes from, and the main reason they maintain such strict procedures and rules, so that various governments 'trust' them to keep things orderly and in exchange, tolerate their existence rather than declare war on them.
There's literally nothing shown in the movies to corroborate this, of course.
Sadly plot also requires you to pay attention and the dirty secret is that many viewers regardless of age range don’t want to sit through a whole movie and pay attention the whole time.
Also likely true.
Teens and even many adults probably need some new stimuli every couple minutes if they're going to keep eyes on the screen. Remembering a subtle setup or vital piece of exposition that comes to a head in the 3rd act requires that they actually noticed it when it happened.
I'd guess that's why the Minecraft movie made so much money, just constant flood of stimulus after stimulus, don't need to care about any particular one, it won't come into play later.
To say nothing of the Super Mario Bros. movie, which I saw in theaters with friends, and the entire time I couldn't help myself thinking "okay, WHY do the blocks float and why are there random powerups hidden in them to give you special abilities? WHY does Kong society have an arena for gladiatorial combat? Why do they have dozens of go-karts, and why the hell does this rainbow road exist in the first place?"
I don't ask these questions about the video games! But the movie has the conceit of a plot... but I've literally never seen a plot that was more based on "something happens to move us to the next scene" and the movie just lacks any real connective tissue. Actually, the Deadpool and Wolverine Movie, which I also saw in theaters was also kind of like that. Probably the laziest setup for a 'final showdown' I've ever seen.
rewrites can destroy plot very easily via death by a thousand cuts. Great plot takes discipline!
Also solid point. Even a little bit of executive meddling can upset the delicately constructed but perfectly balanced plotline you established, and the the end product just seems like a mess. Much easier to disrupt a good plot than to build it.
faceh
1d ago
The real cost is probably somewhere around 10x that for what a highly motivated teen boy’s libido will demand.
Most teen boys could probably make due with one running on the lowest setting for a year or two.
The costs are just wildly out of budget for the youth, who last I checked were willing to pay approximately $0.00 for porn. I remember being that age; why would things change?
Yeah but again, they can do some CRAZY targeted advertising through this platform. "Oh babe, take me on an Applebees™ date, so we can get their All you can eat boneless wings™ with a free Coke Zero™ . Then I'll sing you a Taylor Swift™ song on the ride home."
Etc. etc.
faceh
1d ago
Well, that's the interesting thing.
AI gets hyped up, as e.g., an infinitely patient and knowledgeable tutor, that can teach you any subject, or a therapist, or a personal assistant, or editor.
All these roles we generally welcome the AI if it can fill them sufficiently. Tirelessly carrying out tasks that improve our lives in various ways.
So what is the principled objection to having the AI fill in the role of personal companion, even romantic companion, tireless and patient and willing to provide whatever type of feedback you most need?
I can think of a few but they all revolve around the assumption that you can get married and have kids for real and/or have some requirements that can only be met by a flesh-and-blood, genetically accurate human. And maybe some religious ones.
Otherwise, what is 'wrong' with letting the AI fill in that particular gap?
faceh
4d ago
Yes, but drill it in a little deeper, the demonstrated ability to wreak havoc on your enemies is catnip for women since in the ancestral environment that was a major signal for genetic fitness, that you would produce strong children and could protect them to adulthood.
That's why I don't quite think that its a failure of risk-aversion (I mean, after the first time he hits her, sure), since on an evolutionary level, there'd be a larger risk to pairing with a guy who was physically incapable of defending you.
But it is bonkers that once they feel attraction the prefrontal cortex isn't able to project the longer term consequences of pursuing the guy. Not just that he might beat her, but that he's got no real prospects for building wealth or raising a family in a stable environment. This is so fucking primal that you see fashion Heiresses getting knocked up by sexy felons and a literal Rothschild leaving her husband to date a rapper.
And yeah, there are counter stories about wealthy men blowing up their lives and leaving faithful women to pursue or marry a stripper or even literal prostitute. No doubt. But far as I can tell that's never socially celebrated or sanctioned or really excused.
I think about this video constantly ever since I first saw it.
The stated admission (that I do not think is a joke!) that even a literal villain who slaughtered her people can instantly win her over by... pointing a sword at her throat.
That visceral sense of fear, the impression that John was going up against competent foes and beating them through sheer skill? Gone.
I mean, being fair, at this point a competent foe would have a small army of snipers watching out for John. And might just fire a grenade launcher at him if he shows up (it almost worked the first time they tried it). So there has to be some kind of suspension of disbelief or unspoken code for the fights to unfold the way they do.
I do really find it annoying that the first movie basically made him an ultra-capable one-man-army in a relatively grounded criminal underworld, but as that criminal underworld was expanded, it became WAY less grounded. And so did John's capabilities.
By the third it is implied that "The Table" functionally runs the world?
I dunno. I like the smaller scale ideas like the Continental being a sacred space where ceasefire is enforced, high class gun and clothing stores in major cities that specialize in outfitting assassins, and the local cops being clued in/on the payroll, which helps explain why they don't interfere when stuff pops off.
Basically, the very concept of John Wick works best in a world where criminals/crime syndicates have a heavily enforced honor code, but are also constantly fighting with each other and stay completely in the shadows, vs. going balls to the wall in a busy street. Simple fridge logic: why the fuck don't the bystanders in cars just STOP when they see a shootout occurring? Also applies to people who keep dancing in a nightclub while men are being slaughtered with axes all around.
Anyway yeah. I will defend the series pretty heavily, but it now operates almost entirely on "rule of cool."
faceh
6d ago
Hitchcock and, later, Spielberg and James Cameron were my main thoughts on directors that could pull all three off.
Indiana Jones (the first 3) is the series the comes to mind as the paragon of balanced action-characters-plot, mixed to perfection.
faceh
1d ago
You're trying to rationalize how the AI could be "just as good" or "not as dangerous" as the real thing, because you know that the AI is obviously worse.
No, simply pointing out a failure mode that human relationships have that an AI really does not. The AI has other failure modes that are more dystopic, of course.
The human relationship failure mode is one that that I've now personally observed multiple times, unfortunately, happening to people who do not deserve it.
I do not think the AI is inherently better, I simply think it has an appeal to men who don't feel they've got a shot at the real thing.
And that is VERY VERY bad for society.
There are lots of women who are settling down with lots of men as we speak.
Objectively fewer than in years past. That's the point. This is simply adding to an existing trend.
And we can extrapolate that trend and wonder if we'll get as bad off as, say, South Korea. We know it can get worse because worse currently exists.
I'm not here trying to JUSTIFY men choosing the digital option. Quite the opposite. I'm just saying I don't see a reason why, in practical terms, they'd reject it.
I did some self-interrogation on why I was dissappointed with this outcome, and I think a lot of the issue is that there wasn't a clear definition of what people wanted to see from this investigation.
There's at least two, maybe three 'generally accepted' definitions of the "Epstein Client List."
-
The literal list of people who appear in Epstein's notes and logs and such. This we kind of know exists, and it has been released, at least in part. Not dispositive proof of any actual wrongdoing.
-
The list of people that Epstein kept of those he had compromised directly and trafficked women/girls to for purposes of blackmail, and who thus would be at risk of legal consequences if discovered. This would be pretty decent proof of wrongdoing.
-
The list of people that the FBI has constructed via corroboration of details in the above notes and evidence and established some cause to believe were actually complicit in Epstein's activities either because they benefited from them or were trying to keep their own activities under wraps. THIS one would be the grounds for actual legal action.
And I find that I wanted them to release #3. I don't want a bunch of disparate notes and papers that people have to comb over and construct elaborate theories around, I wanted the designated law enforcement officials to do their job and actually zero in on the people 'involved' in the conspiracy (look, we KNOW there was a conspiracy, its beyond 'theory' at this point) and thus would be truly culpable, even if there wasn't quite good enough evidence to convict. The FBI is very good at rolling up whole organized crime groups at the same time. There's a reason the Mafia is not really a major force in the U.S. anymore. If there was a larger group of people at work its impossible that they COULDN'T trace their activities. It is possible they traced them and realized it would be a fruitless exercise to attempt prosecution.
So people who wanted lists 1 or 2 released are disappointed because they're being told such a thing technically doesn't exist. Which may be true! Maybe the only true list of co-conspirators existed in Epstein's brain. Which, if so, definitely bumps up my personal odds of him being murdered.
But I think the real issue that is pissing people off is the lack of #3. As in, we know there were girls being trafficked, we KNOW there must have been people they were trafficked to, and there's significant reason to believe some of them were high powered politicians, celebs, and other elites. If the FBI has exonerated such people, fine. But what it feels like is that they just kinda shoved it all in a drawer and decided there was no reason to dig deeper. Or were told to do so by some other power.
Anyhow, I genuinely expect that the truly salacious, explosive details will be kept under wraps until most of the involved parties are old and all but immune to prosecution, or dead. We'll get a declassified Epstein report in about 10-20 years that reveals the full extent of the coverup, but by then it'll be hard to gin up the public ire enough to actually take any action, and obtaining justice against the involved parties will be impossible, so it'll just fade into status as a historical scandal.
That's just how it goes. Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown
faceh
1d ago
I dunno, it feels like a deathblow on top of all the other mentioned factors. The thing that finally kills our urge to climb out of the hole.
There's a version where the AI can teach a man (or a woman!) how to talk to the opposite sex and both select and become a good partner.
But thanks to molochian incentives, that's not what we will get, if there's an immediate way to use the tool to extract resources from people rather than guide them to what they truly wish they had.
(Okay, one or two of these warnings might have been correct, in retrospect.)
Yeeeup.
xAI is basically picking up the applications which are too icky for the big AI firms.
Well, there's also the real possibility that allowing pornographic uses can help you win an otherwise closely contested tech race.
Not making a claim on that, but I think there's a solid argument that whatever version of a given tech lets men see tits is going to have an edge, even if it is inferior in other ways.
Now she is planning to remarry.
Just to clarify, is this because she met someone new, or is that her vague expectation on how she'll proceed?
I wonder what socially conservative child support reform would look like.
The money goes into an account handled by a third party who is in charge of ensuring the money is spent on the child's needs.
None of it goes into an account the mother controls. When the child turns 18, we can either give the child full control of the account or (here's a thought!) refund it back to the father.
faceh
6d ago
Could he say something that makes him look more guilty?
"I am pre-emptively pardoning any person who might be connected to this case whatsoever."
(i.e. what Biden did with the Hunter situation).
I'd immediately assume he was directly involved if that happened.
faceh
1d ago
Right. This is just the next step of a pattern that is already established. Money exchanged for the feeling of romantic or sexual attention/attraction.
They were already having a fully artificial 'relationship' with a digital 'woman' who doesn't know of their existence.
This just cuts out the need for a woman in the loop at all.
Not in the current form.
I'm dedicated to pursuing a quality of "authenticity," which I don't have perfectly defined, but definitely requires that my partner be a real human, with 'natural' skin, brain tissue, and standard human DNA. The thing that I'm ACTUALLY wired to find attractive, not something that mimics those things closely enough to pass a basic inspection. Related to why I don't really like Tattoos on women.
In many ways, we are descending into my version of hell, where finding meaningful connection with other humans is harder than is needs to be, where women are more focused on careers and adventures, at the expense of their own happiness, than even trying to find joy in bearing and raising kids, where men are fundamentally purposeless and nobody bothers to even try to create a purpose for them, and everybody is busy trying to live at the expense of everyone else, b/c coordinating to create that better future is HARD and we aren't able to see past the short term consequences of these actions. But I can, and it seems increasingly obvious where this is trending. And nobody with power is doing much about it.
And its all being patched over with digital (i.e. INAUTHENTIC) simulacrum that sort of satisfy the various urges without really fulfilling the purpose for which each urge exists, and these experiences that are simply insufficient to make you happy if you care to look and notice the cracks in their facade.
All the worse because I can clearly imagine a better set of circumstances that is happier for everyone, including myself, and I have a vague idea of how we could get there, but no real clue on how to implement that plan, and thus I am left to scrape by with whatever my individual efforts can achieve.
Hot on the heels of failing out of art school and declaring himself the robofuhrer, Grok now has an update that makes him even smarter but less fascist.
And... xAI releases AI companions native to the Grok App.
And holy...
SHIT. It has a NSFW mode. (NSFW, but nothing obscene either) Jiggle Physics Confirmed.
EDIT: Watch this demo then TELL ME this thing isn't going to absolutely mindkill some lonely nerds. Not only can it fake interest in literally any topic you find cool, they nailed the voice tones too.
I'm actually now suspicious that the "Mecha-Hitler" events were a very intentional marketing gambit to ensure that Grok was all over news (and their competitors were not) when they dropped THIS on the unsuspecting public.
This... feels like it will be an inflection point. AI girlfriends (and boyfriends) have already one-shotted some of the more mentally vulnerable of the population. But now we've got one backed by some of the biggest companies in the world, marketed to a mainstream audience.
And designed like a fucking superstimulus.
I've talked about how I feel there are way too many superstimuli around for your average, immature teens and young adults to navigate safely. This... THIS is like introducing a full grown Bengal tiger into the Quokka island.
Forget finding a stack of playboys in the forest or under your dad's bed. Forget stumbling onto PornHub for the first time, if THIS is a teen boy's first encounter with their own sexuality and how it interacts with the female form, how the hell will he ever form a normal relationship with a flesh-and-blood woman? Why would he WANT to?
And what happens when this becomes yet another avenue for serving up ads and draining money from the poor addicted suckers.
This is NOT something parents can be expected to foresee and guide their kids through.
Like I said earlier:
I've felt the looming, ever growing concern for AI's impact on society, jobs, human relationships, and the risk of killing us for a couple years now... but I can at least wrap those prickly thoughts in the soft gauze of the uncertain future. THIS thing sent an immediate shiver up my spine and set off blaring red alarms immediately. Even if THIS is where AI stops improving, we just created a massive filter, an evolutionary bottleneck that basically only the Amish are likely to pass through. Slight hyperbole, but only slight.
Right now the primary obstacle is that it costs $300 a month to run.
But once again, wait until they start serving ads through it as a means of letting the more destitute types get access.
And yes, Elon is already promising to make them real.
Its like we've transcended the movie HER and went straight to Weird Science.
Can't help but think of this classic tweet.
"At long last, we have created the Digital Superstimulus Relationship Simulator from the Classic Scifi Novel 'For the Love of All That is Holy Never Create a Digital Superstimulus Relationship Simulator.'"
I think I would be sucked in by this if I hadn't developed an actul aversion to Anime-Style women (especially the current gen with the massive eyes) over the years. And they're probably going to cook up something that works for me, too.
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