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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10501 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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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:

"Who would win, a literal child whose brain hasn't even developed higher reasoning, with a smartphone and internet access, or a remorseless, massive corporation that has spent millions upon millions of dollars optimizing its products and services for extracting money from every single person it gets its clutches on?"

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.

Look at my Total Fertility Rate dawg, we're never having children

Eh. I don't think this is necessarily catastrophic, but we better get those artificially wombs up and running. If AGI can give us sexbots and concubines, then it can also give us nannies.

Edit: If I was Will Stancil and this version of Grok came for my bussy, I wouldn't be struggling very hard.

You think this is bad, wait until AI can make realistic toddler robots.

I think those are called "dogs".

Dogs aren’t really like a human child. They can’t talk, for one.

Coincidentally I recently stumbled upon an extremely creepy series of shorts (created using AI, for maximum irony) about humanity repeatedly extinguishing itself by overuse and over-reliance on technology.

Eh. I don't think this is necessarily catastrophic

Up until now I'd say there were probably options to help turn the tide around. This is basically a black hole from which no unprepared mind can likely escape.

My brother in Christ, you shouldn't be arguing against gooner superstimuli while also watching YouTube Shorts!

The gooner stuff is probably less bad because you can't easily get away with watching it while out and about.

Save yourself, before it's too late.

Nah, came across it because I'm doing a bit of research regarding my previous prediction about someone making a feature-length AI film.

Trying to get a sense of what is possible and what people are working on.

The one that's really impressive is this one. Full 15 minutes of coherent narrative and mostly consistent visuals.

And ALSO has some ironic things to say about AI replacement of humans.

And I'm feeling pretty good about that prediction:

It took nearly 600 prompts, 12 days (during my free time), and a $500 budget to bring this project to life.

If one guy can make a 15 minute film in 12 days on $500... yeah, someone can spit out a 90 minute one by the end of the year if they work at it, especially if they have a team.

Some days I get the sense that I'm staring into the Abyss willingly. But the Abyss hasn't stared back... yet.

Agreed. Veo 3 is a massive breakthrough, and it's only going to get better. $500 is absolute chump change, and even ten times that isn't a big deal in the movie world. I expect that even the big studios are going to see how far they can go with replacing/augmenting normal capture or even expensive CGI with the tech. It seems the only real moats left are IP, name recognition and distribution deals, which isn't very reassuring for them.

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