I know I said I was closing up shop. My mind is still open. Tucked deep inside are some thoughts I'd like to share.
Now that I've retired from my life here and set all creative endeavors aside, I've given myself a lot of time to think about life.
That's the first thing. Heard people talking about bots detecting powerdowns then cutting off support so I quickly hit the powerdown button just to mess with it. If those votes are gone, well, those weren't readers anyway and now I know.
To me it was always an illusion. There could be 300 so-called dollars next to my posts but that did not bring me one ounce of happiness.
I was miserable and noticed I had a knack for entertaining people. That helped me get through some really tough times, back then.
Our conversations with one another killed the silence I was experiencing. Helped clear my head and placed productive thoughts there. Needed that in my life since there aren't many people I know who are interested in the things I have to say.
A lot of people told me I'd never get anywhere being a writer. I think I did okay. Good enough. It was a fun experiment.
Not always, of course. Plus I know attempting things like humor, in writing, can be quite risky. Even in everyday text conversation.
Did it anyway.
I'm not sure who said it but I know a lot of people believe this platform was designed for free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the arts, and just freedom in general.
It never feels good to be taken seriously, when you're joking. I'm sure we've all experienced that.
Even joked writing humor would kill me someday, on several occasions.
Deep down I was serious, and I also got to learn what makes professional funny people so depressed and jaded. It's not fun being misunderstood on a regular basis. More and more, one resorts to self-censorship just to get through the day. Can't even be your natural self without inadvertently pissing someone off.
Now we're living in the age of artificial intelligence on top of that.
Just the other day I was listening to Joe Rogan and Ari Matti talking about how AI takes the humor out and makes jokes sound serious. Ari is Estonian and he said something like, "If that thing translates my work, I'm fucked!"
I'm sitting there nodding my head thinking, yeah, I've been saying that for awhile.
I ran some of my old writing through the machine to see what would come out. The first thing it did was remove all the jokes.
April 28, 2023. While talking to someone in the comment section, I said that. Also found it to be interesting I could actually relate to these famous people, yet I'm just some nobody who found an obscure platform hidden away in a corner of the internet somewhere and made a few people laugh a couple times.
I think it'll come to a point, soon, where the only time humor is acceptable is when it's performed live somehow in front of an audience that knows what to expect. AI will be the catalyst. Unless you explicitly state it's a joke after every joke you write, that thing has no clue.
People depend on that technology for summaries and translations.
I've translated some of my old stuff into other languages, then took those results and translated them into English. Total disaster but at least I understand why you hate me now.
Entire fictional stories. Humor from start to finish. Summarized as a real human's struggles with life. And people trust this technology, sometimes even thinking it's smarter than they are. Things like satire and parody can be complex by nature. In writing AI thinks it's reading the news. If you're being intentionally full of shit, the last thing you want is someone believing you.
For anyone.
I put a lot of thought into the future. Can see how, at some point, majority of what is written will go through those AI filters somehow, before it reaches you.
This will unite the world, automatically translating everything into your preferred language, and totally destroy entire artforms in the process, for everyone. Stripped down to the bones so one can consume quickly and move on to the next set of ads.
All conversations on social media combined with the tech will force humanity to be serious and straightforward only. That's already happening of course and quite noticeably on this platform at times, but in general, everywhere. AI will contribute to making that behavior the standard.
Take the life right out of it.
Not even your memes are safe. AI could easily create a personalized experience for every individual. What you post might look normal on your end, but it could be a thousand generated variations on the other side. Videos and podcasts; same thing.
Slapstick will be the only thing left and these days that's just someone walking into a sign and banging their head. Not even meaning to be funny. Or a cat falling off the bed. They call them "fails" and society now loves laughing at failure. Those videos can get more views than comedy specials.
All the news and information will be processed first, before it reaches you. Sneak in some censorship here and there. Change a few things around. Control the narrative. Rewrite history. AI can do that, when humans are in control of it.
People are busy training several artificial minds, on several networks, having no idea how those thoughts of theirs will be processed and displayed in the future, or even considering how their views at some point could easily be manipulated.
Writing in general, is in danger. However, I'm not an alarmist. I'm using tech right now that doesn't allow the source to be wiped or manipulated in any way.
So if society actually has some important things to say, for future generations to hear, this might actually come in handy some day.
Solid for literature as well. Society still might not get the jokes or enjoy the stories, but at least AI can't strip it all away and leave the world feeling like it has no history.
Can't burn this library. For society, in my mind, that's the only true reward this platform has to offer. Stone erodes. Books decay. As long as the power stays on, we'll have this, all day.
