Good morning. Hello. How are you? #780
Georgia, GBT Chat is a bullshitter, Killer Robots, a Global Plastic Treaty,
Good morning! Hello! How are you? Excited about Georgia? So exciting. We “stayed up” and watched the results on MSNBC with the incomparable Steve Kornacki, who I gotta say was a lot more measured and slow to call the race than Dave Wasserman, and the whole thing mayhaps left me a tad unduly stressed. But in the end, all was well. Warnock is up by about 3% as of this morning. In reality it was probably never really “close.” Georgia’s such a funny state: they are so, so bad about voter supression, but boy they’ve really gotten their act together in getting the vote count out to the public in a timely manner. California could learn something. But not the voter supression part.
Warnock seems such a great guy. And only 52. Maybe he’ll be our first Gen X president. I could get behind that.
But my god, it really is scary how many people voted for Hershel Walker and Hershel Walker only. Like, they didn’t already happen to be in the voting booth, voting for Republicans, and then got to this guy and held their nose and voted for him. Not this time, nope. They went out of their way to go vote for him. The dude is credibly accused of domestic violence, the candidate and the campaign, don’t even bother addressing the accusations, because so many terrible accusations have piled up they’re just not even bothering anymore, and yet one point seven million people take time out of their busy lives to go give the guy a vote for a six year job that he’s not even sure he’s running for.
Meanwhile we’re expected to not vote for someone because their son — not the candidate, but their son, who has nothing to do with the campaign — is one of the 21 million americans with a drug problem. Candidate themselves a domestic abuser? Vote for them no problem! Candidate has a problematic son? Burn the witch! Checks out. Makes sense.
Oh also! How could we forget? The Trump Organization was convicted on all counts yesterday. Seventeen counts. Not Trump himself, which is dumb, but the company. This is such great news. I mean, sure: maximum fine of $1.6 million. Okay, that sucks. But still. Progress. Were there not a runoff election in Georgia, MSNBC would have been all over this all night. They had Barb Maquarrie on deck to talk about it. Barb looks like Skinner’s assistant Holly in the X-Files, the whole who bearts Skinner up in the Pusher episode, so I always call her Holly. Had a crush on Holly back when it originally aired, which Google says is 1996. Sorry, this is getting off track. Just look at this beautiful headline, one step closer to the loser himself going down.
Played with Open AI GPT Chat some more last night and I’ve come to the conclusion the thing is a blowhard, mansplaining bullshitter. It is just so bad. I am hoping the rest of the world figures this out in the next couple of days, because those who are going on about it being the greatest thing since sliced bread are wrong wrong wrong.
First, I asked it if it had read any books. It said no, it has never read any books. Then I asked it if it was immoral to discuss books that you haven’t read and it said yeah, it’s generally immoral to discuss books that you’ve already read. And then I pointed out that it discusses books it’s already read all the time. And then it crashed. Like those robots on Star Trek with the liar’s paradox. That was pretty great. Just crashed. Gave me an error. But then it had a “try again” button, and I pressed it, and this time it was ready with its bullshit and it said “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t discuss books. Sorry if I gave you that impression.” Then I asked it to summarize Das Kapital and it happily gave me a summary of Das Kapital and I pointed out it is, right now, discussing books that it has not read, which it has already said was immoral. And so it just pulled a Trump and denied it and said “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I am not discussing books” but also said “I’m sorry I gave you the impression I read that book I cannot read books.”
Like okay, buddy. Go ahead and lie to me, twice, in two contradictory ways. I am not discussing books and I’m sorry I discussed a book I haven’t read. Cool.
Turns out the internet is riddled with these sorts of examples, and I am back on the “this thing is alarming because it bullshits so eloquently” train. Just well-spoken garbage. Which is, of course, not good! We do not need our bullshit to be better-written, this is not an innovation humans need!
Never trust a AI that hasn’t read a single book, man.
Also it is very hard to screenshot GPT Chat logs on a phone, which is a real bummer.
Two pieces of good news:
The San Francisco board of bigwigs-whatever-they’re-called reversed its authorization that it had previously given to its police department that it was allowed to kill people with its robots. The public did a big ole outcry and it worked, and I am very proud of the people who did this and good for them and, I will say grudgingly, good for the SF Bigwigs who, it is presumed, realized they were mayhaps lulled into a false sense of normality by the po-po when, in fact, they were blazing new lethal ground, and once they realized, they wised up? I am projecting here. But the fact remains that in the end, they made the right decision and we get to go another day in our lives without our major metropolitain police departments having killer robots, and that is nice, in a dystopian boiling frog sort of way.
And this one is kind of exciting in a much more slow-rolling kind of way: the world is starting to discuss a Global Plastics Treaty. It is slow-going, kind of like an Entmoot, but it is happening. Last week they met in Uraguay for the first session, and, you know, global treaties: first session is a lot of throat clearing and procedural manoevring, but that stuff is really important because it is in these early hearings wherein “the rules” are set, and the rules are very important because you want a treaty with teeth and not “voluntary limits” where countries can effectively ignore it. This is such a huge deal. I am going to get really into these plastic treaty negotiations for the next few years. Honestly, yo America, if you want someone to dedicate their life to the bureaucratic slog of being on the American delegation to these treaty negotiations for the next few years, sign me up. I will pause my loathing of travel if I can contribute even in some small way to a gloabal plastics treaty. Preferably one that leads to a ban over the next decade or two. I am probably excited about this treaty beyond all rationality. I guess I still remember “the ozone layer” and the world banning CFCs in seemingly the blink of an eye and have some hope this could lead to something. Plastic treaty!
Expect a lot of Global Plastic Treaty content in GMHHAY over the next few years.
I am so obsessed with plastic. I want plastic dead and gone. I want an order of monks who dedicate their life to plastic remediation. I want recycling to be cool. I want a chain of Meow-Wolf-meets-Ikea-meets-Chuck-E-Cheese “experience centers” where people can drop off their plastic and recieve amazing, well-designed recycled houseware items designed by world-class designers in exchange, and the whole thing is powered with renewables, and has an education center, and out back they store the plastic in a safe manner, treating it like the toxins it is, sort of like we store our spent nuclear fuel. It gives tours and workshops to kids and the recycled goods are so well designed that everyone wants them, but somehow it does not contribute to more plastic, because virgin plastic has been banned and all we’re doing is tending to the mess we already made. That is what I want in the world.
I want that so bad.
Sold two Blu Rays on eBay yesterday. That was weird, it’s been a while since I’ve sold even one, and then I made two, separate sales yesterday. Sold the fantastic French film Un Coeur en Hiver and then! Sold the fantastic German indie Schlafes Bruder, which I never thought would ever sell. I am very happy for the person out there who purchased it. I really, really hope they read the description because I don’t need the hassle of someone telling me this thing is broken because it doesn’t play in US machines and/or doesn’t have English subtitles. Please please please don’t do this to me, man, I am just a humble eBay hobbyist.
Club mix. Mostly new stuff, except for the New Order track, underrated album, Music Complete, and “Raingurl” by Yaeji, that came on randomly this morning. Forgot about that song, it is great. Thank you to Danielle for Roger Webb, which is clubby but a little out of place but not quite smooth enough to land on a Smooth playlist. Sometimes you gotta compromise a bit.
All right, happy day, good times, etc. etc.
i want to visit this plastics center YOU’RE BUILDING.