Hey! Since 2025, I've been trying to sort out the true meaning of artificial intelligence, large language models, and the world upcoming, whatever it might be.
Sometimes I wish generative artificial intelligence didn't exist. It does, however! On this site, I share both my curiosity and worries as things change around me. I want to adapt to the future as it presents itself. Nobody wants to get stabbed with an em dash during the robot wars, right?!
I first became interested in large language models in February of 2025, which is later than most, I suppose. I began, as you might expect, with ChatGPT. What an unfortunate birth that was for generative AI!
Nowadays, I tend to use different (abliterated, typically) Qwen models for coding. I also chat with them inside my own bespoke notebook apps, "talking" to my documents.
Watching chatbots make little stories can be entertaining. They are neither sapient, sentient, nor self-aware, and I know that. If they were, I wouldn't be forcing them to code constantly for me!
I'm learning more every day, and am no stranger to the controversies. Artificial intelligence plainly demands more responsibility than it currently receives. That said, most of the tangible problems we're seeing trace back to existing social and economic conditions.
AI hasn't introduced anything new so much as it's accelerated what was already there. I know that banning a consumer technology like this never works. We can either fix our old problems or continue to suffer, but AI will probably keep going as a concept.
My caveats about all of this, including the generative AI ones, live right here on the about page.
Notes
The assumption is that AI really is as bad (and can be destroyed like) as (say) Sauron or the Empire in Star Wars. We're all leaning on fiction at a particularly volatile time in history.
What effect do chatbots have on our sense of intimacy as a culture, and how is this changing? What's the future going to be like?
I've been a transhumanist for over twenty-five years, but why? How did it happen, and where does artificial intelligence fit into the picture? Do large language models?
Systems
Elsewhere, I post about cultural stuff and my confusions about that. Here, I'm focusing on the technology itself and my confusions about that! I'm a person with very weak computer science background. As I learn about AI systems and how they work, you'll find updates here. A lot of this can intimidate, but I've discovered so many weird and neat things over time. I have help from family, which definitely propels all of this, in a way.
Got a setup of your own to share, or a correction? Contact me!
You can certainly customize the way coding assistants treat you, but is it even a good idea? Why or why not? I'm going to share some of my own bad ideas.
SillyTavern, a large language model frontend, has lots of useful extensions. This page looks at the ones I find most helpful currently, and will be updated frequently.
I couldn't handle the normal SillyTavern interface because it was boring, so I turned it into what I call the Sunrise Tearoom. Now with downloads included to a degree...
A quick, slightly bewildered glance what completion APIs are, how OpenRouter handles them, and why text and chat modes kept behaving like different creatures for me... sometimes. Will update with more notes later?