I'm still sorting out what the term artificial intelligence actually covers here in the 2020s, and where the phrase collapses. This page shares working notes about it as best I can, including about direct experience. I’ve organized things a bit, and I'm trying to stay informed too.
I honestly don’t know what I’ll think about any of this in a year. Given how quickly things seem to verge in unexpected directions, I expect to be wrong about plenty of it. I'm still learning what I can and writing about it. I just want to share my thoughts on these machines.
Ideas and Theories
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?
I don't believe generative AI is sentient, but what are they? When people start to believe they're conscious, what's up? Whyyyyyy??!!!
LLMs can code, sure, but what about holding conversations? Is it even a good idea to chat with LLMs? If nobody wrote it, why read it?
When it comes to robots, we definitely reacted differently to the prospect IRL than we ever did in our fiction.
Practical Stuff
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 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 lot of my chatbot cards for SillyTavern and similar programs revolve around Lake Erie acting...eerie. Why!??
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?