Cartoon Gravity 46

We'll call this Proof of Life, because I haven't written anything in public for a while. I can blame work, life reasons, the various heat waves, summer holidays (not that I've been on one)... I'm working on some ideas for this site, and for the Pleasant Green site, and for the Pendragon Club... In the meantime, some random thoughts...

I recently read Cory Doctorow's new book "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to Life After AI", which I recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in AI, tech, finance, grifters, or the future of the human race. Doctorow separates AI tools, some of which can, or could, be useful from the companies that are trying (and failing) to profit from them. His main focus is those companies who are desperately trying to persuade your boss to replace you with an AI that absolutely cannot do your job.

Along the way, he dispels a few unhelpful myths (nothing about LLMs training on books/music/art, it turns out, gets anywhere close to infringing on copyright, so that is an argument we should probably stop using because it just doesn't hold up) and focuses on the idea that the big AI companies are losing money hand over fist and are desperate for us all to spread doomer stories about AI taking over the world and erasing all jobs because that actually helps them sell the idea that their tech is transformative. And it isn't. AI tools can be variously useful for specific tasks, most of which are pretty boring and none of which constitute anyone's entire job. But if that became the general view of AI - occasionally useful time-saving gadgets, all of these companies would go bust instantly because they are losing billions every quarter attempting to convince the world that their products can replace humans at scale.

Doctorow describes the AI bubble from every angle and goes into what happens when it bursts (it's not good). The big takeaway is that we should all stop worrying about the doomer AI-takeover stories, which serve these corporations very well, and start looking at what a tool does, who it does it for and, importantly, who it does it to. It's one of those books that helps you see the world in a whole new way.

My intro to the book came from this conversation between Doctorow and Jon Stewart, which I cannot recommend highly enough:

I have been inhaling season after season of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix. It's not a show that breaks any new ground, but it is a really easy watch, in the same way that Bosch was (they share a source in Michael Connelly's novels), and it is well-written, very well acted, and a masterclass in solid storytelling throughout.

We're also embarking on a re-watch of The Magicians (my third or fourth time through), which was a woefully under-appreciated show from a few years ago, based on the trilogy of novels by Lev Grossman. The Magicians is essentially grown-up Harry Potter; Brakebills is a university for magicians wherein the students are variously drunk, high, and damaged (and magic itself is function of psychic pain). The show is funny, absurd, and incredibly dark in places. It's patchy, for sure, and it was made on a low budget without any big name actors to speak of, but it was made by people who clearly loved it and loved the subject matter, and that shines through in every scene. Also, Grossman's take on Narnia, and the real story behind the books, feels refreshingly contemporary and bleak.

As a companion piece, of sorts, I'm re-reading Leigh Bardugo's "Ninth House", in preparation for a first read of the sequel "Hell Bent". Set at Yale University, this is the story of the student group responsible for policing the Yale societies' occult practices. Also highly recommended.

The writing of the new season of the Lovecraft Investigations is going pretty well. I probably need to speed up a little, but I'm discovering a lot of new ideas as I go, and the story is twisting and turning nicely.

The thing I'm diving into at the moment is the contrast between the nature of a cult in Lovecraft's fiction (sinister people in black hoods) and the reality of 20th century cult members, who often don't even know the true aims of the cult they are in. This is proving to be a really interesting exploration, which is grounding the story in unexpected ways and throwing up some characters who might not usually feature in a story like this.

I'm also up to my eyes in polar, geological and oceanic research, and having a great time creating a very old Eastern European religion...

Back to Cory Doctorow, and I'm interested in his idea of POSSE - Publishing to your own site, syndicating everywhere. Right now, posts to Pure Hokum are really only discoverable here, and via email. I'm thinking about expanding that so that some of these posts make it out to Substack, Medium, Tumblr etc. I feel better about doing that now that there are no paid subscriptions here.

I'm also spitballing some kind of podcast output, but that's still embryonic. And it might be fighting for my attention with some new TV ideas that have been sparking recently.

Anyway, I'm alive, and I'm sorry it has been a while.

Normal service, whatever that is, will be resumed soon.