Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Or perhaps there interesting stuff going on that we missed? But
someone needs to seek it out.

I like to put in a good word for curiosity, even though sometimes my
own is limited.
  

    
What were last year's biggest surprises? I tried ChatGPT, but it did
a Bing search and spewed nonsense. Skimming the Wikipedia page for
2023 works better.

 * The January 8 attack on government buildings in Brazil. That
happened early enough that we talked about it last year.

 * A brief scare in February about Chinese spy balloons. It made
some people jump, but I guess it was nothing?

 * Some US regional banks collapsed: Silicon Valley Bank (March 10)
and First Republic (May 1). It certainly surprised some people. Matt
Levine and Patrick McKenzie had a lot to write about.

 * The release of GPT-4 (March 14) and a peak in the AI hype graph.
I think we're tired of talking about it now, but it was genuinely
exciting for a while. I even started blogging about it [1]. I
suppose the biggest surprise was the drama where Sam Altman was
briefly kicked out of OpenAI (November 17).

 * Very bad wildfires in Canada polluted the northeastern US (June
6), rather than in the West where we expect such things.

 * The Wagner group rebellion on June 23. Whatever they tried, it
failed.

 * Hawaii wildfires (August 8th). Not that they happened, but that
it was somehow caused by a hurricane and that Lahaina was wiped out.
There are plenty of other disasters, but that was a weird one.

 * The October 7 surprise attack on Israel. Israeli defense forces
were caught napping, despite people trying to warn them. I had
previously thought they were supposed to be good at what they do,
but everything we've seen this year argues against that.

2023 wasn't boring, but these stories don't inspire the chatter they
once did - either they finished, or they're ongoing but we don't
want to talk about them. We seem to be in a lull?

[1] <https://skybrian.substack.com/>
  

    
they are 'boring' because alas they seem like more of the same
  

    
This. 
  

    
I opened this year's discussion with a list of trends going into
2024, but I expect that we'll be preoccupied with politics more than
anything else this year. Polarization in the USA will come to a
head, I imagine, with the 2024 election.  I keep waiting for cooler
heads to prevail, but I'm glad I didn't hold my breath.
  

    
I asked ChatGPT to write something speculative and exciting about
the potential state of the world in 2024. Apparently ChatGPT is
"feeling" optimistic:

"In 2024, the world has undergone a transformative leap into a new
era of technological marvels and global collaboration. Advances in
artificial intelligence have given rise to a harmonious synergy
between humans and machines, leading to unprecedented breakthroughs
in medicine, energy, and education. A network of interconnected
smart cities has emerged, powered by sustainable energy sources,
creating a utopian balance between urban development and
environmental preservation. The advent of quantum computing has
unraveled the mysteries of the universe, propelling humanity towards
new frontiers in space exploration. International cooperation has
reached unprecedented levels, fostering a sense of unity in
addressing global challenges such as climate change and pandemics.
Augmented reality has revolutionized the way we learn and
communicate, blurring the lines between the physical and digital
worlds. As we stand on the cusp of this reimagined future, the
possibilities seem boundless, promising a world where innovation and
compassion intertwine to create a better tomorrow."
  

    
Now that the mysteries of the universe are all unraveled, I can get
some sleep. Whew!
  

    
chatGPT4's training is April 2023, and it has no web access.  So
it's missed a couple of wars. Copilot/Bing was similar, though.
  

    
The most boring possible presidential election would be a rerun:
Biden vs. Trump, Biden wins. Congress remains dysfunctional. I still
think that's the most likely scenario, but there are enough possible
plot twists that we won't know until the end, and the world has
surprised me by going for the dramatic plot twist before.

Meanwhile: apparently, Bitcoin has become so boring that you'll be
able to buy it through a traditional stock brokerage.
  

    
The failure modes of enshittification as a business model hinge upon
the breaking point at which arbitrage of misery is no longer
possible. This day creeps up on many businesses faster than their
executives expect.

One suspects this is fast approaching for the airline industry. Yes,
they may have artificial padding of seats sold between hubs in the
movement of large numbers of undocumented individuals propping up
failing domestic carriers, but like any other crisis subsidy these
don't go on forever. (Imagine trying to build business models
predicated on Civil Reserve Air Fleet movements to Desert Storm as
if they would continue indefinitely. Even if you were still putting
some number of Department of State and associated contractor butts
in seats 30+ years later on the Dubai and Amman routes.)

Traditional Hollywood entertainment seems also to be at the point
for this kind of arbitrage breakdown. Whilst Amazon may be slashing
down its studios and Twitch streaming staff, there has never been
more content - and more nichecasting - than ever before. To the
degree that narrative script driven media seems oddly quaint, as if
it was one step away from being the kind of formalized legacy
cultural product that opera became. Complete with all the baggage of
insane Bavarian monarchs and espionage spookdom.
  

    
I believe the fears that the future, at least in '24 incarnation,
will be bad, sad (and boringly so) are also picking up on the other
major trend: enervation. The Blizzard War of polycrisis has sapped
both sensemaking as well as the ability to orient on early
indications of failure modes. We are overwhelmed by the failures
that have already progressed beyond the point of no return, deep
into what is merely consequence management. 

There is even a political philosophy that emphasizes "managing the
decline". I make no comment on domestic political policymaking, but
this does not readily orient towards the kind of excitement and
optimism about the world of tomorrow that marked so many decades of
WELL and associated community conversations about our futures. 

I myself have never been an optimistic kind of fellow. I came up in
a world at persistent and overlapping war, hoping for a peace I have
never known. My professional day to day is in dealing with the
unforgiving militarization of the greatest human invention since the
printing press, in order to prevent its abuse both against the most
significant wealth transfer by economic espionage in human history,
and to avoid the future potential of strategic destruction of value
on a scale not seen since the Ruhr Valley.

That sort of thing can creep up on folks, individually and as a
society. Any one of the countless facets of polycrisis is enough to
sap will to engage, let alone fight. I know why I get up every day
to tilt at the windmills, and try to hold back the tide. But I also
recognize that's hard for many. 

The turning away from hard things is perhaps a worse fear than the
things we will have to confront.
  

    
Airlines go bankrupt every so often; it's to be expected. They seem
to be getting a bit better at avoiding it, but who knows. There's
some temporary disruption while other airlines take their place.

I know a seven-year old who likes a YouTube channel that is
essentially someone making puppet shows with stuffed animals at
home. It gets a lot of views. I think the main thing going for it is
that the stories are funny; the production values don't seem to
matter. So that's kind of the opposite of narrative being obsolete?

What do you mean by "the greatest human invention since the printing
press" and "the most significant wealth transfer by economic
espionage?" Sounds big but vague.
  

    

I'm with @loris here; if developments really are boring and grimly
more of the same, and enshittification has visibly set in and it's
intensifying, it's no use trying to entertain people by
cherry-picking some upbeat AI hallucinations.  

Otherwise, it's like going on Twitter now, and exulting "my high
school friend Susan is still alive here and she's being funny!"
while you ignore the objective reality of the current nature of the
service.   As Vaclav Havel would say, you're not "living in truth"
if you do that.

It's just inauthentic, like those lists of good news that I was
decrying earlier.  I'm pretty sure that Bing Copilot can do a much
better job of compiling such lists than any human can; that's
effortless for Bing, he feels no moral qualms about the state of the
human condition, and the shrinkwrapped good-news product will have
that homogenized, plastic sheen of artificiality that Bing generally
has.

Looks like 02024 might be quite an exciting year if you're a tech
guy and you  enjoy getting fired at Twitch, Prime Video, Duolingo,
Zoom, Unity, Etsy, Fitbit,  Xerox, Microsoft-
Google-Amazon-Facebook, etc.  

Normally, when politics are moribund, tech's engineers like to
swagger by contrast, like, "hey-look quantum computing enables space
exploration," but that sense-of-wonder rhetoric sounds expecially
hollow when you yourself don't have a paycheck.
  

    
I listen to a lot of electronic club music here in Ibiza (because
it's what people do).  I even have favorites -- I tend to favor
women who do club music, like Roza Terenzi, Anastasia Kristensen,
Nina Kraviz, Courtesy, Charlotte De Witte, Amelie Lens, Anna Tur,
Helena Hauff...  I'm not sure why I'm somehow so keen on the distaff
side of the industry, but maybe they seem a little more actually
"musical."

It's not that I pay and go to the Ibiza clubs, mostly I stream their
sets while I do housework.  Of course that's not what their 
business model is -- DJs are supposed to fill the clubs to bursting
with foot traffic and sell alcohol, and maybe some merch.   So alas,
I don't enrich them much, I just pay a lot of attention.
  

    

I wouldn't say that Ibizan club culture is "boring" in 2024, 
because I myself find the music quite entertaining, but it certainly
lacks those frenzied, Dionysian, sweat-soaked aspects that raver
culture once had.   The music itself is somewhat more staid and less
formally inventive, but oddly, it seems to me that it's the *drugs*
and the *sex* that have changed their historical character.  

"Discos". by their original nature were places where desperate, 
flaunting, edge-of-the-bell-curve people would go in search of
narcotic and transgressive gay sex, and in 02024, there's just much
less melodramatic ways to achieve that end.   Disco clubs are no
longer a necessary infrastructure for that activity.   
  

    

 The scene became somewhat normalized and lost much  its startling
allure, and also, the notion that you could eat party-pills in Ibiza
and this would gain you some kind of psychedelic spiritual benefit,
well, in 02024 that's a genuinely corny concept.    You can still
obtain the pills and eat them, but even a fourteen-year-old doesn't
sincerely believe that they'll do anything particularly remarkable. 

 There hasn't been any hit brand-new psychedelic in quite a while,
some substance with genuine underground allure.  I don't doubt that
new AI techniques can and do generate large numbers of novel
chemical substances with some psychoactive effects, but why go to
that trouble?  There are already lots of ways to get high, the
narcotics biz is entrenched worldwide,  and the basic concept of
"highness" doesn't have much exalted standing among contemporary
people.  It's like daringly legalizing marijuana and then realizing
that there's no huge groundswell of people who actually want to
consume it.  
  

    

This means that, instead of being sweaty pits of glittery
counterculture deviancy and reckless outlawry, Ibizan clubs are
slowly becoming  a cultural scene more like ballet or opera.  Dance
and music, but more decorous, more  expensive, more exclusive --
diva-like.  More emphasis on pretty clothes and less emphasis on
finding some random guy at the bar to hit-on.  But they're not
"enshittifying" -- if anything, they're gentrifying.

Also, it seems like the Ibizans themselves have grown a little weary
about their long-established music racket.  They used to be very
keen on refining the logistics of it, they were proud of their
hard-won skills at managing seas of unruly British soccer-hooligan
raver nutters.   In 2024, they don 't promote the club scene or
boost it as much; the band posters are smaller and more subdued; the
Ibizans seem more interested in other Balearic industries, like
fashion, medical tourism, food, and especially real-estate.
  

    
With all that said, I'm quite the fan of Balkan cyberpunk
drum-and-bass.  I've been listening to this stuff for years now, so
I'm here to tell you that this brand-new Billain EP is some serious,
top-end "Sarajevo Neurofunk."

https://soundcloud.com/billain/sets/billain-different-eyes-ep
  

    
Retro coupes are all the rage. I bought Alice some vintage French
coupes for Xmas back in 2017 or so and last year she augmented them
with a couple dozen contemporary ones with gold rims that we served
Champagne in for a couple dozen people at our backyard Xmas party
this year.

The contemporary ones look a lot like this, but the old French ones
are amazing - totally different level.

I also got her a set of low-rise uranium glass coupes but she is
leery about drinking out of them, no matter that she did an A-level
in physics and understands radioactive decay.
  

    
And there's a pseudo-speakeasy trend as well. My sister and I
recently had excellent cocktails (hers in a coupe) at a bar in
Amherst, Massachusetts that is "hidden" behind door painted, trompe
l'oeil, like a wall of filing cabinets.
  

    <scribbled by jonl Thu 11 Jan 24 07:03>
  

    
Via email from Shebar Windstone:

One thing (or many things) I'm hoping to see in 2024 & beyond is the
use of AI in communications -- captions, translations,
transcriptions, transliterations, subtitles, interpretations,
descriptions, etc. -- for all of us who are linguistically,
visually, hearing-, intellectually, geographically, economically
&/or technologically challenged. I.e., for most of us!

In recent years, Google Translate made it so easy for me to
right-click for (ever-improving) translations of webpages & PDF
files that I stopped studying the (ever-expanding list of) languages
I wanted/needed to understand. Zoom was able to offer almost
coherent transcriptions, but no translations. Transcriptions of live
news & events streams are based on the luck of the draw. Deaf & HOH
people who prefer signing are too often left in the dark. Likewise
those visually challenged people who want/need any of the numerous
flavors of Braille
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_uniformity_of_braille_alphabets). I don't know if I'd want a Bing or Copilot or ChatGPT key on my computer, but I definitely want & need one or more keys for captioning, translating & capturing languages, audio & video files/streams. (And 3D content will be next.) One key would suffice if I could click Shift or Alt or Control/Command + MediaMagicKey. And couldn't YouTube, Bandcamp & other audio & video websites/services simply offer one multipurpose button???

Also, in daily & virtual life, I'm socially challenged when it comes
to facial expressions & body language. Not to mention remembering
names & faces. Could AI help me there???

What are *your* hopes/dreams/fears/fantasies for AI in the future?

BONUS QUESTIONS:  How could AI help us achieve social, economic,
gender, racial & geographic equality, along with ecological &
species survival???????? Could AI help us understand what whales &
other critters (including our cats & dogs & other furry & feathered
friends, along with & our youngsters & elders & partners), are
trying to tell us? Or would they lose time & energy trying to
communicate via AI when they most need to be looking for
food/mates/errant offspring or routes to survival?

Now, all of a sudden (never having stopped to think about such
possibilities before), I can't help but wonder if AI could go
grocery shopping with me & help me get the most nutritional &
economic bang for my bucks? Could it go driving with me & tell me
when to change lanes, accelerate or brake? Could it steer my diet &
exercise programs? Could it help me declutter & clean house? Could
it help us end the wars in Ukraine, Gaza & elsewhere, & the battles
for women's & racial & LGBTIQ & indigenous & workers' & childrens' &
elders' & differently-abled people's & other species' rights?? Could
it track right-wingnut or narcotrafficking funds, drugs or weapons
shipments, local or cislunar trash? Could it steer migrants/refugees
to the safest ports? Could it help us figure out how to disemplower
all exploiters, despoilers, enslavers & warmongers & to save life on
Planet Earth?????

I.e., could AI become the do-all & end-all that other human, natural
& supernatural forces weren't, didn't & couldn't???????

And how might we prevent AI from piloting drones or programming
robocritters & robocops to attack & kill whatever they cast their
sights upon?????

How to make artificial intelligence both natural & humane? -- Is
that oxymoronic???

Whatever the possible answers might be, I'm not nearly as optimistic
(or as much of a shill) as Bing or ChatGPT, but neither am I
inclined to slit my throat. 2024 has hardly begun!!!! 
  

    
Via email from David Coote:

You guys are starting to sound like a bunch of old geezers having a
general whinge. You'll be moving on to prostates and backaches next.

Come on. You're a well-educated, well-read, well-informed,
well-connected  bunch that can write extremely well - I've read I
think all of Bruce's novels and quite a few of Corey's [sic] - and
in the Well SOTW you have a platform and remit with which you can go
anywhere.

And you're reduced to slagging off LLM's, saying Internet platforms
are getting shitty and maybe this will be a boring year?

I'm told that Bruce Springsteen encourages people at his concerts to
hold up the names of songs that they want the band to play. I'm also
told that his audience has a wide range of ages.

Maybe in this vein you folks should call out for some suggestions on
SOTW topics.
  

    
Suggestion for Bruce: DJs have light rotation in our playlists, but
we're particularly fond of LP Giobbi: <https://www.lpgiobbi.com/> We
discovered her via Lollapalooza's livestream a couple of years ago.
Among other things, she's Global Music Director for W Hotels - and
she's a Grateful Dead fan who was making "Dead House" afterparties
following Dead and Company sets
<https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/lp-giobbi-dead-company-dead-house-after-part
ies/>. 

I personally listen to more jazz than anything else, and I'm seeing
new vitality there. Jaimie Branch is no longer with us, but she was
making remarkable music up to the end. Check out Kassa Overall,
Kendrick Scott, Kofi Flexx, the MultiTraction Orchestra, and my
friend, the fiery bass player Ingebrigt Haker Flaten
<https://ingebrigtflaten.com/>. One of Ingebrigt's latest projects
is (Exit) Knarr:
<https://ingebrigtflaten.bandcamp.com/album/exit-knarr>
  

    
wrt #218, liked that sound sample very much. otoh it sounds like
something i could have heard any time since maybe 1981? somewhere.

not sure we are being chided because we cant come up with something
that hews to the longtime-now cultural cant towards neophilia.