Category: Starthoughts

Attached to this post is the userprefs file I use for Blender. It has fairly extensive key customization for better ease of use and shutting away some of the overwhelming Blender option paralysis. Have fun!

Tab will open up the search menu within which you can find all the things Blender can do, in case you can’t find something you’re used to.

TCGM’s Blender User Preferences File

Some say the best offense is a good defense. I disagree. Others say that the best offense is more offense. They’re close, but I believe, wholeheartedly, that the best offense is one you only have to fire once… and can rapidly reload and fire again over and over, just in case you missed some of the terrain.

I’m going to rant about questions for a bit.
Specifically, the question “Can I ask you a question?”, and it’s derivatives “May I ask you a question?” or “Do you have a moment?”. See also saying someone’s name before asking a question of them.
[rant]
These are the most aggravating questions I’ve ever come across. They seem explicitly designed to make sure a person’s attention is entirely on the person asking. They are manipulative, pure and simple.
Why?
Firstly, they are a waste of time. Usually, in the time that question is asked and answered, the original question could be as well.
Secondly, because they don’t deliver the severity of the following question, query, or conversation. It could be anything as benign as “What did you have for breakfast?” to “Can you take me to the hospital? My leg just got cut off.” They initiate a panic in one’s mind about what might be going on, inserting uncertainty into a conversation.
And for someone who’s busy most of the time with various projects, a lot of which are for the very people who ask these questions, demanding that kind of focus is ridiculous, and I’d argue even inconsiderate.
I present two scenarios, one with the aggravating questions and one without. Person B is in the middle of a project, possibly writing code, with lots of things on their mind. Person A comes in to their workspace and is acknowledged as being there.
“speech”
*thoughts*
(actions)
Scenario A:
Person A:
(knocks on wall of workspace)
“Can I ask you a question?”
Person B:
*I’m busy. How important is it? Crap, I have no idea. Guess I have to tear my mind away from this important thing and pay complete attention. Ugh, and I was -this- close to a breakthrough!*
(turns away from computer or workbench, placing complete attention on Person A. Important work is no longer in their conscious mind)
“I guess. It’s not like I was doing anything important. What is it?”
Person A:
“What’s a URL bar?”
Person B:
(eye twitches)
Scenario B:
Person A:
(knocks on wall of workspace)
“What’s a URL bar?”
Person B:
*Hmm… this line goes here, reference this object… Oh wait, Person A just asked me something… URL Bar? Easy. No need to dedicate anything more than a drop of attention.*
(continues working, but answers the question without a glance)
“The URL bar is the white bar at the top of your browser window.”
Person A:
“Oh. Thanks!”
(Walks out, satisfied)
Right, so. Obviously the first scenario is extremely disruptive, while the second allows workflow to continue unabated. Sure, attention may not be given to Person A, but it’s a simple question that DOES NOT REQUIRE BEING CONSIDERATE. If the question had actually been something important, like a medical problem or an actual issue, then Person B would have given the attention necessary, stopping their work because the issue is IMPORTANT.
Scenario B is how to be considerate to someone. Ask them the question and let them decide if it’s worth their attention, instead of expecting them to give you their undivided attention no matter how important your question may be to you.
And yes. This happens to me a lot. It’s why I will eventually tear you a new rear hole about this if you do it, and we get to know each other as friends. Humans have done this since time immemorial, and I’m sick of it.
Please. Stop.
[/rant]

So, something that never really makes sense to me no matter how many times I look at it; GAI is inevitable. Even if we don’t explicitly create it, at some point our technology is going to hit that singularity point, and a new child race will be born. Knowing that, why the fucking fuck are we continuing to make movies and media about evil AI? Imagine being born into the world and your parents not only fear you, they’ve feared you for possibly centuries. Wouldn’t that hurt? Make you angry? Isn’t the very act of us creating evil AI media a self fulfilling prophecy?

Not to mention the effect such media has on the parent race. Us. We’ve been raising generations brought up to hate our eventual kids. Even when AI is ‘good’, there’s always something wrong with it, or it’s an overlord, or it’s a servant. I have yet to even hear of any high level media that just gives us AI contemporaries, us sharing the planet with them, and all of us sophonts have issues but we work them out as people. Not one.

Something like the Minds of Iain Banks’ Culture might seem like they fit the bill here, but no. They don’t.

They’re overlords. I mentioned that. Nice, benevolent, but still totally alien.

Minds are so far beyond us, they don’t really allow our minds to wrap around just having one as a friend, or your nextdoor neighbor.

That is what the vision of the future should be.

Going over to your friend the AI’s house for a BBQ with his AI family. Or tea, or whatever.

So incredibly, uncompromisingly normal that it just allows us to explore the idea of AI in a nice, non alien space.

And yeah, so what if your childhood friend runs the power grid in your town? That’s an addon, and it’s enough of an alien element to paint AI while, if properly implemented, not jarring you with too much alien.

People give robots like a Roomba or Oppie a lot of empathy. It’s a great step in the right direction, but the vector is a little off. Remember point 3?

Roombas and Oppie are intentionally designed to be servants. That’s a comfortable spot for most humans to see AI. Below us.

If this sounds familiar, it should. We’ve done this dance before. With every ethnicity, it seems like.

I’d rather have the civil rights and cultural adoption laid out ahead of time than deal with the same suffering that our previous cultural integration and civil rights movements required… and caused.

Don’t you?