welcome to the simulacrum.

sunday, april 28th, 2024.

Previously, I've written that I wasn't terribly concerned about artificial intelligence taking over the world. Recently, however, I've revisited that line of thought.

Here's what happened: I created a Facebook page for our bicycle advocacy organization. I haven't had a Facebook account in years, so I created an account explicitly for this purpose. My account has no friends, nor can anyone send me a message or friend request. With this account, I've followed other bicycle advocacy organizations, as well as our city's governmental pages. (Side note: it frustrates me that some relevant info the city puts out is only available on FB.)

Logging into this barren account has been a bizarre experience. It's been a bit like wading into a chatroom full of bots or watching a social media version of Conway's Game of Life. It turns out, Facebook is being overrun with AI-generated junk these days.

Y'all, it's weird seeing so many artificially-generated riffs on whatever topics the Facebook algorithm thinks I'm interested in. It's post after post on these themes, complete with a generated image that looks off and a bunch of bot comments amounting to "nice!" over and over again. The bots are feeding off of their own content and it's only getting weirder as generated content begets generated content. And thus, my Facebook experience is not unlike looking into a fishtank at the oddities within. A perverse curiosity that takes me a while to peel my eyes from.

I'm not sure what the long-term consequences of this AI Ouroboros are, but my first thought was "oh no! Anyway." I am no fan of social media these days, and witnessing it become even less usable appears to be no great loss. As Maggie Appleton posited, human interaction seems to be retreating to the safety of the cozy web— chat groups, private discord servers, and the like.

That line of thinking, continued: what will the bot-makers do when humanity has relinquished the public fora of the Internet? The grifters' purpose and eternal game of cat-and-mouse will remain. Shall we be accosted by actual robots tugging at us for our attention in the physical world? I suppose that will only happen when some efficiencies are realized, just like the cost-per-mailing of direct mail campaigns acts as a minimum barrier to the entry of our physical mailboxes. Could you imagine a Roomba with a digital billboard coming to proselytize you with AI-generated faff at the park? Egads!

elsewhere.

Anyway, that's quite enough about that. What have I been up to lately? Well, a lot of bicycling, for one. I rode on two group rides this week: a 25-mile ride on Wednesday evening and a 33-mile ride yesterday morning. The weather is beautiful for these sorts of rides right now and I've really enjoyed touring the countryside with some other cycling dorks. Boy, are my legs sore from all that riding, though!

I spent some of our tax refund this year ordering a new bike, a Priority Apollo. Got it on discount for a smidge over $1,500. My Marin Muirwoods commuter bike has accrued enough rust and wear that it made me want to have another bike in case it fails, especially now that I've been logging some serious miles on it.

The Apollo is a gravel bike with a belt drive and drop bars (my first bike with drops!), which I intend to kit out with a rack and panniers to use as both a commuter bike and road bike for these group rides. It won't be the 18-20mph road bike that'd help me keep up with the Group A riders, but I'm hoping it will be a good generalist bike that'll be a bit faster than the heavy steel bike I've been riding on. The belt drive and internal hub gears are well-regarded as extremely low-maintenance and reliable by many folks on the Internet. I'm very much looking forward to not having to degrease and lubricate my bike's drivetrain every couple of weeks!

Finally, my wife and I have been playing Frosthaven (above) a bit since we picked up a copy last weekend. It's a rules-heavy, cooperative adventure board game and we've been enjoying it so far. For reference, the box it came in is huge and weighs 35 lbs. It took us an entire afternoon to punch out all the cardboard bits, sort them into trays, and watch a rules tutorial on YouTube! We played the opening scenario last night, which we started at 9:30pm last night and which kept us up until just after 1:00am. It was a lot of fun, but hopefully we'll speed up these sessions once we get the rules under our belt!

I suppose that's all for now! I'm going to go degrease my bike and get a shower. The lawn's haircut can wait until next weekend!

Until next time, be well. :)