#oneaday Day 53: Our AI-powered dystopian garbage future

I was unfortunately exposed to this video today:

For those who quite understandably can't bring themselves to watch it based on the thumbnail and source alone, it's a video about how a dad is super-proud of his daughter and her athletics ability, but how he also knows that his daughter idolises an Olympic athlete. All seemingly wholesome and nice on the surface, until the main point of the ad: the Dad gets Google Gemini (which is Google's ChatGPT-esque chatbot interface) to write the athlete in question a "fan letter" that is supposedly from his daughter.

It's difficult to know exactly where to start with how fucked up this is. But I think as good a place as any is to point out that written communication between people has always been a means of direct, personal contact — particularly if it's via what is seen as a medium that takes a bit more effort, such as a handwritten letter. Of course, chances are that if the "fan letter" ever made it to the athlete in question, any response would probably be a carefully vetted template from a PR representative rather than the athlete herself, which sticks something of a pin in the "direct, personal contact" thing, but that's no reason that regular people who aren't PR consultants should auto-generate things that are supposed to be personal.

If someone inspires you, you presumably respect them. And if you respect them, you should demonstrate that respect by making an appropriate effort when attempting to contact them. And getting an AI to write a fan letter for you is the height of disrespect. It tells the recipient that you don't even respect them enough to communicate with them in your own words. It tells them that you would rather get a machine to handle your communication than "waste time" writing things yourself.

"But what about people who aren't able to write?" you may ask. To that I would point out that in order to get Google Gemini to write something, you still have to write a fucking prompt for it, and if you're capable of doing that you're capable of writing a letter. They teach how to do that in primary school. At least they used to.

There are myriad other ways to get your point across without getting garbage generative AI involved, even if you're incapable of holding a pen or typing on a keyboard. There's voice recognition, allowing you to still communicate in your own words without typing. Or you can get someone to help you — remember other people? Remember how to speak to them? Or do you need ChatGPT for that too? I'm a socially anxious autistic recluse and I can still talk to a person if I absolutely have to, and on more than one occasion I have sent some form of personal message to someone who genuinely inspires me, all in my own words.

We absolutely should not normalise the use of AI to craft even form responses to emails. I used to get mildly offended when a pal of mine used the "auto-respond" text message facility on his phone, which would send a rather blunt "Answer is YES" or "Answer is NO" SMS on his behalf if he couldn't be bothered to type a full message, but at least in that instance I know he had at least read my message and considered whether to respond in the affirmative or negative.

AI zealots seem to think that garbage like this is going to revolutionise communication between human beings, making it "more efficient" or some such bullshit. But all it's going to do is remove any semblance of personality from an individual's method of communication with you — something which is already somewhat at risk as a result of the homogenisation of culture brought about by the Internet. Look at how many people fall back on the same memes and turn of phrase these days rather than communicating in their own individual fashion, using their background and location as a means of making their communication unique. Now imagine even that layer of personalisation being taken away, with everyone "communicating" with one another using that smug, pretentious tone all AI chatbots appear to have developed.

"You're just resistant to change!" Yes, I am, if that "change" is demonstrably harmful to the way we interact with one another and our culture in general. Anyone who uses AI to communicate with someone rather than drafting an email, chat message or social media post themselves is an inconsiderate, disrespectful asshole, and I will absolutely not shift my opinion on this. I will, however, point and laugh.

So fuck off with your "Gemini" garbage, Google. And Mr Man's little girl? Tell your father to go fuck himself, punch him in the balls hard enough that he doesn't have any more children, and go write something yourself, with a pen. I can guarantee that your idol Sydney will find that far more meaningful and emotionally worthwhile than what is effectively a form letter that you didn't even write the prompt for.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 48: Not So Great

Today was not so good. I spent a significant proportion of the evening having a fairly major panic attack. I thought I was just having a depressive episode, but when I realised I was shaking, my heart was racing and I was just generally feeling "afraid" to do anything, it became pretty clear what it actually was.

I decided to try and sleep it off, and while I don't feel great now, I think the worst has passed, and in the meantime I certainly had what felt like some interesting dreams. They were the kind of dreams that evaporate as soon as you wake up properly so I unfortunately can't say any more than that — aside from the phrase "it's stunning, so long as you already have the suspension of disbelief required for modern VR", for some reason — but they were certainly interesting.

This, of course, has pretty much taken up my entire evening and prevented me from doing anything more interesting, but sometimes you just have to try and take care of yourself the best way you know how. And when you're suffering from some form of mental health breakdown, sometimes the best thing to do is just find a place or situation in which you feel comfortable, and ride the damn thing out. There's a reason why so many folks make a connection between mental health episodes and "storms" of sort; the principle behind surviving them with minimal harm is very similar, albeit with one being physical and the other being mental.

Anyway, all that regrettably means I don't have a lot of worthwhile things to say this evening. I'm hoping I feel better tomorrow — and I'm hoping the cat doesn't keep me awake as much tonight as she did last night. I feel my struggles today may be related to this, though I can't blame her or be mad at her; she wasn't being malicious or deliberately trying to cause harm.

On that note, then, back to bed I go.

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#oneaday Day 47: Making the Effort

I made it to the gym today. I didn't make it first thing in the morning because I don't feel that is going to work for me — at least not just yet. So I went a little bit after work instead. I walked for 20 minutes on the treadmill at 4mph (slightly faster than I usually walk, so enough to work up a bit of a sweat) and then did some stuff on the resistance machines.

And y'know what? It felt pretty good. I had that thing where three minutes into my walking I thought I'd made a terrible mistake, but I powered through that "wall" — helped along by having some entertaining stuff to watch on my phone and headphones — and made it to 20 minutes without too much difficulty. I could have probably done another 10 minutes, but the gym was reasonably busy, so I didn't want to hog the machine too much.

The resistance machines remind me that I have a lot of scope for improvement, but it is definitely satisfying to complete a few sets on them. I don't like all of them — and some of them are impractical or even impossible to use with my hernia — but the ones I do get along well with give me a decent workout in several different areas, which is good.

I haven't gone back to using the free weights just yet as I'm trying to just get back into the general gym groove. A few sessions on a semi-regular basis and I think I'll be back into a routine. I think I will rest tomorrow, then try and go again after work on Friday, then see how things go from there.

The trouble I've been having is that the weather conditions here right now are highly conducive to lethargy. The atmosphere is very stuffy both inside the house and outside, and it's a real drain on one's energy to just exist right now. I have somewhat reached the conclusion that you just have to sort of power through this, though, because waiting until it passes is a sure-fire route to doing absolutely nothing of use for a significant amount of time.

So it was a small step today, but I feel good about it. At times when I feel like I've been feeling, you have to take the little victories and celebrate them, because otherwise everything just becomes a bit overwhelming. So this is me, celebrating.

Yay?

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#oneaday Day 46: I Fucking Hate Emoji

I fucking hate emoji. And I judge you negatively if you use them. I can't control it. I hate the fucking things. And I firmly believe that using them, particularly to excess, makes you look like an absolute idiot.

I say this as someone who frequently still uses the ":)" emoticon from the early days of the Internet, though only in instant messages. I don't use any others except very occasionally a ":(" if something bad has happened, but I tend to feel like using something as flippant as an emoticon somewhat detracts from the perceived gravity of the situation under discussion, so there are times when I refuse to use them altogether.

Emoji, though, are the scourge of modern communication. Particularly any variation of the "laughing" emoji.

I'm talking about these cunts -> 😂🤣

Because inevitably they are used excessively, and usually in a context where they are mocking or patronising someone rather than expressing genuine amusement. I'm particularly not-fond of them on Facebook posts that use that annoying "auto e-card" setting or whatever it is where an unfunny joke by an annoying person is absolutely fucking surrounded by them. You know, like this.

I judge people who use that particular setting on Facebook even more negatively than people who just use emojis.

I think my absolute least favourite use of emoji, though, is when someone insists on punctuating every few words of a sentence with them, as if we're all too stupid to read the big scary words and need little pictures to go along with them in order to understand what's going on.

I had a book called Bunny Rabbit Rebus when I was a kid, and I found it kind of interesting, but also kind of annoying. For the unfamiliar, a rebus is when you represent a word (or part of a word) using pictures or symbols, and Bunny Rabbit Rebus used them for significant portions of its text. It was mildly amusing to the childish me at first, but by the time I'd figured out that a capital letter "E" coloured red meant "Ready" (Red E, geddit) I was already starting to think that this book thought it was much more clever than it actually was. And I was, like, five years old at the time.

Whenever I read a post from someone who insists on writing things like "Feeling 🙏 blessed because of my 👪 family 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣" I just think of Bunny Rabbit Rebus, and immediately assume that whoever typed that shit has reverted to being a not-particularly-intelligent five year old.

I think part of this stems from how I've always been a very competent reader, and these stupid little icons break up text and actively make it harder to read, particularly when they're jammed in the middle of a sentence. I also kind of resent the use of them to tell me how I'm supposed to be feeling when I read the thing — or, indeed, in the most common use of the "laughing" emojis, that I'm being patronised by someone who, for whatever reason, disagrees with me and thinks that is worthy of "rolling on the floor laughing". Because polite disagreement is not a thing we do online any more.

Anyway, the long and short of this is that if you use emoji excessively, I will judge you. And I will laugh at you. And I don't need 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 to do it.

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#oneaday Day 45: Happy Wordiversary

Apparently, according to my notifications anyway, today is the 16th anniversary of me signing up on WordPress.com. Indeed, looking back at my very first post it does seem that I started blogging on here on July 22, 2008.

Back in those days, I posted sporadically. I wasn't really sure what to do with a blog at the time, I just felt like I wanted one. It actually wasn't the first blog I'd had, either, although it's the only one that's survived this long.

I did, at one point, post an anonymous "Tales from the Staffroom" blog on BlogSpot that recounted my experiences as a classroom teacher, but there appears to be no trace of that left on the current Internet. There is an archive of it from as recently as 2023, but Google appears to have gone on a "Blogger purge" at some point in the last year, so the address no longer works on the current Web. This is a shame, but at least archive.org caught it before it disappeared.

At the time I started this blog, I was still working at the Apple Store as a "Creative" — that is to say, I was one of the people whose job it was to provide training sessions for Mac users on the use of creative software. Technically our job was supposed to be confined to lessons on Apple software only, but we inevitably found ourselves having to deal with customers using all manner of weird and wonderful pieces of software for their very specific needs.

This was partly our own fault — one guy on the Creative team was a Photoshop expert, so him happily covering that set the expectation with customers that we should all be able to cover Photoshop, even though several of us had specialisms in other areas — but also it just felt a bit mean to have someone just turn up, ask for help (which, nine times out of ten, was pretty simple, given that most folks who signed up for the "One to One" programme were new Mac users and often elderly) and tell them "no".

I enjoyed that job for quite a while. I had a nice group of friends and I was good at it. The pay was… all right, considering it was a retail position, and the freebies and staff discounts were excellent. Unfortunately it ended badly when the management of the store inexplicably went into something of a decline and started being unnecessarily harsh on the folks working for them. I ended up losing my job after standing up for a colleague of mine who absolutely was unfairly dismissed, but given that both management and the folks above them closed ranks, he was never going to get fair treatment. And, as it turned out, I didn't, either. Thankfully, I resigned before they could fire me, but it left an extremely bitter taste in my mouth with regards to all things Apple.

Anyway, I don't want to dwell on that too much because that's probably a whole other story I can tell another day. That was the context in which I was writing those first posts, though: I was, for a time, genuinely quite happy and satisfied with the way things were going. My life perhaps wasn't proceeding in the direction I had initially intended — after a nervous breakdown, I decided that classroom teaching really wasn't for me — but it was proceeding, at least. And having a blog was a nice breezy way to ponder on all sorts of things without any sort of real "pressure". I can't even remember if I'd joined Facebook or Twitter in 2008; I think I probably had, but social media certainly wasn't the all-encompassing force of shittiness that it is today back then.

It's interesting to look back and see things that no longer exist, such as PMOG, the Passively Multiplayer Online Game, where you earned experience points and other RPG-style benefits for simply browsing the Web. And it's also gratifying to see that so far as my tastes are concerned, some things never change.

You are, of course, always welcome to browse back into the archives via the dropdown in the sidebar. (I'm not sure where it is on mobile, probably at the bottom?) I'm not the same person I was back then — but every experience I've had, everything I've written about, has helped make me who I am today, for better or worse.

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#oneaday Day 44: What's Next?

Do you ever get the feeling that you're just sort of waiting for the next "major" thing to happen in your life, and that you're unsure exactly how you might go about triggering such a thing, if indeed it is trigger-able?

I feel this quite a lot. It's disconcerting. It's like a constant sense that I should be doing something, but I have no idea what. It's a feeling of unease that creeps up on me and whispers "Don't you think you should…" and then trails off before saying the important part of the sentence. It is, in short, just a general feeling of discontent.

Considering the situation rationally, I'm not sure I have any real reason to feel like this. I have a comfortable living situation, a good job, a loving wife and two wonderful cats. I have an enormous video game collection, likely more than enough to see me entertained until my dying day. I have creative outlets in the form of this blog, my website MoeGamer and my YouTube channel.

And yet something still doesn't feel quite right. I am dissatisfied. I am restless. And I think a significant part of my reason for feeling like this is plain ol' loneliness. While the aforementioned wife and cats are wonderful company on a daily basis, I do mourn past eras of my life when social activities feel like they came a bit more naturally and easily.

Going to a friend's house after school. Dropping by the coffee shop on the way to lectures with a university friend (and sometimes not quite getting around to leaving the coffee shop for said lecture). Evenings spent couch-surfing between numerous different friends' houses because my own house was a significant distance from where everyone else I knew. Habitually dropping by Hoffers Bakery for a roll and a cake, then settling in for an afternoon of multiplayer N64. Weekly board game sessions. Going out, like, anywhere.

All of those are things that are well and truly in the past, and were already going that way before COVID hit — and once COVID did hit, nothing ever really recovered. I've seen the people who are supposedly my closest friends maybe three or four times in the last few years. There are people online with whom I used to be extremely close that I can't remember the last time I heard from. There are people that I once thought would be "lifelong friends" that I feel have probably forgotten about me.

At least some of the blame for this can be laid at my own feet, of course. But honestly, my own efforts in these regards tailing off stemmed from growing frustration that I would often want to do something fun with people I liked, and for one reason or another, it seemed like that was never possible. Scheduling conflicts. Family commitments. Illness. Simply not being arsed. I got to a point where I felt like I was putting in effort that wasn't being reciprocated proportionally, and it just didn't feel worth it any more. That, in turn, did a number of my self-confidence, meaning that more often than not my brain just doesn't want to let me try and reach out to people for fear of them just rejecting me — or worse — once again.

As such, the end result of all this is a 43 year old man sitting in front of his computer in the dark typing about how he feels lonely to the maybe 5-10 people who still actually bother to read this site. Admitting you were lonely amounted to social suicide in my teenage years — you were a "Larry" (for "Larry Loner") — but now, it feels like an increasingly inevitable part of life in 2024. And it sucks.

I think that, more than anything, is why I'm dissatisfied. I want that "next thing", that amorphous "major event" in my life, to be the end of this horrible loneliness. But at this point, I simply don't really know how to make that happen.

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#oneaday Day 43: Regrets, But Not Why You Think

I had a few drinks this evening, and I am now feeling regrets. Not because I've drunk too much or are smashed off my face or anything, but because it just felt like a big waste of time, and it's a whole lot of "bad stuff" that probably won't help the weight loss.

I've been feeling a curious… absence of anything any time I've tried drinking in the last few years. The most I feel is getting a bit hot and flushed after a couple of whatevers, but I can't remember the last time I felt genuinely merry, tipsy or drunk.

On balance, this is probably a good thing, because being drunk tends to lead to doing and/or saying stupid things, but it's also a bit of a shame that drinking appears to have become an activity that I derive no joy from whatsoever, whereas back in my student days it was inevitably a central part of social occasions, and I have plenty of stories involving drunken nights out.

I attribute this to a few things. Firstly, I'm not getting any younger, though I know age doesn't necessarily preclude anyone from enjoying a drink or two to the degree that they feel they're affecting them. Secondly, I haven't been really fucking drunk for… probably at least ten years at this point, possibly more. I would have thought that would make my tolerance drop to rock bottom, but as noted above, I just feel… nothing, really.

Probably the most significant reason that I derive no joy from drinking is because I've seen what overreliance on alcohol can do to a person and the people around them, on more than one occasion. Thankfully all the people I have known with such a problem are all comfortably recovering now, but I still can't help but be reminded of the things I saw and heard when things were really bad.

In fact, I'd probably go so far as to say that I'm probably traumatised by such things. I hasten to add that nothing irreversibly bad happened to or was done to me by or as a result of the person who had the problem, but I will say that you should never assume the person directly suffering with alcohol-related issues is the only one who needs support. I went through some rather dark times of my own, and I suspect residual feelings towards those dark times have resulted in me drawing no joy from alcohol today.

As I say, it's a bit of a shame, because I always used to enjoy a boozy night out with friends, and indeed there are almost certainly entries in the depths of this blog's archives that outline exactly how and why I enjoyed such occasions. But for any and/or all of the reasons outlined above — plus the fact I rarely see "friends" in general at all these days, particularly post-COVID — that's just not something that is anywhere even vaguely near the top of my priority list these days.

Every time I've had a drink or two in the last few years, I've felt something like this. So I think it might just be time to say that enough is enough, I don't need or want alcohol in my life, and leave it at that. I guess that part of my life is passed.

Which, as I say, is probably a good thing, on balance.

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#oneaday Day 42: Melting

It is so hot here right now. The sun's gone down but it's still sweltering. Those who live in typically warmer climes often like to mock us here in the UK for complaining about the heat when it gets anywhere over 25 degrees C, but this is a country built on the assumption that your average day will be grey and miserable, probably drizzling slightly. Consequently, all our houses are built to trap heat and stay warm, even when you emphatically do not wish them to.

We made the wise investment of a portable air conditioner a couple of years back, and that lives in the bedroom, meaning that we can at least get some sleep in a bearable temperature. The rest of the house is festooned in fans, too, which help a little bit but not quite enough. There comes a point where all they're doing is blowing the hot air around a bit, which is better than it just sort of hanging there in that suffocating way it does, but not enough to really cool you off.

It's these kinds of conditions that make you wish you'd remembered to put some of your cans of drink in the fridge rather than leaving them in the back room, a room with a lot of windows which, unsurprisingly, gets very warm at times like this. (I have now put a bunch of drinks in the fridge, so at least in a few hours I can have something actually cold.) I tell you: warm Irn Bru Xtra is not good.

The one vague positive is that it's time for ice cream. Ice cream is a great delight and joy, and I sincerely doubt the words of anyone who doesn't say they feel at least a bit of the same joy they felt as a child when the ice creams come out. Despite owning a breadmaker and an air fryer, we haven't quite reached the middle class status where we're making our own ice cream; just a well-stocked freezer with a selection of both creamy and fruity treats is just the ticket at a time like this.

Now, my brain is dribbling out of my ears somewhat, so I think I'm going to go and have one of those aforementioned ice creams and do something that requires minimal thought.

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#oneaday Day 40: The Cat's Routine

One of our cats, Patti, is very set in her ways, to a degree that I don't think I've seen in any other cat. She has Her Routine, and we must adhere to Her Routine, otherwise she gets very shouty at us.

The Routine begins anywhere between 5am and 8am with her telling me (not my wife) to wake up. This is accomplished through a combination of standing on me, yelling at me and tapping me with her paw, inevitably with just enough claw extended to make it slightly painful, and inevitably somewhere that you really don't want a claw, such as my eyelid or lip.

Once I am up, she will continue to yell at me until I go downstairs and put some biscuits in her bowl, which she may or may not deign to eat. Around this time, I must also provide Oliver, the other cat, with some wet food, because he likes wet food and is a growing boy. (Patti should not have wet food, because she tends to throw it up almost immediately. She often ends up eating Oliver's leftovers, which is usually fine for her apparently delicate digestion to cope with.)

After this breakfast routine is done with, she will almost certainly disappear somewhere in the house for a significant portion of the day. It might be on the windowsill in our bedroom, it might be behind my desk in my study, it might be under my chair in my study, it might be on "her" stool in the spare bedroom. We do not know what she is up to during these hours, but we have determined that if she does not wish to be found, she will not be found. On more than one occasion this has caused a mild panic.

At some point during the day, she will emerge from wherever she was hiding and start hassling me at my desk. This usually takes the form of sitting between my legs and occasionally clawing my knees and thighs. To date, I have not determined what, if anything, she actually wants when this part of The Routine is unfolding. Sometimes she wants a refill of her glass of water — oh yes, both cats refuse to drink out of their water bowls and instead prefer to have a glass left for them: one in the living room, one on the upstairs landing — and sometimes she wants attention. Sometimes I swear she's just doing it to be annoying.

At some point between 10pm and 11pm, she will decide that it is time for bed. If we are in the hallway, she will attempt to lead us up the stairs. If we are not making any movements that look like they might conclude in the bedroom, she will hassle me (not my wife) repeatedly until I comply with The Routine.

Once in the bedroom, she will sit in Patti Spot on the corner of the bed, usually getting slightly in the way but not enough for me to want to move her, and sleep there for most of the night. Sometimes she will disappear for a while during the night — often to go and eat — but she is usually there in the morning, ready for The Routine to begin anew.

As set in her ways as she is, I could probably learn something from her. And, given that she's in the "yelling at me to go to bed" stage, that's probably what I should go and do.

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#oneaday Day 39: Breaking Point

Had a bit of a meltdown earlier. Thankfully, I managed to direct it inwards rather than at anyone else, and I successfully channelled its energy into tidying some of the shit up around the house. So that's something, at least. Now I just feel kind of drained and empty.

I'd been building to something like this for a while, and I suspect I'm not out of this particular funk just yet, but heading along to Slimming World this evening and discovering I'd put a bunch of weight back on was just my mind's breaking point. I was upset and angry at myself, more than anything, because I know that weight gain was entirely deserved — I've not been focusing on the things I've been eating as much as I should be if I want to see results, and I've gotten away with doing so for probably more weeks than I should have.

A situation like this is a good opportunity for a change, but the frustrating thing is that when such a thing occurs, I find myself wishing that I could correct the mistake immediately. But it doesn't work like that; undoing bad habits takes time and effort, and you don't necessarily see results right away. The important thing is to acknowledge that you fucked up, be at peace with the fact you fucked up, and then take steps to ensure that you do not fuck up again for at least a little while.

So I stopped at the shops on the way home and got some healthy eats that will see me through the next few days. We're in a bit of an awkward position food-wise right now in that Andie is suffering some sort of mouth malady (likely an abscess under a root canal she had done a while back) and can't really eat much. That means I'm generally having to sort shit out for myself, and if anyone has ever attempted to feed themselves well as an individual person, you'll know that most things tend to be sold on the assumption that you are cooking for two.

That means you inevitably end up with too much stuff, which either means cooking too much stuff and having leftovers — not the end of the world — or using half the ingredients and risking the other half going off. I think we've all been successfully conditioned to (rightly) recognise that food waste is a bit of a sin, so I always feel a bit bad when I have to chuck stuff out, but it always feels a bit… constricting when you know you're either going to be eating the same thing two days in a row, or having to come up with something creative to do with the other ingredients you have in the fridge.

Anyway, long story short: this upset in our normal routine has kind of disrupted me making an effort to watch what I eat. To be fair, I was already kind of falling off the wagon a bit before Andie's troubles happened, but the situation just sort of compounded itself. But I know that is silly, so the stuff I picked up earlier should last a few days at least, and be suitable for individual portions or making an easy big batch of stuff that I can portion out and have the remainder as leftovers as required.

You may think I'm overthinking this and I probably am, but that is the nature of my autistic brain and its thought processes. I am now doing my best to not sit here stewing being pissed off at myself, so I think some well-earned video games are probably in order.

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