D. A. Anderson (Daniel)Nov 7, 2023
Justin Pot

"Grok" being the name for an AI chatbot is just the latest example of tech bros not understanding science fiction. In "Strangers In a Strange Land", the famous 1950's novel the term comes from, to "grok" something is to understand it on a deep level. AI chatbots, as we all know by now, do not grok—they bullshit.

I'm really tired of sci-fi terms being used by people who read the books and got nothing from them beyond “lol this word sounds cool”. (See also: “metaverse”.)

Nov 6, 2023 at 6:33pmMona for Mac
Show thread2xfoNov 6, 2023
@jhpot
I love the board game "Grok". (It's like Life on acid)
Show threadLuis VillaNov 6, 2023

@jhpot @SomaFMrusty Sci-fi Author: in my book I created the Understanding Nexus as an inspirational goal

Tech company: at long last we have created a tormenting version of the Understanding Nexus from the classic novel Stop Tormenting People and Understand Them Instead

Show threadLandoNov 6, 2023
@luis_in_brief @jhpot @SomaFMrusty I bet the Total Perspective Vortex is what Musk calls it when he laces his bong water with LSD and packs it with meth
Show threadKevin MarksNov 10, 2023
@Lando @SomaFMrusty @luis_in_brief @jhpot
The X version of Twitter is Zarniwoop's version of the Total Perspective Vortex where it exists in a pocket universe where Zaphod^w Musk is the most important person in existence
Show threadd@nny "disc@" mcClanahanNov 10, 2023
@Lando @SomaFMrusty @luis_in_brief @jhpot musk isn't cool enough to do drugs
Show threadclacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Nov 8, 2023
@luis_in_brief @SomaFMrusty @jhpot Yes. This is not a misunderstanding of the term "grok", it is deliberate abuse of the term for misleading information.
Show threadLuis VillaNov 8, 2023
@clacke @jhpot Meh? It’s entirely possible they just didn’t understand the book. Like people missing that Rage Against the Machine was political, lots of not-so-bright folks have managed to read a lot of humane sci-fi and totally miss the humane part. (See also all the AI folks who completely missed the point of Iain M Banks.)
Show threadShannon KayNov 9, 2023
@luis_in_brief @clacke @jhpot I would be surprised if most of the people in question had read the books.
Show threadLuis VillaNov 9, 2023
@shannonkay @clacke @jhpot Speaking directly from experience, a lot of them (me) had identities that in large part revolved around reading the books, like others did around music or clothes. Some of us grew up to realize the rockets weren’t the important part. Some… not so much.
Show threadDave Parry Nov 6, 2023
@jhpot see also musk comparing himself favourably to Joiler Veppers, the industrialist literally overseeing virtual hell as a tech investment, because he’s a rich playboy.
Show threadBenareshNov 6, 2023
@daveparry @jhpot Yeah. Naming Space-X after Culture Vessels is also hella cringe.
Show threadBaldrick (Taylor's Version)Nov 8, 2023
@Benaresh @daveparry @jhpot and then there's of course dragging Tesla's name through the mud a SECOND time. And by an Edison wannabe no less
Show threadDenvekNov 6, 2023
@daveparry @jhpot He’s really compared himself to the guy from the Culture novels whose whole business model is literally creating Torment Nexi?!
Show threadBen RamseyNov 6, 2023
@jhpot @mamund It’s somewhat fitting, though, that Musk would latch on to terms created by authors who libertarians claim as one of their own, even if Heinlein himself might not recognize today’s libertarians.
Show threadDamien (TIG BUSINESS)Nov 6, 2023
@ramsey @jhpot @mamund I was thinking about that the other day. Would he approve of the lolbiterian nature of Musk, or punch him in the face because he's a fascist?
Show threadFeralRobotsNov 6, 2023
@aeduna @ramsey @jhpot @mamund
Depends - are we talking 'Heinlein 1958', or 'Heinlein 1988'?
Show threadDamien (TIG BUSINESS)Nov 6, 2023

@FeralRobots @ramsey @jhpot @mamund Yes, there's that too - like a lot of people he changed over time. And if you're reading just the books then you're inferring the author's state of mind, and I certainly didn't read them in order...

so i don't have an answer :) I just had the question pop into my head.

Show threadkitlovesfsharpNov 6, 2023
@jhpot *Stranger
Show threadJohn M. GambleNov 6, 2023

@kitlovesfsharp @jhpot

*And 60s (1961 in fact).

Show threadAstatideNov 6, 2023
@jhpot Although I never read Strangers in a Strange Land, it's particularly amusing to see a tech bro fuck up understanding Heinlein, who, if Starship Troopers is anything to go by, would be the sci-fi author most sympathetic to their fascist bullshit. Haaaaaaaaaa.
Show threadAstatideNov 6, 2023
@jhpot (I keep telling myself I'll read it, and then I remember that I read Starship Troopers back to back with Slaughterhouse V and Cat's Cradle and it just made me so very uninterested in anything else Heinlein might have to say).
Show threadbignoseNov 9, 2023

@astatide
> I never read Stranger in a Strange Land

This is something I believe you have in common with the tech bro wankers, but you at least do not flagrantly and publicly mis-use the word "grok".

Some of them might have read Snow Crash, but their number is small compared to those who get dewy eyed about "the metaverse".

@jhpot

Show threadJQL.randomNov 6, 2023
@jhpot Big assumption that they read the books.
Show threadFeralRobotsNov 6, 2023
@smackjackal @jhpot
Musk was infamously a black hole for SF as a kid. & I can totally believe he's read the Culture books. Dude just has some very intense priors that filter & recontextualize everything he read, like my evangelical sister reading Atlas Shrugged & totally sliding past the radical atheism & rapey sex-politics.
Show threadOggieNov 6, 2023

@jhpot
God I am so fucking bothered by this jackass in particular taking pieces of nerd culture he doesn't understand and plastering it elsewhere. 'Grok' is a term I used to use all the time (and I always explained it with the book quote 'to drink fully', if pressed).

I am still salty about him using Culture ship names, too- and that entire universe was techno-anarchist with deep democratic underpinnings, about as anti-capitalist as you can get, how did he miss that?

Show threadJustin PotNov 6, 2023
@Oggie Somewhat related: Bezos personally intervening to get more seasons of The Expanse, a show that’s heavy on the theme of “if a for profit company tries to get you to go to space don’t do it”
Show threadOggieNov 6, 2023

@jhpot Solid summation of the expanse, actually. Well done!

I assume you caught the cyber truck thing?

I am sure he will do something else soon enough that will make it worse ( though really, a low training data autocomplete bot with deeply racist data backing without particularly well maintained guardrails is going to blow up even before people get around to breaking it).

Show threadLiz Ellis She/Her🌳Nov 6, 2023
@jhpot @Oggie twat’s done something useful then.
Show threadFeralRobotsNov 6, 2023
@jhpot @Oggie as someone who's never read Expanse (or watched), do you think it's plausible they were nodding a bit to Bester (_Stars My Destination_) in that aspect? (Bester was unusually cynical for his time about corporate spacefaring.)
Show threadJustin PotNov 6, 2023
@FeralRobots @Oggie I honestly do not know! Not familiar with Bester
Show threadFeralRobotsNov 6, 2023
@jhpot @Oggie proto new wave, worth checking out.
Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫Nov 6, 2023
@Oggie @jhpot he probably thinks The Affront were the good guys.
Show threadCharlie StrossNov 6, 2023

@Oggie @jhpot I knew Iain and I am *ABSOLUTELY* certain that if he was alive today he would have some EXTREMELY trenchant (and rude) things to say about Dilbert Stark.

(Iain was more left wing in real life than he made visible in his fiction. And if you're unsure what I mean, ask yourself how many of his fictional villains were capitalists or imperialists.)

Show threadT. Emil Rivera-ThorsenNov 7, 2023
@cstross @Oggie @jhpot Bwahahahahaha, Dilbert Stark is a the best description ever! 😂
Show threadOggieNov 7, 2023

@cstross @jhpot
He really seems like he would have been a very interesting guy, and I'm sorry I never got to interact with him (picked up my first book from him in 92, been a fan ever since).

The Culture books were pervasively but somewhat subtly about various political ideologies, though I remember the firs time I tried his 'without the M' books (Bridge, Complicity) and he certainly was more forthright there!

Really an amazing author.

Show threadDr_BombayNov 6, 2023
@jhpot truth. but just wait until they get to "Clockwork Orange," haha
Show threadHollieKNov 6, 2023
@Dr_Bombay @jhpot Starry vecks peeting vellocet in the Korova bar - real horrorshow.
Show threadDr_BombayNov 6, 2023
@HollieK72 @jhpot this droog knows!
Show threadFlippin' 'eck, Tucker!Nov 6, 2023

@jhpot I had a different thought when I heard about that choice of name.

I think Musk knows exactly what way 'grok' is used and he's trying to tap into that. In the future, when an engineer says that they grok how something works, that will be taken by non-techies to mean that Musk's AI has helped them.

It's almost the opposite of the generic verbing of words like with 'to xerox' and 'to google' - he wants to take an already-generic (but highly specialised) word and turn it into something that most people will think only applies to his system.

Show threadD. G. MarshallNov 10, 2023

@losttourist @jhpot

He plagiarised the name of his Plagiarism Engine.

Show threadERATNov 6, 2023

@jhpot

IF they even read them

Show threadferricoxideNov 6, 2023
@jhpot

Bold of you to assume they read those books. 😛
Show threadMalakitNov 6, 2023
@jhpot Or an asshole tech bro reading Iain M Banks and and taking absolutely nothing from the books except “Cool starship names, bro!”
Show threadBensGreenGamingAcNov 6, 2023
@malakit @jhpot Oh, he gets more but assumes the Culture is the end point of capitalism rather than being a Fully Automated Space Communism.
Show threadMalakitNov 6, 2023
@green_bens @jhpot I think he’s missing a bit here and there.
Show threadMalakitNov 6, 2023
@green_bens @jhpot Especially about how the Culture isn’t necessarily the perfect utopian society that it likes to think that it is.
Show threadMalakitNov 6, 2023
@green_bens @jhpot For reference, see about every book that features Special Circumstances.
Show threadderekNov 6, 2023
@jhpot It pisses me off to no end that Musk named his SpaceX recovery ships after ships from Iain M. Banks' "Culture" series.
Show threadKagan MacTane (he/him)Nov 6, 2023
@jhpot re: the metaverse, it's particularly interesting to see the difference between Zuckerberg's slavish adoption of the word and Linden Labs' implementation, where they didn't bother with the word and instead nailed the *concept and feel* just as accurately as possible. (Also their response to being parodied was *brilliant*.)
Show threada*lfonso adriasol&Nov 6, 2023
@jhpot take heart, he thinks its from hitchhikers
Show threadMichael 🏴‍☠️ FleetNov 6, 2023

@jhpot
Same energy, for every fascist out there improperly citing 1984 and Brave New World. Apparently an entire generation only read summaries of both books. Or reading comprehension doesn’t exist.

And don’t get me started on how few have read Zamyatin’s “We”, a formerly banned Russian text, from which Orwell and Huxley cribbed to write their own works.

Show threadShadSterlingNov 6, 2023

@f1337 @jhpot every school and college bookstore I’ve been to has had zillions of Cliff’s Notes and similar “study guides”, so that tracks.

I grew up reading a lot (enough that I learned to turn pages in a paperback one-handed), and was stunned to learn that some of my schoolmates not only actively avoided reading but seemed to genuinely hate it. I could understand hating reading certain things or hating being forced to read, but they seemed to hate reading altogether

Show threadjwzNov 6, 2023
@jhpot More importantly, anyone who has ever actually used the word "grok" non-ironically might as well have "I am a huge fucking loser" tattooed across their forehead. That's like an ESR level of cringe dweebery.
Show threadeestileib (she/hers)Nov 6, 2023

@jwz @jhpot

Everybody's an undergrad at some point.

Show threadFeralRobotsNov 6, 2023
@jwz @jhpot
I use it unironically on a regular basis. It's a pretty darn cromulent word. Reliably embiggens the conversation.
Show threadJustin PotNov 6, 2023
@FeralRobots @jwz Nice tattoo buddy
Show threadFeralRobotsNov 6, 2023
@jhpot @jwz
Don't y'all feel special, the way you can see something that ain't there?
Show threadAndy NonimoseNov 6, 2023
@jhpot Given that it has access to posts from the bird site, I'm just waiting to see how long it takes before it becomes the next Tay and spews racism.
Show threadJustin PotNov 6, 2023
@andynonimose spewing racism seems to be the core selling point...
Show threadBornachNov 7, 2023
@jhpot @andynonimose
Yup.
Musk wanted to build his own LLM because he thinks ChatGPT is too woke
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a43126181/elon-musk-anti-woke-artificial-intelligence/
Elon Musk Is Building an Anti-Woke AI, Whatever That Means

Sure.

Popular Mechanics