My agi anxiety got worse because of my niece
AGI is here. Being aware of the implications makes it difficult to admit. Most will find it easier to not admit it, head in the sand. Especially if you have a family. If things are going to be different for you, someone who already has collected assets, someone who has a career and a network to lean on, what is it going to be like for your kid? When deepseek r1 got released, I was with my niece. Watching her grow, watching her play - wanting to take in more of the world. I couldn't help but think - "she doesn't know, poor girl".
Is this how my parents felt? When the internet began sputtering to life, coming online? How did they feel when they saw me talking about pokemon, talking about trading with other people? How difficult was it for them - to temper the powerful attractor of the infiniteverse? I was effectively homeschooled by my dad. I went to a public high school. But most of my learning was with him, after school, making sure that I was still on the rails. For a science project, one day, he had me write about google. He taught me all the tricks. How to use quotes, how to use - or +. The search engine was powerful technology, and he quickly mastered it.
"I wish I had this when I was younger. I had to go to the library. I had to manually look at the index. You have no idea how lucky you are."
But, with the internet, came dangers. Not all information is good for children. And while habbo hotel is fun, and figuring out how to trade your way up using chairs as currency, adults are online too. And some adults are dangerous to children.
I got on 4chan when I was 15 or 16. Most don't come out of that okay. It made me personally better, it helped me find my people. But most people do not come out of it okay. Most people don't realize they should be on /sci/, /fit/ and /g/ instead of /b/. My parents are smart. But there was no way they would be able to keep up with the technology itself. They couldn't control me either - network router configurations quickly turned from child control to good lessons on how internet routing worked, as I figured out how to hack around them.
The same applied for parents in the 10s. Though it was harder. And today? Probably harder still. If you're a non technical parent? Forget about it. You're at the mercy of scam altman - if using your child as DAU fodder to raise is next round is what he needs to do, he will do it.
Most people open up the youtube homepage, and expose their children to youtube kids. Not realizing that the cocomelon demons have had every sound specifically chosen in a horrendous A/B test where british children were gradient descended into becoming more brainjacked. It's not like a TV. Older technology was easier to understand. A TV channel had a company behind it. You could understand their incentives. You could reason about it. Youtube? You need to be a software engineer that has worked with distributed systems, understands the scale of it, understands what an objective function is, and understands how humans melt when these machines are pointed towards them.
It's horrifying. I feel survivor's guilt. Just because I grew up in the tiny slice of time that I have, had a specific interest, went to the right places on the internet (/g/), I am aware of it. But the people i know, with kids? They scroll their phones around them. Their kids reach for their phones as early as 5 months old.
My solution? Lean in
I got good at computers because I was addicted to computers. Every wall my parents put up, made me better at computers. I will be designing a tug and pull war with my niece - I will give her just enough technology that will interest her, but present it, nerfed. First, it will be a terminal only computer, with games that we program ourselves.
I'll put in an AGI I control over a terminal command. If she wants a web browser, she’ll have someone helping. A ghost in the wire, answering her every question.
Like a weakened rotovirus vaccine, I'll expose her. As she defeats my "controls", which are meant to be broken, she’ll have more control over the machine
And instead of the machines controlling her, she’ll be their master.
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I almost missed a blog post again. I'll keep on fighting to get one out every day. I've been pretty consistent so far!
Thanks for reading. I'll be creating software and such to help my niece grow and adapt well with AGI. As I create this software, I'll share my experiences and everything that I learn!
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