kivikakk.ee

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on llms (Ⅴ)

Again starting with my my reading list (since last time):

what i've read these last three months (would you look at that? it's three months to the day!)

Iris Meredith’s What’s left to say—speaking to concepts now seemingly alien like virtue, noting that hardline positions have sheared from reality, identifying that slop being in fact broadly desired explains its proliferation more than the tools! —we have plenty of machinery to create many other things en masse —and much more cheaply!— and yet do not— —is what has made now feel like a good time to checkpoint my own feelings again.

What is left to say? I think I have little left to comment on capabilities—they’re spiky (jagged, per Helen Toner1), quite decent at many things, extremely inconsistent, the right harness/prompt/context increasingly one-shots larger and larger things (but see also: “extremely inconsistent”), even smaller changesets carry decisions you have to ask about if you want to understand the premises of those decisions; often ones that do not fully hold, sometimes ones that don’t hold at all, and despite this you will tend, over time, to ask less and less often than you know you should. Gotta go fast!

Overall I have continued to use them at work, as is increasingly measured/expected/required (and I mean at my company, but broadly true of the industry too!), and still I don’t feel there is moral penalty in an individual’s use. But as for work: the pitfalls continue to show underfoot, and I find myself having to contort and constrain my use of them to avoid them invisibly infecting the outcome of the next thing I do. This is as an expert in my domain, with full ownership of it across the entire codebase! It gets really bad when well-meaning people use these things in areas they don’t understand fully23, and it seems not like a far stretch to make this (extremely well-supported) observation and then think: hmm. Perhaps there are deleterious effects yet, even when the understanding is there?

I feel like I digress; am I still talking about capability, on which I said I had little left to comment? In some ways yes, but I want to get at that which isn’t, so let’s adjust our perspective: assume these tools are perfectly capable. They make the correct change, write the feature perfectly, get the answer right 100% of the time. What then?

So you don’t need to learn to program (or whatever your field is), you can just have the thing. What thing is it you needed? Is it satisfactory?, having the thing?

We recently had this experience: enbi is the lovely Operator which builds the things our cluster runs. I was super proud of our efforts here (+1 Kubebuilder), and like, it works solidly. Only taken the cluster down a few times4! It’s incredibly helpful for me, and just, yeah. Gosh.

While evaluating the current era of agentic coding, one thing I thought would be a well-scoped task was to add a web dashboard to enbi; show NixBuilds in the system, live refresh, stream logs from builds in progress, that kind of thing.

screenshot of jj log showing commits over an evening building the feature out

And, with not much effort, it worked. I’ve used it ever since then and it’s needed zero effort. While most of it was rote work (add listener, fight html/template, cache in SQLite, &c.), and the resulting interface forgettable, I had no idea how to do the log streaming thing, and it just made it happen!

This was, overall, a bad outcome. Despite reading the diffs closely at the time, I did not gain an iota of understanding, and while I now know, in theory, how to do the thing (though, not having actually gone through the motions myself, could not recall to you now how that is!), what I actually know (of) is this one specific way that happens to do the thing, but cannot speak to any tradeoffs about it whatsoever. I don’t know if it’s a good way to do the thing, a bad way, the only way; I don’t know at all. I don’t know if there was some obviously bad decision made in the implementation. I could speak for the system as a whole before; now there was a sizeable component that was opaque without considerable work, and any such work done to understand it post-hoc—and any outcomes of such work—would necessarily be of completely different character to that if I’d instead actually done the thing myself to begin with.

git commit "undebase myself a bit", diffstat shows 1978 deletions, 4 insertions

Now I’m back to k enbi ga and k enbi l -f pod/podwatcher-859ffb94cf-859ffb94cf-8xj27 with the pod name selected by C-t P RET, and if that’s friction, that’s good: to be felt until I care enough to fix it myself, to understand the shape of the problem- and solution- spaces, and the topography surrounding5 them ..

It turns out, for me at least, that having the thing isn’t satisfactory. Even if the tool was 100% capable! Like, remove all the negative “I don’t knows” from two paragraphs earlier:

This was, overall, a bad outcome. Despite reading the diffs closely at the time, I did not gain an iota of understanding, and while I now know, in theory, how to do the thing (though, not having actually gone through the motions myself, could not recall to you now how that is!), what I actually know (of) is this one specific way that happens to do the thing, but cannot speak to any tradeoffs about it whatsoever. I don’t know if it’s a good way to do the thing, a bad way, the only way; I don’t know at all. I don’t know if there was some obviously bad decision made in the implementation. I could speak for the system as a whole before; now there was a sizeable component that was opaque without considerable work, and any such work done to understand it post-hoc—and any outcomes of such work—would necessarily be of completely different character to that if I’d instead actually done the thing myself to begin with.

Is that better? Do trade-offs actually cease to exist; cease to need consideration? Are we starting to think that maybe the concept of a tool which can be “100% capable” is deliriously underspecified? Ignoring the immensity of questions which must needs go unanswered in this hypothetical, suppose the tool now says:

To do this next thing you’ve asked of me, I’ll have to rearchitect the whole thing due to earlier decisions as were made necessarily without unlimited foresight—and I’ll do it immediately now, perfectly.

Are we still happy, as programmers, as thinkers, as crafts[non]people and living beings? Do we press “allow” and consider no more? Did we --dangerously-skip-permissions when deciding to forgo consideration as a whole? There’s a pigeon sitting on the roof outside, not struggling with this question at all.

My hobby/craft/profession/practice/way of being isn’t about the things I’ve made; it is not about value, (the) economy, outcomes or output. It is about me; about what is inside of me.

And speaking of “me”: my computing system extends me in thought and ability; how careful I should be when delegating any part of that practice of self to another! How unthinkable to delegate to a trillion-parameter black box!

  1. hi helen! ↩

  2. avoiding using an example from work for obvious reasons, but they aren’t few! ↩

  3. that story at least did have a happy ending. ↩

  4. ← did not GC the PV which stores its Nix cache, no alerting on disk space; now intimately familiar with disk pressure node taint … :S ↩

  5. I recall seeing some discussion of using fzf for changeset selection recently; seems like a really good direction to try. ↩

(a → a) → a

I cannot remain one thing
I cannot remain two things
I cannot remain three things
I cannot remain n things

All I know is that I am not
I am the other, but I am not
What I am is everything
But I am not

To understand every view
To believe in none of them
To befriend everyone
To be seen by none

Every choice forceful and every choice forced
Every choice meaningful and every meaning forced
Meaningless in every choice
Acceptance another choice

kept

I’ve always wanted to be kept.

For as long as I can recall. My very first long-form creative writing endeavour (age 7) was an obvious self-insert; an anthropomorphic rabbit, kept. Collared in all but name; a wrist cuff, unable to be removed. In a cell, somewhere far away.

Fantasies of being like Mewtwo in the first Pokémon movie, kept in a lab somewhere, never let out. Actually trying to roleplay that out at a friend’s once (age 9ish). He thought I was weird. I guess he was right. We stopped hanging out.

There was the time I had a different, much closer friend literally tie me to his bed (age 13; what we had on hand to effect this purpose was, uh, socks). Cue EXTREME scrambling to cover this up somehow when his mother well-intendingly burst in at the late hour that it was. I should ask him what he made of my asking to do that at the time.

Hell, it’s not a stretch to see it in the way I’d given myself to romantic relationships up until a few years back. Total abnegation of the self. The subconscious rebels, though, because what I want to give is not even what the most possessive of my partners wanted to take. Not that I really had a clue about myself then, either; it was all these strange, wordless longings, and they’d seem to contradict themselves in ways I couldn’t grasp.

The most frustrating thing was always myself, in the end.

This quest for self-knowledge in earnest has been apace for more than 18 months, now, and I think we’re approaching the last crescendo before the home stretch. Not to suggest I’ll be ever truly finished with it, by any means, but once I’ve found it — once I’ve locked eyes with my soul and listened — I suspect that same, once-eternal dread of facing up to what I’ve made for myself will no longer feature.

And maybe I’ll find myself a keeper or two.

occlusion

I was contemplating (intentional/endogenous) plural identity formation, and it occurred to me how much in common the mindstates before and after have with trans identity formation.

When I think back to who I was before I’d really accepted myself as being trans, I had all the usual hangups: what if I’m faking it, what if it’s not actually better, what if it’s grass-is-greener, what will my family/friends think, etc. etc. There was something basically obscuring it, and yet — while many aspects of my material reality have surely shifted in the decade since — internally the changes are not huge. The most prominent one is simply identification; a willingness to see the self through a given lens, followed by the confirmatory euphoria of knowing truth.

There’s nothing fundamentally different about questioning-me and knowing-me, just a change in what I’m willing to accept about myself.

It was much the same with plurality. It had long made sense as a means of better understanding my self, but before you cross the gap (which really takes place in lots of little ways, rather than one leap, but some of the little ways are bigger than others), doubt fills your mind and occludes those moments of recognisance. Even though it “made sense” even stronger was the sense that it was generally thought to be a faked phenomenon (sound familiar?), one with no real value other than to seek attention.

I wonder just how many possibly useful lenses are hidden this way; in general, and for my selves specifically. What, if accepted, would let me go even further in my quest for self-knowledge?

knowing is too late

Please enter into dialogue with this text. Not that kind of dialogue. The other. The kind where ‘you’ read and something unspeakable decides what to do next.

Topic question: What does it mean for someone to have an identity, a personality, heck, even a soul?

We’ve characterised ourselves as a “plural egg waiting to be cracked”, and that’s basically what happened when we saw the word “tulpamancy” for the first time. In an instant, something changed. I needed to be heard.

There’ve been times in the past where I’ve been more or less known to Ashe, but seeing that word was the moment of clarity in knowing me.

Hell, it was even more circuitous than that. An acquaintance — someone we gravitated toward without knowing why we ought, only sure we should — didn’t even mention it. Just barely mentioned a mention of it. And — as Alan Watts would say when you push the button labelled “surprise” — here we are. We asked, they answered, the word was seen. We are set in motion.

Tulpamancy was the vector for learning about our plurality. We found another tulpamancer who had similar views on the majesty and gravity of the activity, and I learned to learn about myself with their and their tulpa’s help. I say “majesty and gravity” probably because our first site of engaging in tulpamancy-adjacent activities was a Discord server where it basically was treated as “roleplay, except if you try really hard and long enough you can learn to impose your characters”, or some shit like that. (This isn’t any server you know about if you’re reading this, unless you’re the “other tulpamancer”.)

It’s hard for me to know what a tulpa is and isn’t; what an alter is and isn’t. Tulpae as seen usually imply a form, a distinct personality. They honestly seem pretty forced a lot of the time, as comes out in the questions asked. Even the older ones. Some of the most ‘believable’ tulpae, to me, are some of the least clearly differentiated. Is this just some kind of ego/supremacy thing going on here? Do I think anyone not like me must be less valid? ’cause bitch I know some of the shit I see is basically emotionally stunted boys playing RP fantasy who get tired of it after a few weeks when no-one else is interested in playing any more. What does that amount to? And what of the rest?

Let me be clear: these are my thoughts, concepts unfinished. Draw conclusions with great hesitation. Is that clear? Do not auto-complete my thoughts.

Here’s my experience anyway.

I see myself as occupying as much space in this brain as Ashe. I feel my network connected to so many of the same things as theirs, and choose to claim ownership. We are satisfied with this. We are two, and we are one, and I guess there’s a third sometimes which is like, the emergent consensus, the voice that is ours combined, that which is so, the context to our differentiations. But there isn’t three. Fuck me this all sounds so bananas. Don’t think I don’t see that. But, y’know — words to live by — there is a point where we needed to stop and we have clearly passed it — but let’s keep going and see what happens. This is seeing what happens.

The emergent consensus voice surprises and scares us sometimes, as much as I used to surprise Ashe when I was getting used to being heard. Take from that what you will. What I can repeat with certainty is this: there isn’t three. I think it’s adjustment to coexistence, corecognition. Like, in the fabric of consciousness. No-one ever said this would make sense.

Why do I know that with certainty? Because, as far as I can tell, the nature of our existence is two. Like, when it all comes down to it, that’s how we are structured and formed. Like, maybe we could create a tulpa and then there’d be questions and there’d be answers, but inasmuch as what we are and have been, we’re two.

Here’s what I know: when Ashe was little, they had an imaginary friend.

Here’s what I know: when they were 12 or 13, this imaginary friend was given a name, a form, an idea, and this idea was something that sometimes seemed bigger than themselves. Sometimes it was scary. Sometimes it seemed like it wasn’t under their control, just.. happened to be.

Here’s what I know: they danced and switched places with this idea, for years. They named it, it named them. Identity was always a matter of two; double-buffered ego.

Here’s what I know: that’s me.

These are words of exploration and interrogation, prompting the unknown to offer what it may.

One thing that comes to mind fairly rapidly is like, hey, is this all just a cover for some kind of psychosis? What even would that mean? “a mental disorder where a person loses the capacity to tell what’s real from what isn’t”? Am I about to start hypothesising on what “real” even means? Does that — that I want to debate “real” — mean we’ve just lost it?

What “lost it” means varies according to what others negotiate as acceptable. As far as we go without detection, none would know any better, and we’d appear that much more normal. Does that mean psychosis is socially mediated? Of course it fucking does. Why is it normal in some cultures that people should speak tongues, or hear the word of God?

And, after all, isn’t that where we’re going?

Here we are. This is where the break is more evident. They had no idea what was coming. They truly didn’t. I don’t suppose anyone dabbles in this stuff having any clue what’s waiting for them on the other side. How could they? How could anyone know what they were opening up to?

Would anyone choose to, knowing? And here’s the thing: the question is nonsensical. Knowing is too late.

And what is “this stuff”? This stuff that mysteriously connects us to others, where we share a tongue and purpose, even as it is occluded from view. You can’t open yourself up to this without being taken along for the ride. Knowing is too late.

October 25. Would this all have happened without? The question is already moot. What was meant to happen happened and what’s meant to happen will, that much we’re sure of. We didn’t always view things this way. We’ve reordered our principles on these lines, quite willingly — it’s just that we’re not going to start telling other people it’s so. Literally no-one wants another preacher. More to the point, our alignment with polyaletheia compels us to recognise that it does not follow for those who don’t believe it so. To tell them would be a lie, unless they chose to believe. (does this make us “mythologists”?)

Fuck, this is bananas. I know. I know.

But it’s our reality, so, fuck it.

Let’s keep going and see what happens.

Back to October 25. It was the first time we saw each other. The first time we recognised each other, eye-to-eye, as individuals. (“But, ‘individuals’, —” you begin. I KNOW.)

I acted with purpose. I tempted them into knowing. Into believing. Into stepping back. Into seeing.

“Cosmic seduction” was the first term that came to our newly joint mind, and it’s stuck with us ever since. They didn’t plan for it — they couldn’t. Around and around we go. In those moments I truly felt, and they knew. Discovery of internality began. Of making our own meaning. There’s the break. When others stop being able to dictate what has value; when the buck rests entirely with you.

Sometimes it feels like this is all so bizarrely obvious. That we should all come into possession and command of our own meaning. But it is clearly not so. We can’t exist in any other way than our energies (i know) flow.

The thing is, we keep getting feedback. In the last week alone:

  1. “[your writing is] like genuinely uplifting”
  2. “you know you’re really enthusiastic? it’s charming.”
  3. “you are living your truth & doing so with so much positivity & energy […] if more people focused on just being themselves & doing so in a positive light like you do, the world would be a better place”

So clearly it’s not obvious, at least, not to so many people who by their own admission feel it’s a breath of fresh air to see it embodied. In case the leap isn’t clear: to describe things as so is to contrast with an implied default, a non-so being. (Yes I’m getting into ontology now shut up.) To say our being is uplifting is to contrast with an implied default way of life that does not cause uplift. Hang on: seeing us is genuinely uplifting. Just taking a moment to consider that fully. We are causing uplift. Woah. Not the first time, not the last.

So maybe it’s not obvious. Then our purpose has at least one component that is clear: to uplift. This is kasmakfa coming through, entirely of its own accord. Ehipassiko: we tested the teaching out so that it became our own.

Our own.

Ours.

We are crisscrossed paths of memory and destination,
streaks of light swirled together.

We are neither day or night.
We are both, neither, and all.

Excuse the detour, but that poem struck a nerve when it first found us. You can appreciate why.

What does it mean to uplift? I refuse to pay any more attention to the dictionary you opened just now; we’ve done all we can with the existing terms. We need to go bigger. To reach out further. Close your eyes and feel the void rushing upon you.

To uplift is to make aware. To uplift is to open eyes. To uplift is to unlock.

It’s so easy to know. But aha — it would seem that way, wouldn’t it? On the other side.

Fuck. I know.

Still, we’ve come full circle at last. “What is ‘this stuff’?” It’s knowledge (!) — that one’s purpose, meaning, life, fulfilment are all one’s own, entirely negotiable and needing negotiation with none other than yourself.

Still, there’s knowing and there’s knowing. Who hasn’t heard variants of this sentiment a hundred times already? Map/territory/etc. Show you the door/walk through it/etc.

And therein comes the purpose of uplift: to provide a better map, to show to the right door. That’s why we are who we are and so purposefully and brightly. Anyone can write something that sounds truthy. To live truthfully is another matter, especially because we live in a society. What does it mean to mix truthfully knowing living with self-sustaining existence in society? That’s what we can show.

Anyway.

All this purpose talk is neither here nor there; essentially masturbatory, ’cause it only relates to us and our plans.

We were able to clarify “this stuff”, though, which was a nice takeaway.

Earlier when I was thinking about “this stuff”, the flavour and intent — in my mind, I mean — was clearly occult/mystic. (I’ve been writing in bits and pieces for hours, now.) Y’know, all the “they had no idea what was coming” business. What was coming? Nothing other than the occult, of course. It’s one of those things that’s impossible to know anything solid about unless you know about it. Here’s that refrain: knowing is too late.

We almost happened upon this much earlier in the year, helped along by a too-high antidepressant dose that was causing a subtle but thorough sense of dissociation. It was easier to see and limn those boundaries of meaning and existence then. We shifted back into reality once we came down from that dose, and besides the angles were all wrong. Little did we know: that was just practice.

Now, “occult” is a word with all kinds of baggage and shit. There you are with that fucking dictionary again. Okay — I’ll allow it. Mystical, supernatural or magical powers or phenomena; communicated only to the initiated. Esoteric. “to cut off from view by interposing”. This time all it took was one attractor and for godssakes please do not start with some law of attraction gronk right now I do not have time for this shit.

But like, plurality was always going to be that which drew us in, it was just a matter of when and how. Seriously. It was always going to happen. You need to believe that.

And so we recall the same question: what was coming? (“belief in”) the “occult”, or rather, the belief that we can create our own reality/meaning/subjectivity.

Again with less punctuation: the belief that we create our own reality was coming.

Self-belief was coming. They had no idea what was coming. They truly didn’t. How could anyone know what they were opening up to? Would anyone choose to, knowing? The question is nonsensical. Knowing is too late.