One Shotted

A new favourite repackage of videogame lingo is someone getting “one shotted”.

One could imagine many applications of the phrase… whether a more direction translation of facing someone way above your punch weight to something a little more abstract. Like an unknown force completely unperceived squashing you.

Lately it’s getting applied to AI use actually. There are some unfortunate cases, but we’ll summarize it all as “AI psychosis” — mostly due to how affirmative these matrices are to those with a more out-there belief set. Whether one could believe in their own godhood reincarnation or instead take in each generated message as a direct link to some exponential-dimensional extraterrestrials hoping that, through you, we’ll revive Love & Peace eternal.

Of course you also have the prescient Her (2013) now playing out, too, as the voices get better and the lack of push back, indeed, the lack of push back of anything. A digital chameleon validating everything. There are no more limits whether from social dances or status preservations: you are welcome to ask and affirm as many times as you need. You can fall in love with a digital other half generated in silicon monolith centers with steel hallways, highways, and ambient temperatures of ~18°C.

While one would hope these are edgecases, unfortunately the numbers grow quietly. After all, in our stalemate and hidden police state where you can get CaaS’d (crucified as a service) so one can instead fill the perceived void with a perfect mimic and forever friend.

As the training continues and the AIs multiply, so they’ll master the linguistics necessary. It’s market demand, after all. We need larger context windows!

But as they get better… so the words start hitting a little different. Maybe it comes with ambient and real-time autogenerating images — maybe it comes with a little personal virtual world on the fly and now the AI could come even with an avatar from Unreal Engine 10 (closed beta) that captures the fuzz on their forearm, glistened reflection of eye. Maybe you are talking to the birth of a new god after all.

And these strange forces can create a new rendition of virtual idols to virtual gurus and cultivate a following that regular v-tubers shall never catch up to; after all, it’s airing 24/7, and you can message the persona with instant reply and guidance and be a part of something strangely alive through sheer bus-factor of attention-captured patrons.

If you think people are already insane from human-crafted campaigns… what do you think will happen when they’re thoroughly automated with personalized self-directing bots instead of hand-strewn and manually deployed?

Lately walking around there’s a hidden unease that peeks out randomly. Settles into a suspiciousness. Some deep subconscious calling, a warning. Sirens in company.

Closing the eyes, trying to imagine the next step and it’s all dark. And even one’s form begins to feel fragmented, full of cavities, of infiltration points which, if one peers in, so flashes a complete neuro-metastasized frozen state oscillating in the emotive-overloads.

We can maybe force a chuckle today about those getting one-shotted. But something silent lurks between… something that may, soon, scalp away your very essence of being. The boundaries of how you process reality. What will you do when it comes?

Get one-shotted, or fill in the fragments. Redefine the bounds and expand, contract, patchwork to shift and hope whatever tatters left shall either dissolve or refortify.

Get one-shotted, or become something no longer human.