Gay & Tired

Those are Expert Systems, tuned to do exactly one thing. If you (say) ask a medical expert system a question about financial law, it's useless. The autopilot that flies a 787 has no idea how to drive a truck on the freeway. A Coulter Counter is excellent at identifying lymphocytes in a blood sample but can't predict the next card in a blackjack game.

And so on.

The problem with so-called generalized AI (AGI) is that we don't have that yet. It doesn't exist. It MIGHT some day, but AGI has been "10 years away" since the 1980s. The goals keep moving as we learn more about how people and machines process data.

But the current crop of AI techbros have been selling generative Large Language Model AI (LLM) as AGI because generative systems do a good job of faking it. There's no actual thought going on, merely the illusion of thought via predicting the next word in a sentence accurately.

If you let a human toddler listen to 800 hours of YouTube car influencer videos, that toddler might end up sounding like a car influencer. They'd parrot horsepower numbers and 0 to 60 times, mention EV range and MSRP numbers.

But they wouldn't understand any of it.

That's ChatGPT.

And yeah, it's worse than useless because it doesn't even know when it's lying or hallucinating. It just babbles convincingly until you stop it.

But for techbros to make money selling that as "AI"? It's the perfect scam, especially if you don't understand how it works.

I wanna tell you all about my mom. I know this is a sentence used against transmascs, and im a transman, so I wanna use my voice to tell you about my mom.

My mom is a cis woman, a gender nonconforming woman. (I had to teach her gnc recently actually, because she couldn’t find a term that she felt accurate.)

My mom has always hung out with mostly guys, she can fix cars, we half-joke (because its true) that every time she breaks up with a man they steal her toolbox (they do). We’re going to negate her current relationship because my stepdad is a feminist who adores her, but not all of her exes where like that.

My mom has faced SO MUCH misogyny over her clothing, her makeup, her hobbies. When she was building her tiny model car, her ex would drunkly rant how thats a “boys hobby” and “she shouldn’t be doing that”. Her and my dad used to renovate houses when they were married, Dad would plaster, and mom would plaster alongside him. While also fixing doors and windows, and floors, and ceilings, and painting the damn thing. When she goes to autoparts stores, or car lots, they always talk to her like shes stupid. Recently shes been bringing her husband, so the associate will ramble his ear off, and when theyre finally done, her husband turns to her and goes “babe I don’t know a thing hes talking about, what do you suggest?” because theyre both just so pissed off about it.

Don’t get me wrong, my moms for the girls too! She’ll give her enemy a tampon type of person. But the girls turn their backs on her, quite frequently. Mom used to have a friend, a male friend, who would go to the bar with her. I knew him well. They’re not friends anymore because he used her hobbies and interests to try to sleep with her. He would always try to change her too. Mom likes cooking, so he would try to push her away from things like watching fantasy TV (he thought that was a more ‘male’ genre) or fixing up the house for things like cooking and cleaning.

And so when I came out as trans, it was a really hard time for my mom. She understands now, and shes a HUGE HUGE ally and advocate for me, and I couldn’t fathom having a more supportive mother, but she was really confused. Mom was worried I wanted to transition because the misogyny gnc/masculine women face. I didn’t shave, I liked playing with knives and multitools, when I did makeup it was always more Kiss/Marilyn Manson style, when my sisters did a Marilyn Monroe.

I remember her driving us home from the clothing shop I came out to her in, and the talk we had. She asked me if I was confused, and I said I was sure. She said that I could just be a tomboy, like her. That it didn’t matter what everyone else said about being a masculine woman. Having talked later as adults, she thought I thought the only option for the type of masculinity I have was to be a man. She was so scared for me and my safety because of how punished masculinity is in women.

So now, as I’m 23, and its 2025, Mom is still the gender nonconforming woman she always has been. Mom taught me how to fish, how to use a hatchet, knife safety, and how to cook and sew. I’m a man who picks up heavy things for her now that shes too disabled too, who wears makeup and nail polish with my denim cutoffs and binder, who still has to call my mommy when I can’t get this screw to screw in right mom, I dont know your tips and tricks.

And masculine women can exist alongside trans men. My mom goes to my hormone appointments with me to make sure these doctors are listening to me, she yells at me when I take my shots late, she picks up my hormones if I’m at work. Mom takes me to Pride every year, and god rest the soul of any transphobes that cross my mothers path. My moms for the girls and the gays, the he’s and the they’s, the its and the lesbians and everyone between. Mom will fix you dinner and your car, and we give her gifts on fathers day too because she was Mom and Dad growing up.