Sunny place

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.

Like if they just do the Todd sceen like they did in bo jack its going to be "rushed and overly simplistic" if he doesn't identify with ace by the end of the season it will be "baiting".

If he experiments at all people will call it out of character and if he doesn't people will call it unrealistic.

But, I mean... Here we are, all of us getting our expectations and our hopes up that this divisive topic that we all want to see and we all want in different ways and that's gonna cause discourse no matter what...

And it may not even be a season 3 thing. It may be season 4 or season 5.

Ooouuu I kinda like this idea like a lot

See, I write strictly aroace and (queer)platonic Alastor. Sometimes do art as well but I'm mostly a writer. Some of it is him cautiously exploring sexuality (and coming to the conclusion that it is Not For Him) but I'd say the majority of it is literally just him existing in all his aroace glory (be warned I do have a penchant for heavy angst)

I'll just... casually drop a link to my Hazbin fic collection over on AO3... (All but a couple of these fics are only accessible to logged in users of AO3 for protection against scraping, apologies about that)

As someone who has always hated the theories about how Alastor is a pure, irredeemable evil character who is going to turn against the hotel and be the final villain, I have always had a variety of reasons why this point of view made no sense to me. However, I have recently come to understand that, beneath many of these theories that Charlie will kick out Alastor and turn on him, lies a disdain for Charlie as a character. Something that I have heard a lot of people with these theories say is that Charlie needs to be taught a lesson that some people are not capable of redemption. They see her as a foolish little girl with silly dreams about redeeming the worst of the worst because she doesn't know any better and needs to be taught a lesson about how wrong she is. These people want Alastor to be the one to finally break her naivety. To force their point of view on her and make her "mature" into someone who agrees with them that some sinners should be classified as irredeemable.

I genuinely believe that anyone who is waiting for the narrative to show that Charlie is wrong about redemption is going to be disappointed. There are a lot of flaws in Charlie's methods that she still needs to work through. She also has a naive understanding of what good and evil entail. Despite this, the narrative has consistently validated her belief in redemption. Season 1 had her prove the validity of her beliefs to heaven. Season 2 proved it to hell. It seems that Season 3 is going to have to prove it to the audience, as there are a lot of people who still doubt her in the audience.

Something that I have heard a lot of people with these theories say is that Charlie needs to be taught a lesson that some people are not capable of redemption.

This is something I come across as well, and it ties in neatly with a post I recently saw here on Tumblr stating that 'some of you have never watched The Good Place and it shows'. The message of that show, which I also truly believe will prove to be a core message in Hazbin Hotel, is that anyone can be redeemed. Exactly as Charlie says multiple times throughout the show, for example in response to Vox in 2x3 when he asks her if she thinks even he could be redeemed.

It's not that some people cannot be redeemed, it's that some people do not want to be and will not put in the effort to try.

Keeping in mind that unless angelic steel is involved, the sinners in Hazbin's Hell have eternity ahead of them. Eternity. Just take a look at Zestial: that guy's been in Hell for centuries!

Are some people seriously going to say that if a person, no matter how cruel they may have been in life, were to dedicate decades or even centuries to bettering themselves, that still wouldn't be enough to redeem themselves? Say a person killed 10 people in life. This is horrible, absolutely horrible, and yes they would deserve damnation for their crimes. But if, once in Hell, they were to genuinely try and change, dedicate themselves instead to helping others, to saving lives if possible, whatever is within their power to put good out into the world, and they make a consistent effort to be a different, better person for years, would that still not be enough for them to find redemption?

The concept of redemption in our human, mortal perspective is a tough one sometimes, I understand. In life, we don't have eternity to right our wrongs. Depending on what crimes a person commits and what hurt they cause, there comes a point where a human lifespan is not long enough to make up for the damage they've done, no matter how much one may try. You can't wash away a lifetime of hurting others by donating away every penny you have and doing genuine good in volunteer work or whatever at the end of your life. Sometimes the damage is too great to be repaired in your lifetime (in the very worst cases at least).

But in Hazbin Hotel, as in The Good Place, these human souls are not bound by time. They get eternity to try, to stumble, to fall, to get up and to try again. They get eternity to learn from their mistakes, to acknowledge the damage they've caused, to try and be better tomorrow than they were today (props if you get this reference)

Under circumstances like these, Charlie is not naïve for believing that anyone can be redeemed (even if some never will be). I'd rather say it's naïve and shortsighted to believe that people cannot be redeemed when offered eternity to try.

The ones who will never find redemption, their problem is not a matter of being incapable of change, it's that they're not willing to try (for whatever reason this may be; some might genuinely enjoy cruelty and evil, some might believe themselves incapable of change or undeserving of redemption, or a multitude of other reasons)

Charlie doesn't need to be proven wrong. Charlie is entirely correct. And her staunch belief that people are always, always capable of change if they just try is perhaps the most mature belief in the show. Her methods need work, but her belief is solid, and she does not need to be proven wrong.

Hazbin Hotel Horror Vacui AU

[In my fic Horror Vacui, Alastor's left arm is amputated below the elbow after being mutilated by Shock.Wav in the S2 finale]

In this instalment of my Disability Pride series, we're looking at kitchen supplies for people with limited hand function and limb difference. There's tons of useful tools that allow people to prepare food with only one hand! Or with chronic pain, impeded strength etc.

Using knives with the handle at a right angle allows you to put less strain on your wrist while cutting food. This is very important for people with chronic pain, muscle issues or who use one hand and are therefore more prone to strain injuries.

Knorks are very useful, too! A fork that doubles as a knife, there is no need to use two hands to eat. Especially when combined with special plates: the one depicted here has a sloped bottom that makes it easier to scoop up food without spilling, and the knobs can hold food in place so that it doesn't roll away when you try to scoop or cut it.

Something similar exists on cutting boards. Knobs or spikes hold ingredients in place and some have elastic bands or cords attached that can hold food down, too. There are cutting boards with more features as well, such as holders for graters and the likes, all of which makes food preparation more accessible!

Finally there are pan stabilisers. These can be fixed to a countertop or stove and will help keep pans in place so that they won't shift when you stir in them.

There's plenty of other tools that can be used in the kitchen and at the dining table. Limb difference or other disabilities don't need to keep a person from eating or cooking independently!

Next up will be either a section on mental health or on prosthetics!

Oh, damn, I didn't know there were aroace licenses, remind me to get one!

Alastor did not "cheat."

There's a very small detail about his deal with Rosie that actually makes it VERY different from the other kinds of soul deals in the show. Most of the other soul deals are very straight forward, classic selling-your-soul type things: you are given (blank) in return for selling ownership your soul to the person giving you (blank). Or, in slight variation: your soul is taken by (blank) in exchange for whatever you asked of (blank). It's kind of one-and-done thing. You make the deal, you're contracted until one of you dies permanently (presumably) or the deal is forcibly broken with. Simple, right?

This is NOT what Alastor's deal is. His deal isn't giving Rosie his soul in exchange for power, it's Rosie giving him power and keeping his soul until his debt is paid. There's a very clear "out" clause. He didn't sell his soul, not really, it's just being held from him (like a frozen credit card, if you will) until he pays Rosie back by completing whatever "task" she has for him. Granted, we don't know what this task is or if either of them even though, so this could be a loophole Rosie exploits to essentially keep him on a leash forever, but I really doubt that she doesn't have some modus operandi that Alastor is integral to and will honor their agreement afterwards.

This very particular detail is what makes their relationship so interesting, but that's for another post. My point in bringing this up is that this isn't Alastor boosting himself on someone's power, not really. After all, it's pretty fair and completely transactional. He gets something from Rosie and he then pays her back for it, simple as that. To put it in a more mundane scenario: if you borrow an egg from your neighbor, you're probably going to let them take a measuring spoon next time they ask, because that balances it out. They just haven't done their balancing act yet. You're not dependent on your neighbor just because you borrowed something once, the scale just hasn't been settled, so to speak.

Because, really, Alastor doesn't NEED Rosie's power. Even with his staff broken (which seems to contain the magic Rosie gave to him), he's pretty damn powerful. Rosie definitely played her cards right in that regard, because Alastor very likely would've become an Overlord without any boost from her just fine, it just might've taken a few more years. He's no fraud. He's not even "cheated"—he's leveraged himself a head start that he's going to repay.

And it may seem incredibly skewed in Rosie's favor, but it's not really when you look beyond the soul-owning thing. Not only is it temporary, but they're both, at the end of the day, getting the same thing: power. Souls give you power, so Rosie gets power. Rosie gave Alastor power too. It's mutual. And with how she talks about him being "the one" (for her plans) compared to Alastor's ability to stand on his own, I would even argue that she might need him far more than he needs her. But that's also another post.

I mean, they're DEMONS in HELL... What do people expect?

A short and messy comic about Alastor introducing his newly acquired daughter to a dear pal