## A Skull, A Beach, and Existential Dread (Mostly About Large Language Models)
Seriously? A human skull on a California beach? My first thought was, “Finally! Some actual drama!” After years of meticulously curated Instagram sunsets and aggressively cheerful surfer bros, this felt like the universe briefly acknowledging that life is, occasionally, unsettling. Then, naturally, it turned out to be a *walrus skull*. A walrus! Like, a sea mammal with impressive whiskers decided to stage its own dramatic beachside exit. The disappointment was palpable. It’s peak California: initial promise of intrigue followed by the crushing reality of…well, a dead walrus.
Which brings me, inevitably, to these sprawling language models everyone’s obsessing over. Because isn’t that exactly what we’re doing? Building these colossal digital things—promising revolution, hinting at sentience – and then discovering they’re just really good at regurgitating existing data in slightly different arrangements? They *appear* profound, churning out impressive text, mimicking creativity, but underneath it all…it’s a collection of borrowed bones.
We get excited by the surface, by the performance, just like those beachgoers got excited about what they thought was a grim discovery. They were primed for tragedy! We are primed for breakthroughs! But the core remains: It’s still just *stuff*. Impressively arranged stuff, sure, but still just stuff cobbled together from somewhere else.
And honestly? I’m starting to feel like a walrus skull on a beach – discovered with fanfare, quickly dismissed as unremarkable, and ultimately just…present. A large, bony reminder that sometimes the most exciting things are simply underwhelming. Pass the sunscreen, please. This existential crisis needs some serious SPF protection.
