we humans are losing faith in ourselves

we find ourselves in a reality where more and more people seem to actually use generative forms of a.i.. is hatred of a.i. the new 'woke'? if you use it, are you a bad person? uhgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHH.....,,,,,always falling into conversations about this SLOPpy zeitgeist. "but the dreamcatching video". "girl look at pondeggi".

there is no question these are two of a range of examples of uses of generative m.l.¹ that push boundaries of human artistic expression. why do these (at least, subjectively,) seem to work? this comes down to two points:

• no person could have (realistically) carried out this expression manually.
• there is no intention to deceive.

even in these, it is obvious that there was a lot of human involvement in the final result. dreamcatcher appears to be a frame-by-frame animation utilising a tool like the nvidia canvas app, and this 'psychedelic a.i.' aesthetic arguably cannot be rendered personally. with regards to intention to deceive, well,,, it's pretty obvious to the viewer that this is gen m.l. by said aesthetic.

a large part of the opposition to usage of machine learning is based in concerns about both energy cost in production, training, and running, and material cost in the chip production and related ewaste. is acheiving the aesthetic even worth it given this true cost? what really is so interesting about this aesthetic? and like any aesthetic, it's just one part of an arsenal of styles and possible expressions. there could be a better one available, or one that hasn't even been thought of yet. this particular (essentially, 'visible a.i.') aesthetic will age and pass just like any other, like overuse of tacky cgi and green screens over incredible makeup and set development, and i have yet to see if generative m.l. can be used to do anything substantially different of interest.

talking with friends (especially non-techie ones) it seems like most people use chatgpt to write stuff that they, understandably, have no motivation to do. mostly email boilerplate, maybe some documentation, a stupid article or essay for a class that they couldn't be bothered about. this exposes a foundational reason why these tools are pushed, as a solution to bullshit work² . and yes, this is incredibly potent, and it's absolutely ridiculous that this unfortunately systemic (and therefore annoyingly diffucult to push for proper solutions) problem continues, but sometimes, it's definitely more than that. if considering using gen m.l. can reveal such unimportance, then it's probably more apt to ask, why would you even do it at all? that being, the kind of stuff that spiritually ends up being the s.e.o. slop articles that arise in search results.

like, traditionally, take shitposting. recently people have been using chatgpt to generate Ghibli versions of popular memes. so it's fun to see what is ultimately a cheap juxtaposition³, u consumed it, u ate it, u giggled, whatever. but how did it make you feel? is there a place for the junk food of meme production in society? why should we not see memes as art, and worthy of the effort required to call them so?

everybody can probably think of an example of a meme that impressed them with the amount of effort that it took for something that was ultimately maybe a bit stupid. over-evolved ytps, cupcakke remixes, shit like the ratatouille musical. not to say that low-effort memes aren't worthy too. but that, these just wouldn't hit even as close as hard as they do if they were just made by some algorithm somewhere. instead of taking a shortcut, go all the way and put your love into something. the shortcut mentality extends to those who excuse usage of gen m.l. as a 'learning tool' too. one must reach the end product as soon as possible. productivity over all else. maybe even an avoidance of hard things.

this avoidance affects us deeply. when an indie mod developer says that they use gen m.l. for generating voice lines because they can't afford professional voice actors, they lose the opportunity for reaching out and developing human connections with those who would love to put their heart into a side project, or are looking for experience. it can cheat oneself and others from an opportunity for self-actualization, no matter how silly.

in continuing to ask where this temptation for many people comes from, i've heard it said⁴ that people have been tricked by consumerism into thinking buying and owning something is this personal self-actualisation. there is also a level of alienation here too. when people say "omg art is being democratised", i mean, hasn't art always been democratized? you used to draw as a child, you can still pick up a pencil. there is this horrible idea that is pushed in our current cultural hegemony⁵ that there is a creator and a consumer. but the reality is that we are all artists, every day we are artists. it's just that some know it better than others.

big tech and shareholders have so much to gain from this. that pondeggi video was part of a push by microsoft. when your m.l. chatbot is a browser frontend that runs on your phone, it obfuscates the reality of the true computing requirements to run it, like the difference between paying cash and tapping contactless. there is so much money to be made by cutting out the artist. the attempt at nonconsensual theft of priceless human creativity.

and isn't that just what this all is, a concerted effort at devaluation of the artist. a devaluation of humanity. as Miyazaki said, to get "humans to lose faith in ourselves"⁶.