It certainly wasn’t my intent to make fun of you in the reply to your previous comment. But I appreciate the hall pass. I’m sure I’ll make fun of you in the future. In fact, I’ve just added it to my calendar.

I hear every one of your sentiments and agree 100%. I think where there’s a little air between us is that I don’t necessarily see it as an either/or. I think it’s both. What I mean is, movie studios churn out repetitive slop (that’s frankly indistinguishable from AI slop already) and independent film makers produce deeply felt, meaningful films. Romance novels are, I think, the largest segment of the book market, and writers continue to hammer away at the Great American Novel. Top 40 pop is the same crap it’s always been, while real musicians are still producing work of heartbreaking beauty.

There will always be a market for crap and there will always be a market for art. The crap market has always been, and is still, bigger than the art market. Because, you know, stupid. AI produced content slots into the crap end of the market, meaning that the cost to produce crap will be lower. But that doesn’t necessarily move consumers from the art side of the divide to the crap side. It just makes more money for crap producers.

I hear every one of your concerns and share them. I’m just not convinced, yet, that AI fundamentally changes the equation. With any luck I’ll be dead before I have to eat those words.

Yes, but… Same as it ever was. Every wave of technology has democratized access to creative tools, and the content those tools create, leading to dire warnings about our youth and our culture. Television was going to both destroy our children and the movie industry. Now we talk about living during Peak TV, and consider it a legitimate art form. In the 18th and 19th centuries, novels were considered dangerous and immoral. Movies were the tip of the moral panic iceberg before they became art.

I’m not arguing for sanguinity. I think there are plenty of risks associated with AI, but I’m not sure that slop heads the list. But I also don’t think you can argue that our culture was somehow richer before novels, movies, and TV. Early TV was 100% slop (looking at you, Hogan’s Heroes), until we figured out what it was good for. I think it will be the same with AI. Presuming we’re around to see the singularity, and haven’t been eradicated by AI as the risk to the planet that we are.

Also, what’s your beef with Doritos? A diet of nothing but foie gras would be awful.

You kids and your #.

Sure, but that’s real world affirmation. Do we even exist anymore if a robot doesn’t love us?

I think referring to my writing as “swear-y” counts as shameless flattery. And you’re a rock star. It just took a robot to notice.