8 responses to “Eye on AI — 10/28”

1. 

   granville

   10/31/2025

   I’ve been thinking about this, there’s a video from a guy who makes quirky and very 2025 videos about dystopian technology and he just made one in which he told AI he was a genius when he was a baby and then took all of ChatGPT’s praise and instructions seriously. I don’t know if I recommend it (his bit on Apple’s goggles on the other hand was great) but this is it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRjgNgJms3Q

   What dawned on me, outside of the obvious points he makes (which are about as subtle as a brick) is that on a consumer and creative level this is a massive retreat from reality. It’s just eyes blinking in the dark. Never again will there be any rationale for something like the mafia wedding that opens The Godfather with all of those extras (and rented vintage cars!) Or the train scene in Beatty’s “Reds,” which always struck me as one of the most wonderful extraneous location shots with tons of extras. It’s pure spectacle.

   On a personal level, no need to go to the desert to experience the desert, or stumble into some place and hear the best jazz in the world because you were thirsty. People will still craft new experiences but they’ll be immediately categorized, analyzed and tagged. I have a star sapphire ring and I don’t like to leave home without it, and the meaning I give to it is secondary to these ridiculous reddit-brained theories about cosmic healing, delivered in an affable tone of voice by a machine designed to never disagree with anything.

   Looking at how people just cannot stop with their phones and social media despite how it’s warped and twisted their worlds and drained the life out of every human experience I have no doubt this is going to be worse. It’s already worse it just hasn’t penetrated popular consciousness that people are dropping out of school and trading crypto for a living because the sexy voice on their phone told them they are geniuses.

   Reply
   1. 

      Doug Holland

      11/01/2025

      I made it as far as the first commercial, twenty minutes or so, into that video. It’s OK and I agree with the point it’s making, though as you say, it’s not exactly a journalistic scoop. As someone who’s avoided AI except accidentally, the video was the first time I’d *seen* AI in action, instead of reading how it works. It’s about as stupid as I’d expected, but the voice tech is better than I’d thought it would be.

      It’s new tech that hasn’t been tested, being applied for dangerous and unregulated (mis)uses, and that’s scary and stupid. But we already knew all that, so for all those twenty minutes, my mind wandered down the same path your mind wandered.

      At least, I think it’s the same path, but doublecheck me please. It’s 2AM and I’m not at my best for either thinking or writing, but even at my worst I’m better than AI.

      I was impatient watching, cuz I love good movies and TV but I don’t love YouTube. Here’s Eddy Burback (2.16M subscribers, and I’m not one of them), and all I know is that he’s someone with the cameras and editing equipment and especially the time necessary to make a video, plus the money it takes to buy or rent an RV and camp out in the desert, etc. I’ve seen worse than those twenty minutes, but I’d rather spend my dwindling time watching something made with (sorry if it sounds all corny, but) artistic vision. Yeah, please, give me the train scene in Reds, instead of a guy eating baby food for the next episode of his YouTube show.

      I do not understand modern humans, fascinated with social media stars and wanting to be one, everyone pointing cameras at their faces and babbling. Any time anyone has a question they ask this software that knows *nothing* except what words commonly follow other words. Ask it anything, and it strings words together mimicking an answer from millions of human-written sentences (and now and soon millions of AI-generated sentences). The goal is to devalue human-created writing, art, and *thinking*, and there’s never been much of that so I’m in a panic seeing it intentionally shat upon.

      In some ways it’s good to be old. I grow more and more disconnected from the norm of 2025, and all I want is to be even more disconnected, you know? Soon…

      Reply
      1. 

         granville

         11/01/2025

         That was the same very meta reaction I had — this whole thing, all of it, is a horror. I guess we’re lucky enough to have defined “life” as the thing that “technology” attached itself to, rather than the technology itself. But we’re not lucky enough to be able to explain that in a way others can understand.

         Here’s what I mean. There’s a trend right now toward nostalgia, an imaginary past. It reminds me a lot of “ostnostalgie,” “Eastern nostalgia,” a trend in East Germany which was a longing for the Communist past. A similar nostalgia in the West shows up a lot in music and art right now, and it’s a nostalgia chiefly defined as a longing for a pre-internet past. That’s the common denominator to it.

         And that music and art is almost without exception created by AI-assisted machines.

         Reply
         1. 

            Doug Holland

            11/01/2025

            It’s a dark, dystopian laugh, ain’t it!

            My gut says tech problems like AI and social media will sorta solve themselves, once the political, economic, & environmental problems make electricity and internet connections spotty or nonexistent. Come the collapse (and it is definitely coming), real skills will be crucial, and ChatGPT will be permanently off-line.

            That’s my moment of optimism for today!

            Reply
2. 

   Take Too

   11/05/2025

   Thank you for these skynet reports. I am more and more freaked out. My younger brother’s first response in any problem is to ask ChatGPT what to do. Car engine is making a weird noise. Turn to ChatGPT. Need a new pair of shoes? Ask ChatGPT. He sees nothing bad about this and dismisses any possibility that ChatGPT might give answers that are stupid or wrong or outdated. He has turned his mind off, in favor of ChatGPT, and he is one of millions walking around now with their minds off.

   Reply
   1. 

      granville

      11/05/2025

      That is so crazy and yeah, I feel like culture hasn’t picked up that this happening. I have a friend who is my age and she’s kind of the furthest gone, but in MOST cases I think she just uses it as a search engine (“where can I buy PRODUCT X in CITY A?”) She’s told me that some of her rich relatives — and I’m really serious about this — have used it to try to “understand” why their household employees hate them. And my friend cited that as a beneficial use!

      Beyond her and her relatives tough there are people who are approaching every “unknown” in their life not with curiosity but asking ChatGPT.

      Reply
      1. 

         Doug Holland

         11/06/2025

         “… approaching every “unknown” in their life not with curiosity but asking ChatGPT.” I like that, gonna file that away for future arguments.

         If AI helps some rich bastard “understand” why their employees hate them, fuckall, maybe that *is* a beneficial use? AI could be useful for the very stupid and very clueless, like crutches for the lame.

         Reply
   2. 

      Doug Holland

      11/05/2025

      There’s a touch of panic with any new technology, but in my opinion AI deserves a panic. It’s the “tech breakthrough” that promises to do the thinking for us, but thinking, creating, DIY, bright ideas and all, is GOOD. Getting people in the habit of *not* thinking, not creating, not DIYing, and relying on tech for bright ideas cannot lead to a better future.

      Reply

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