CSotD: Building an Artificial World
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Let’s start with this depressing cartoon from Jonesy. It might be funny if it were some kind of exaggeration, but it functions as an editorial cartoon that, as editorial cartoons can do, elicits a grim smile of recognition.
The speed with which AI is taking over everything has made it impossible for the greater society to look it over, kick the tires and decide if they even want it.
And the fellow in the cartoon is right: It’s not just art that is having its joy and humanity sucked out.
I don’t know if you have to be a writer/editor to find it obvious, but AI prose is so stilted and derivative that it obviously was not written by an English-speaking human.
If you took the worst bodice-ripper or the most absurd porn novel and then dumbed it down about four grade levels, you’d be matching the “writing” that now appears on websites whose owners would rather plug in a machine than hire a copywriter. And that includes some very prominent, profitable sites that could afford literate text.
And it’s also music, as was heard on-line this season, where AI Christmas carols were swapped in for real music by real people. And being able to make Christmas carols more imitative and bland is quite an accomplishment.
Of course, the loss of income for copywriters, artists and musicians is troubling, but what bothers me more is that it will probably work.
God knows Sturgeon’s Law has always been true: Ninety percent of everything is crap. It may seem that classic novels emerged in a time of wonder, but if you go back and see what else was being published, you’ll see a mountain of schlock for every bright flower.
But the larger we pile the mountain, the harder it becomes for those bright flowers to peep through, particularly if the “gardeners” stop buying flowers because schlock is cheap and it sells.
Navied Mahdavian has a cartoon essay in the LA Times about introducing his daughter to the VU, which reminded me of when I introduced my son to the Beatles, except that he immediately loved them and it led to a passion for music while Mahdavian’s daughter didn’t like the early, edgy Underground but liked the music they made once they went soft.
I can’t judge that because I quit listening to them when they went soft, and the fact that you could dance to their later music may be a plus for his daughter but, well, she’s five.
What I’m afraid of is that her generation will find that you can dance to AI music, too. Then even a Velvet Underground that files off its rough edges in pursuit of acceptance will be out of luck.
Also I wonder if, when the LA Times decided to publish an essay about the Velvet Underground, their owner demanded they also publish one about the Starland Vocal Band, in the interests of balance.
It’s sad that so many people think the Andrews Sisters were the height of music in the ’40s and have never heard Artie Shaw, but it’s going to be even sadder if the next generation thinks that AI pap and the both-sides coverage of corporate papers is real journalism.
Dale Cummings (Cartoon Movement) fears the burdens put on the press, and I would assume he’s talking about Canada’s major papers, which suffer from too few owners and cuts and layoffs as we’ve seen down south as well.
I’m also concerned. As a veteran of both Lee Enterprises and Alden Capital papers, I’ve seen astonishingly blockheaded, short-term-profit-driven moves from Corporate, and I see that the Vermont Digger, an independent investigative on-line operation, reports that the last AP reporter has now left the state.
But let’s not throw in the towel: Vermont is home to Seven Days, a well-respected altie that has been around for nearly 30 years, while VTDigger itself is only half that age but has a circulation of 650,000.
Vermont also has four commercial TV stations (sharing coverage with Northern New York and New Hampshire) as well as Vermont Public, a combined NPR/PBS outlet.
Not bad for the 49th state in the country by population, though granted it’s also third in the percent of people with a bachelor’s degree (44.44%). Smart people demand smart news.
Maybe that’s why Dear Leader wants to dissolve the Dept of Education or head it up with a profit-focused nitwit who lied about her own educational attainment.
Linda McMahon explains that she couldn’t remember what she majored in. She must have been quite the student.
Even Trump remembers that he got a business degree, and he doesn’t know how tariffs work, though Jeff Stahler (AMS) is pointing towards a dead end, because having people who understand wine try to explain anything to America’s leading Diet Coke freak will only make him more stubborn in his prideful ignorance.
And Lee Judge (KFS) points out that Dear Leader also believes in crypto, which is one of many Trump stances that raise the question of whether he is pulling a con or is really that foolish?
So far, the attempt to create a Goldfingeresque project to convert crypto into gold has been stalled, but it hasn’t been uprooted entirely. OTOH, you can bet that, if it goes through, the people who will profit will not be the Joe Six-Paks who’ve been induced to invest in pretend money.
They’ll be the pigeons standing on the sidewalk with an envelope full of dollar-sized newspaper clippings.
And here’s the thing about pigeon drops and Nigerian princes and empty promises to reduce grocery prices and goofy proposals to absorb other nation’s territories, as mocked by Bill Day: They persist because they work.
And while Dave Grandlund can mock the ambitious would-be dictator, Napoleon was only considered a monster outside his own nation. To the French, he was a hero.
The question is, how many of Dear Leader’s supporters are True Believers and how many can be peeled off?
As Dave Whamond points out, there are already gaps emerging among the MAGAt leadership, and with quarrels brewing and an effective one-seat House majority, the best approach may be to sit back and see what chaos ensues between now and the midterms.
With, perhaps, a little shaking of the ants in that jar:
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