I've long said by removing the dwindling economic value surrounding art or humanistic efforts, the AI slop merchants end up counterintuitively returning the humanities to their rightful place. There is no greater illustration for the singular value of art than the 1.) empty and mediocre soulless fluff that machines give us - we now see why the process matters and. 2.) re-affirms that the humanities are constituted as such because of / and for their human root. (It's literally in the name, folks!) In some ways, we have already always been slopped to the gills (slop jobs, slob data informing slop decisions, slop relations all for a full-on slop economy). AI comes in historically right as we reached a kind of exhaustion with hyper financialized mid-brow and, of course, was enabled by the surveillance state degradation to reduce 90% of online information exchange to SEO. My radical turn, where I don't expect too many to follow me, is that this will actually result in a renaissance for cultural institutions which now are rediscovered for the purpose for which they were always built: to be mindful regulators of humans' organizational drive to create meaning in and above their individual concerns.
This is spot on. To your point about Heidegger (or whoever, really), the idea that you can just get the bullet points and understand it is the danger, at least to me. There are some things that can't be summarized--the unfolding of the argument itself is the point, and if you just get the takeaway, then you won't really understand it. I spend most of my time with people who use AI pervasively (college students) and this is the thing they fail to grasp. They don't get that how something is expressed is inseparable from what it's expressing.
The ending of your post reminded me of an old routine by the comedian Mike Birbiglia, about the days before the internet. You'd have questions about some random celebrity or historical events or whatever, and there was this sense of wonder. Life was teeming with all this mystery when the answer to everything wasn't right at your fingertips.
I've long said by removing the dwindling economic value surrounding art or humanistic efforts, the AI slop merchants end up counterintuitively returning the humanities to their rightful place. There is no greater illustration for the singular value of art than the 1.) empty and mediocre soulless fluff that machines give us - we now see why the process matters and. 2.) re-affirms that the humanities are constituted as such because of / and for their human root. (It's literally in the name, folks!) In some ways, we have already always been slopped to the gills (slop jobs, slob data informing slop decisions, slop relations all for a full-on slop economy). AI comes in historically right as we reached a kind of exhaustion with hyper financialized mid-brow and, of course, was enabled by the surveillance state degradation to reduce 90% of online information exchange to SEO. My radical turn, where I don't expect too many to follow me, is that this will actually result in a renaissance for cultural institutions which now are rediscovered for the purpose for which they were always built: to be mindful regulators of humans' organizational drive to create meaning in and above their individual concerns.
also forgot to say great post :-)
This is spot on. To your point about Heidegger (or whoever, really), the idea that you can just get the bullet points and understand it is the danger, at least to me. There are some things that can't be summarized--the unfolding of the argument itself is the point, and if you just get the takeaway, then you won't really understand it. I spend most of my time with people who use AI pervasively (college students) and this is the thing they fail to grasp. They don't get that how something is expressed is inseparable from what it's expressing.
Finding out for yourself IS ecstatic!
The ending of your post reminded me of an old routine by the comedian Mike Birbiglia, about the days before the internet. You'd have questions about some random celebrity or historical events or whatever, and there was this sense of wonder. Life was teeming with all this mystery when the answer to everything wasn't right at your fingertips.
you’re always so good at ending lines
Aw thank you very much Grace, that means a lot.
how can anyone doubt it???? AI is a reversion to mediocrity ..😆