I think the energy equation gets left out of AI quite a bit. I know these corporations now want to build their own company towns, like old Muskie is doing with Starbase. They will want to have their own nuclear power to run the energy gobbling AI servo farms. I think it is a terrible idea to allow these corporations access to do their own nuclear... Meanwhile fusion is still a far off dream, and fission fizzles out for enviro-peaceniks like me when we see how destructive it is (and also tied in with the nuclear arms industry). As someone who believes in the accuracy of the Limits to Growth, I just don't think we'll have to power to power AI forever. That will put a natural cap on it. The practical side effect for those of us who opt out now and use alternate platforms and go back to analog forms, and find real voices amidst the slop, is that we will be helping to build that counterculture now, and will be in a position to help those who are seeking it later when others are fighting for whatever slop is left in the trough.
Hi Stephan. I appreciate the optimism, as that is my default position, and it appears to be Ted's as well; he is building his own brand on the premise and promise that human creative culture is gong to win the day. However, I'm with Invictus here in thinking we are nowhere NEAR peak AI. I hope I am wrong. And I would love to see stats that suggest that the numbers of people turning away from phones and internet and AI are growing substantially, even exponentially. At the end of the day (or the start of a Monday!) I do what I can do and have always done - occupy that part of the world that believes in the human intellect and relies as much as possible on tangible art and human interaction. Thanks for doing your part too!
Thanks Tony! Yeah I can totally see that. I think the main question here is how big can that 'counterculture' of people turning away actually be? Will it become mainstream at one point? I don't think so, but I do think it will grow substantially.
Just some observations about stats. I think accurate numbers will be hard to come by. The corporations won't give out data that makes them look bad. Netflix and Spotify have stopped making certain data public recently (total subscriber numbers in Netflix' case, monthly listeners in Spotify's case). The reason is obviously that while these platforms might still be growing in emerging markets, they might actually be stagnating or decreasing in saturated markets like the U.S. and Western Europe. We can't know for sure though. And with social media, many can't even bother to delete their accounts so they just remain inactive, which further dilutes data and statistics.
I used to hang out regularly in a jazz record shop owned by one of the most intelligent people I've ever known. The internet was eating away at his business, and he knew it. He didn't really have much of a strategy because his clientele was older and weren't about to start buying vinyl (ironically). Just before he went out of business, I remember him saying, 'I do wonder if the internet is just going to implode in on itself.' Great Jon, I thought, wonderful plan.
I prefer your idea that we will naturally self-correct and curate out the slop, but I sometimes wonder if Jon might be right. Maybe AI-fuelled enshittification will spread like fungus and engulf the whole internet rather than just individual platforms; the entire system will break down, and a new network will need to be built from scratch. It's hard to imagine, but a lot of things are hard to imagine before they happen, and perhaps it might not be a bad thing.
The question is what's more helpful as an approach right now, and I don't think there's a definitive answer.
I'm not known to be an overly optimistic person but I choose to be rather optimistic about this issue – still, my own attitude basically changes from day to day.
Hey Stephen, I definitely think the best must be made of the current situation, and people's relationships to artists and music/art are bigger than technology. Better to deal more with what is reality now than speculate about an uncertain one. Shakespeare warned of such...
I think the way this argument is constructed makes it pointless to argue against, but it also closes off meaningful exploration. Of course, people will tire of AI "slop", just like people tired of shitty mashups in the 00s, because they were "shitty". Mashups stuck. AI will stick too, as part of the creator's toolset. Some of those creators will be artists, who will be appreciated, and some will be amateurs who don't care about being artists.
A lot of these arguments falsely construct some equivalence of creators to contemporary artists, but what will change is 1. what it means to be an artist, and 2. what it means to be not-an-artist.
Lastly, a lot of these arguments discount the role of the "end consumer" in the creative process. In the recording era, many people's cultural role was reduced to 'consumer'. Now the pendulum is swinging back to people being cultural participants by default. So creativity and expression can move back into the hands of people previously told to sit down, be quiet, and clap at the end of the concert or to buy the CD.
Just want to add: I appreciate your perspectives and know you have a nuanced take on things, so this isn't an attack on you. I just think a lot of this framing is very unhelpful and is shaped by large corporate interests that I don't have much respect for. :-)
Bonus content, because I'm not sure where to fit this in: the comparison to fast food reminds me of the old discussion of how electronic music is somehow worse than music made with "real instruments".
Thanks for your take, Bas! I guess we can agree to disagree on a few points here, and that's absolutely fine too. I do appreciate your nuanced perspective as well.
One thing I want to make clear though: By no means are my viewpoints shaped by any corporate interests. I am an independent writer, and no company or corporation can exert any influence on the opinions expressed in my newsletter.
I don't think that's what you wanted to say, but it leaves a bit of room for misunderstandings, that's why I wanted to make this addition.
Oh yes, that 'accusation' is towards the major labels primarily - not you - as I see them as the main historical beneficiary and proponent of having a creator/consumer divide, rather than a more participative form of musical culture as existed prior to the proliferation of the record and the frameworks of copyright enforcement that came with it. The latter also being something that's great for creators, but unfortunately has also been captured by corporate interests who don't always act in the interest of most creators.
You might be right – still the counterculture exists, and it will only get stronger too. There might be a future where the mainstream is mostly slop and real arts & culture resort to the underground. That's a dystopia of course, but it is a real possibility.
Culture is always too complex to be completely dominated by any one trend or technology - which is why we still have classical music, pottery, circuses, archery etc
We’ll see a dominating and seemingly omnipresent surge of AI slop, like we have with reality TV - but what lives at the fringes will remain at the fringes, and be all the better for it.
Will S Burroughs in 1966 I think.
What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity.
I think the energy equation gets left out of AI quite a bit. I know these corporations now want to build their own company towns, like old Muskie is doing with Starbase. They will want to have their own nuclear power to run the energy gobbling AI servo farms. I think it is a terrible idea to allow these corporations access to do their own nuclear... Meanwhile fusion is still a far off dream, and fission fizzles out for enviro-peaceniks like me when we see how destructive it is (and also tied in with the nuclear arms industry). As someone who believes in the accuracy of the Limits to Growth, I just don't think we'll have to power to power AI forever. That will put a natural cap on it. The practical side effect for those of us who opt out now and use alternate platforms and go back to analog forms, and find real voices amidst the slop, is that we will be helping to build that counterculture now, and will be in a position to help those who are seeking it later when others are fighting for whatever slop is left in the trough.
Good points, Justin! Thanks for chiming in, very helpful addition.
Great discussion here!
Hi Stephan. I appreciate the optimism, as that is my default position, and it appears to be Ted's as well; he is building his own brand on the premise and promise that human creative culture is gong to win the day. However, I'm with Invictus here in thinking we are nowhere NEAR peak AI. I hope I am wrong. And I would love to see stats that suggest that the numbers of people turning away from phones and internet and AI are growing substantially, even exponentially. At the end of the day (or the start of a Monday!) I do what I can do and have always done - occupy that part of the world that believes in the human intellect and relies as much as possible on tangible art and human interaction. Thanks for doing your part too!
Thanks Tony! Yeah I can totally see that. I think the main question here is how big can that 'counterculture' of people turning away actually be? Will it become mainstream at one point? I don't think so, but I do think it will grow substantially.
Just some observations about stats. I think accurate numbers will be hard to come by. The corporations won't give out data that makes them look bad. Netflix and Spotify have stopped making certain data public recently (total subscriber numbers in Netflix' case, monthly listeners in Spotify's case). The reason is obviously that while these platforms might still be growing in emerging markets, they might actually be stagnating or decreasing in saturated markets like the U.S. and Western Europe. We can't know for sure though. And with social media, many can't even bother to delete their accounts so they just remain inactive, which further dilutes data and statistics.
I used to hang out regularly in a jazz record shop owned by one of the most intelligent people I've ever known. The internet was eating away at his business, and he knew it. He didn't really have much of a strategy because his clientele was older and weren't about to start buying vinyl (ironically). Just before he went out of business, I remember him saying, 'I do wonder if the internet is just going to implode in on itself.' Great Jon, I thought, wonderful plan.
I prefer your idea that we will naturally self-correct and curate out the slop, but I sometimes wonder if Jon might be right. Maybe AI-fuelled enshittification will spread like fungus and engulf the whole internet rather than just individual platforms; the entire system will break down, and a new network will need to be built from scratch. It's hard to imagine, but a lot of things are hard to imagine before they happen, and perhaps it might not be a bad thing.
Dom, I agree that might be a possible scenario.
The question is what's more helpful as an approach right now, and I don't think there's a definitive answer.
I'm not known to be an overly optimistic person but I choose to be rather optimistic about this issue – still, my own attitude basically changes from day to day.
Hey Stephen, I definitely think the best must be made of the current situation, and people's relationships to artists and music/art are bigger than technology. Better to deal more with what is reality now than speculate about an uncertain one. Shakespeare warned of such...
“True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air"
Let's hope so!
I think the way this argument is constructed makes it pointless to argue against, but it also closes off meaningful exploration. Of course, people will tire of AI "slop", just like people tired of shitty mashups in the 00s, because they were "shitty". Mashups stuck. AI will stick too, as part of the creator's toolset. Some of those creators will be artists, who will be appreciated, and some will be amateurs who don't care about being artists.
A lot of these arguments falsely construct some equivalence of creators to contemporary artists, but what will change is 1. what it means to be an artist, and 2. what it means to be not-an-artist.
Lastly, a lot of these arguments discount the role of the "end consumer" in the creative process. In the recording era, many people's cultural role was reduced to 'consumer'. Now the pendulum is swinging back to people being cultural participants by default. So creativity and expression can move back into the hands of people previously told to sit down, be quiet, and clap at the end of the concert or to buy the CD.
Just want to add: I appreciate your perspectives and know you have a nuanced take on things, so this isn't an attack on you. I just think a lot of this framing is very unhelpful and is shaped by large corporate interests that I don't have much respect for. :-)
Bonus content, because I'm not sure where to fit this in: the comparison to fast food reminds me of the old discussion of how electronic music is somehow worse than music made with "real instruments".
Thanks for your take, Bas! I guess we can agree to disagree on a few points here, and that's absolutely fine too. I do appreciate your nuanced perspective as well.
One thing I want to make clear though: By no means are my viewpoints shaped by any corporate interests. I am an independent writer, and no company or corporation can exert any influence on the opinions expressed in my newsletter.
I don't think that's what you wanted to say, but it leaves a bit of room for misunderstandings, that's why I wanted to make this addition.
Oh yes, that 'accusation' is towards the major labels primarily - not you - as I see them as the main historical beneficiary and proponent of having a creator/consumer divide, rather than a more participative form of musical culture as existed prior to the proliferation of the record and the frameworks of copyright enforcement that came with it. The latter also being something that's great for creators, but unfortunately has also been captured by corporate interests who don't always act in the interest of most creators.
On that we can definitely agree.
Nowhere near peak, unfortunately.
It’s barely started and has endless headroom before what you’d consider mass consumption.
You might be right – still the counterculture exists, and it will only get stronger too. There might be a future where the mainstream is mostly slop and real arts & culture resort to the underground. That's a dystopia of course, but it is a real possibility.
I'm choosing to be more optimistic here.
Culture is always too complex to be completely dominated by any one trend or technology - which is why we still have classical music, pottery, circuses, archery etc
We’ll see a dominating and seemingly omnipresent surge of AI slop, like we have with reality TV - but what lives at the fringes will remain at the fringes, and be all the better for it.
Same as it ever was 😀