Unfortunately, advertising has been ingrained into the internet as the basic model for so long and to such an extent that it’s hard to envision online life without the systematic manipulation of attention and all its evils. So we’re bound to wind up here, at the bitter end of “content.” Which is a good excuse to withdraw deeper into books, movies,... See more
So what do we actually do about this? Because I’m not saying don’t use AI. That would be stupid. The genie is out of the bottle and there are genuinely transformative applications of this technology. I’m saying we need to be incredibly deliberate about how we integrate it. We need to slow down and think about what we’re optimising for.
The debate over “is it real or fake” is somewhat ironic, because so much of what we experience as reality even within our own bodies is actually simulation.
The co-opting of “community” into a sales strategy is insidious, not only because it reduces likeminded groups of people to consumer demographics, but because, in an era when we’re all encouraged to cultivate our own “personal brands,” it also reduces each of us to a salesperson , seeking out likeminded people in order to sell them things , whether... See more
If art has a duty, it is to render visible the conditions in the world which are ubiquitous but otherwise invisible. You see where I’m going here. If you want to make an artwork depicting a person, you would do well to use oil paint, a technology that, like human flesh, absorbs and refracts light, and can be pulled taut across the canvas or else... See more