[AI Skeptics] summer catch-up reflections (week 1)
Hey, in about an hour at 8pm ET we're going to get together to chat about the LA Made x 404 Media discussion on "How AI is Threatening the Future of Media"
I was really interested in something Sam Cole and Gita Jackson were keying in on about how the thing that people want is some kind of human connection, and how (in Gita's example) people support Aftermath because of the relationship Aftermath is developing and fostering with their supporters. I don't think they were saying Aftermath is doing something parasocial or inauthentic, but more along the line that the work someone like Jackson is doing (or to use Sam's example, the individual OF model actually living a life in this world that has continuity to it) makes for something that's extraordinarily difficult for AI to emulate.
I was also a little dismayed, but regrettably agreeing, with Dexter Thomas's observation that people are going to pick and choose their battles. Some people will draw a line at AI-generated "music"; others will draw a line at AI-generated images or videos; others at AI-generated text as correspondence (as, I think, Jason lamented feeling pangs of uncertainty about when he reads emails from readers, PR folks, etc...).
If I had to posit something, I would say that Thomas is totally right that people can't maintain boundaries against assaults on all sides where cynical people who "don't want to do the work" (as Jackson said) are constantly barraging you and wearing you down. I don't begrudge people drawing sharper lines in some places than others; what I would say - the chess move that I would try to respond with - is to try to build up one another's defenses collectively. I think it's important that we maintain and foster relationships with one another where we reasonably broadly trust that our friends are not going to implicate us in scrutinizing the messages they send us or putting us on the spot having to explain again that we're not interested in "AI slop meme" content.
Something I only occasionally talk about in these newsletters is that I don't put a stamp at the bottom of my emails to affirm that I don't use AI, nor do I run my writing through Pangram or anything like that to make sure it doesn't "sound" like AI, because I hope I convey through my actions and my writing that what you see is what I actually wrote. I could violate that trust in the same way that I could steal from my friends or abuse the trust of people close from me, but I hope people who know me - who have some continuity of a relationship with me - know what I'm about, and that I'm not really about that. And I can only reflect on my own failure to earn trust if someone feels obliged to run my work through an AI detector, for instance.
I'm not sure if that's enough, but it's something I can sustain and I've felt pretty rewarded by, in trusting people whose work I admire on the web and emotionally investing in the continuity of their work. Admittedly, this makes it harder to spot when a new name emerges on the scene, and I have to remind myself to be open to new people doing good work, but I think that's always been true, hasn't it?
When you're ready to join at 8p ET, you can click on this link or you can go here:
https://al2.in/ReadingGroupRoom
See you then.
PS: if you're forgetting what else I shared this week, here's a short recap: