Nothing is new
People recently have been bothering me about the impact of AI on the world and how everything is going to AI generated and that we live in a "post-truth" era. I argue we are living in one for years if not decades (and even more). For why it doesn't if a machine or man makes it fabricated imagery still exists, hoaxes and deepfakes were already common before the AI craze. Outsourcing opinions? People have been doing that ever the dawn of consciousness. Degenerating youth? There are Sumerian texts lamenting on how kids don't respect their elders. Hell we don't even machines for things to be "AI-generated", you could just hire a dozen pajeets and an analyst in order to produce bestsellers, it has been this way for decades, entertainment is an industry and its demands must be supplied in a divine chain.
What even is "AI-generated"? if the definition is defined by the producer then what is the threshold? If I use the tools offered by a painting program in order to ease the process of making a painting does that count as "AI-generated". After all "AI" is not actual intelligence (not even an artificial one) its actually just a more generic program. You practically do the same thing. You transmute your ideas into reality, either via painting a painting manually or prompting an AI to do it for you. If "AI-generated" is defined by the idea source then most modern media is "AI-generated". Algorithms have perfected the decades old art of pop-art. And then no idea is purely internal, are all ideas "AI-generated"?.
The world will end! Armageddon is upon us! This stanza has been chanted ever since the popularisation of linear metaphysics (perhaps even earlier, I do not know). Everyone chants it, environmentalists, liberals, conservatives. Perhaps Christianity is to blame for this? After all it popularised linear metaphysics. Its an industry really at this point. Ever shocking, ever disturbing crises popping up like there is no tomorrow. It makes you wander how we are still alive. Thousands of workers around the clock making sure only the most enticing headlines and the most shocking of images.
It's beautiful chain of industry. Self-perpetuating and accelerating exceptionally, perhaps that is why we are only noticing it now? After all f'(x) when f(x) = x * 1.2 is much greater when x = 1.2 * E+12 rather than x = 120. Ah the beauty of the factory, the humming of machines, the precision. One could get lost in this dance. And yet the machines will continue to operate...