If It's what I'm thinking of, it's not quite as dire as that. The statement was that they were writing under the assumption that people were also using a second screen while watching. That meant working lots of informational recap into the dialog ("As you know, Bob, this is the person who stole the maguffin") and having something happen every so often that would bring people's attention back.

Now, I'm not saying that this makes for great art, but it's not so different than the way soap operas were and are written for much the same reasons, or CNN Headline news, which was formatted around the idea that the audience would be transitory, or even Batman Serials because kids are easily distracted. Some TV is just assumed to be something that is on in the background during life. I think the problem is Netflix is something people thought of as different/better than that (when in practice we have seen Netflix run all the same plays once they got near-monopoly power in the market).

My point is, it's not really all that new of a development, so at best you could say that the slide continues, in a direction we don't like. At the same time, radio used to be an appointment event for the family and eventually became that thing that makes commutes less boring.

Vortech said it better than I could, but for more clarity:

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon claimed that Netflix producers asked for more exposition in the script such that viewers who weren't paying close attention wouldn't get lost so easily. Netflix has pushed back on this claim. I'm the first to admit that streaming services have made a lot of forgettable stuff, along with some gems. I think this is part of a larger story about the fracturing of culture. It's not the death of culture, though, IMHO.

You might say that these examples are not analogous because AI is categorically different in that AI can replace the creative act itself. I think AI can only replicate the creative act, and the results might even fool us, but the minute we know a human wasn’t involved, it loses value.

Two issues with this. Firstly, there are an unfortunate number of people who don't actually believe it loses value; they genuinely don't care. Secondly, the insidious bit about genAI is that it grows increasingly difficult to tell whether something was created by it or by a human. If the prompter never discloses that something was made with AI, and it becomes indistinguishable from handmade art, then when does the moment of value loss surface?

I think enough people will care such that verifying human involvement will be its own thing—maybe a cottage industry or technology will help because that verification adds to the value. Remember, I’m arguing against the “very death of human culture.” There’s gonna be a lot not to like. There’s a lot not to like now.

We can dismiss the loss of professional art as "Hollywood" and say art will survive because it is part of human expression, and say human audiences will always prefer human expression…but.

I said Hollywood in part just because that's where the most narcissists live. Great movies come from all over the world. Iran. Utah. I respect art professionals and professionalism in art.

But, the reality is the people who decide what to fund rarely make that decision on what the audience will value most, but rather what is good enough. Nobody prefers narrow seats with less legroom, but that's what we got on planes because capitalism is not about making what is best, it is about maximizing value of a minimum viable product, and then milking the uber rich for upgrades. See also furniture that survives more than a couple years. See also washing machines that will never get repaired. Will human art become a product only available to the ultra wealthy? We see that dichotomy now with original vs. reproduction, but what will prevent it from becoming true of source, not just object?

It won't. With a decent prompt I can create pretty good "art" in the style of Matisse and have it printed and framed for cheaper than doing so by buying a print at Michael's. Better than a blank wall, but not worth much.

(An aside: I don't have your view of capitalism. What you say is true of monopolies and crony capitalism, and it's true that in this century we've become risk adverse and don't allow creative destruction to happen as often it should, but to say that's what capitalism is about doesn't give credit to free markets and what they have provided for the world. It's probably best to say we probably have different philosophies about this.)

But, plenty of people don't seem to care, or even prefer the absence of humanity. Self-checkout at the supermarket is less efficient than what we had before. It's not a surprise. Why would you think one person who does this once a week would be more efficient than 2 people working together all day. Not to mention you have one person for a whole set of issues, adding a delay. But even after it became clear that it was not about efficiency, people still chose it. The lines are literally longer for a worse experience and the store can happily fire those people and save money. I can only assume people prefer to avoid human contact. We have a generation that reports being literally afraid to talk to someone live on the phone. Hugely popular social media accounts are fabricated. Vocaloid singers are some of the biggest artists in Music.

I share many of these concerns. Covid and the resulting lockdowns fucked up the world and a lot of people have lingering mental illness. I believe social media is poison. I see signs of pushback, and I take the longview. I may not live to see us fully recover but humans are the same as they've ever been. We're wired to need human contact and to be interested in each other. I believe in cycles. Whatever trend is happening, a countertrend is brewing.

But, nobody is born able to create at a high level. Someone needs to fund failure, because that's where people grow. If all of that stuff gets fed to the LLM, how will the future artists we will need in the future eat?

But, for all of the downsides of mixing art and commerce — many of them listed above — someone needs to pay for it. We had a time in Europe where art was not funded. We called it "The Dark Ages." It preceded the Rennesaince: a near Cambrian explosion of new ideas and forms of expression all kicked off by an idea sweeping the land that Humanism mattered, and that someone other than The Church could fund art. Not great for access if you're not a Medecci, but rocks in a pond make ripples. Art became a commerce in itself, but also got folded into all sorts of previously unconnected industries like fashion and architecture, furniture, pottery because someone funded the development of those skills. The objects of daily life, which constitute the vast majority of lived existence could be touched by the thoughtful intention of a person. Separating out functional design — free to be taken over by the soulless — and some other Art with a capitol "A" may feel like it's preserving the art that matters, but it's washing away most of the impact art has on our lives.

Patronage is always an issue. Starving artists existed before AI. There is a school of thought that serious artists don't really have a choice in it--they are going to create art regardless. I do worry about how people are educated and develop taste, but that's not a new worry either.

I agree with you on one thing — this isn't new. But it's not a direction I'm comfortable with, and it is a huge acceleration.

You make a lot of good points. One of the problems with arguing against the pessimism is that I can't describe what it is that will keep everything from being terrible. From my perspective, it feels like every era I've lived through has been the best and the worst of times simultaneously. I love the arts, and all I can say is every year someone makes something fresh that blows me away. It can be a movie, a record, a book, a TV show, a game. It felt like it used to happen more regularly, but I'm probably jaded now. The point is, it hasn't stopped happening. If I find out that something that blows me away was created by AI, I might have rethink my priors, but that hasn't happened yet. I have a hard time conceptually distilling humans out of the equation.

Final word on the "very death of human culture": throughout history all doomsayers have underestimated our ability to adapt.

Self-checkout at the supermarket is less efficient than what we had before. It's not a surprise. Why would you think one person who does this once a week would be more efficient than 2 people working together all day. Not to mention you have one person for a whole set of issues, adding a delay. But even after it became clear that it was not about efficiency, people still chose it. The lines are literally longer for a worse experience and the store can happily fire those people and save money. I can only assume people prefer to avoid human contact.

I agree with a lot of what you said in this post, but I wanted to point out that this is demonstrably wrong (at least in my experience).

It is quite possible that a cashier/bagger combo can process my groceries faster than I can... but I can do it in about 40 seconds (on one of my average shopping trips), so the savings is going to be negligible... and completely wiped out by the 10 minutes I need to wait in the line that has a cashier (at my supermarket) compared to the almost-always-immediate availability of a self-checkout station (even in busy times, my wait is under a minute). It's been 13 years since I used a different setup regularly... but my recollection is similar (if not exact) in the last house, where the circumstances of checkout were vastly different (the supermarket was a 20 minute drive instead of a 3-block walk, I visited once every week or so instead of every couple of days, there were 10 or so manned checkouts instead of 2, and there were 5 or so self-checkout stations instead of 20), but the self-vs-manned calculation was actually about the same (it was usually faster to do it myself, if you count the time from entering the checkout line to the time exiting the store).

Clearly your situation is different - I'm just pointing out that 'people prefer to avoid human contact' hasn't been necessary to explain my choices for at least 27 years, in two substantially different shopping situations.

As long as there are people, creatives will find ways to break through with authentic art, even in a field crowded with mediocre knock-offs. Your argument seems to be that once AI slop becomes common, there will be no more bandwidth. I disagree. There may be a fallow period, but identifiably human creation will find expression because the need for it is part of who we are. To paraphrase a fictional mathematician, art created by humans will find a way.

I think the issue is less the death of the human creative impulse and more the death of the ability to earn any money from being creative. In a capitalist society, money drives progress. No money, no progress.

Thanks, Coaxkez, but I would tweak that to change the causal direction. In a capitalist society, innovation is rewarded. One could add the disclaimer "in theory" to both of our statements, but that's a broader argument beyond our scope.

About rewards, I've always believed that art could be both great and popular (that is, lucrative)--the Beatles, STAR WARS, Shakespeare, for example. I don't think AI changes that. Yes, AI makes it easier to make derivative art, and the latter has always been good enough for many people, but I believe the really great stuff can rise to the top. Can AI make the really great stuff? I'm not convinced. It's like Steve Martin says, be so good they can't ignore you. I think there will always be people who strive for that. And that output will stand out. Let's bring it back to this forum and subjects of interest here. I think that Marathon's art style is truly great (one employee's much-publicized mistake aside). It's fresh and interesting. It fits the lore in that almost every object is 3-D printed. Maybe Bungie will fail and that would support your thesis, but I bet this game will be talked about for a long time, regardless. What's good is good.

There seems to be a thread in some of this discussion that all-powerful forces are behind everything that happens, and they can decide what becomes popular. There is a long history of people who have wanted to decide what becomes popular, but that doesn't mean they can. Payola might have been able to buy radio airtime, but it couldn't guarantee a hit. Decca rejected the Beatles. Lucas's peers thought a rough cut of STAR WARS was an embarrassment. Andy Weir had to self-publish THE MARTIAN. There is more content than ever and more people to consume it (ever read this? A thousand fans may be all you need). The model for monetization has been busted many times over, and I think new models will rise to replace them. I concede that I can't describe these models in detail, but crowdfunding is an example.

And, as others have said, there is a great concern that genAI will lead to a scenario in which human-crafted art is indistinguishable from machine output. If that scenario were to become a reality, I would imagine that creativity will move increasingly into the live performance space, where the impact of genAI will be felt to a lesser degree. (But it will still be felt.)

I agree. We value what we know is human. Maybe, like an infinite number of monkeys, AI can come up with Shakespeare, but I'll believe it when I see it. I think it's possible that there is a new equilibrium, that as people become more exposed to AI creations they become more attuned to other signals, and reward accordingly. An example is CGI, which used to be enough to get people into the theater. Now we want more.

There's a very healthy discussion going on here, but I'm too busy right now to get into the weeds of this topic (not to mention too laconic in general). Honestly, it depresses me and I try not to think about it too much either.

I've enjoyed it because I find the subject fascinating. There is plenty to get depressed about, and I feel that, too, especially when I spend too much time online, where hype and hate are the battling gods.