You think that AI is destroying art and meaning because you don't know history (or technology)
The Neo-Luddite rhetoric takes many shapes. The complaints about "Ghiblification" is merely the latest permutation.
Socrates himself was skeptical of the written word, afraid that it would cause the decay of memory and people would “appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing.”
Two millennia later, the printing press revolutionized the world, democratized education, and shattered the hegemony of both monarchs and the church.
Now, we have modern grandstanders parroting the same ideas. See below for an example.
During the Victorian era, the rise of the “penny dreadful” (cheap novels) caused much handwringing among the intelligentsia—clearly this cheap drivel and sloppy smut was going to cause the unraveling of society! Moral decline! Creativity gone! Don’t you know that printed media is for aristocrats only!? And it should be refined works—the classics and great tomes such as PRINCIPIA MATEMATICA and nothing else!
Noble gatekeeping dressed up as Luddite nonsense.
The deepest irony of the above article by Erik Hoel is that he is the one parroting ancient ideas and passing them off as new, unique, and valuable insights. A copy, of a copy, of a copy.
So, as Erik asserts, is AI causing “semantic satiation” or a “semantic apocalypse”? No, not in the least.
The photograph did not destroy paintings. In fact, we have more painted artworks now than ever before. Did cinema destroy theater? Not in the least. Did music streaming destroy concerts? Nope, TicketMaster did that.
Throughout all of history, every new medium has provoked the same kind of kneejerk panic that Erik is dressing up in fancy new rhetoric. In fact, he’s parroting Victorian writers almost word for word by calling the product “soulless.”
They said the same thing about the phonograph and radio—that the orchestra should ONLY be appreciated live, in person, with real players. But those old coots couldn’t have imagined that electronics would boost music to new heights. They thought that records would fragment music into atomistic meaninglessness.
Fast forward a century and a half and Freddie Mercury enchanted half the planet at Live Aid.
Now if we examine Erik’s other ideas; that somehow we might be reaching a point of saturation or “semantic satiety” to which it all becomes meaningless: tell me, have you stopped listening to Spotify because music has lost its impact on you?
Or perhaps you’ve set down novels for good because there are just so many out there now, that who cares anyways?
Or even porn? You have the most debauched content at your fingertips, certainly the hedonic treadmill has run out of steam and nothings turns you on anymore?
No, none of that is true, and never has been, because that’s not how humans work. You don’t switch off the air conditioning because you’ve lived with it for so long and say “Ah, yes, I’ve had enough AC and climate control, now I can just turn it off the rest of my life because it’s a soulless machine that has lost all meaning.”
This is quasi-intellectual BS.
Books never destroyed our memory, creativity, or intellect. They amplified it.
The printing press didn’t destroy anything except aristocratic and ecclesiastic hegemony.
Radio didn’t destroy conversation or music, and neither did the CD or streaming.
Cameras didn’t destroy fine art, they became their own form of art.
Video games didn’t destroy cinema or remain pointless distractions, they became their own art form.
Whenever someone makes absolute assertions like “AI has no soul!” you know they have lost the plot. People often mistake their emotional opinion for universal fact, and then outrage sells (as I’ve been documenting on this blog).
Like Socratic skepticism of books, Neo-Luddite skepticism of AI and intelligence is disintegrating on contact with reality. The map is not the territory, and your imagination is not reality.
Q: How do you think society wide use of AI will impact IQ? Average/mean up or down? Smartest people up or down?
A: It’s certainly making me smarter. It’s like a whet stone that’s always available. Consider that children who use AI tutors regularly jump to the 98th percentile. 8 year olds learning calculus is not out of the question. The greatest bottleneck to intellectual development today is lack of individualized attention and lack of good teachers. AI solves both. IQ go up fast.
The greatest irony here is that I’ll have to cite a Fox News article for a progressive idea because the American Liberal establishment is too busy shooting itself in the feet.
AI Tutors have Boosted a Texas Private School’s Test Scores to the Top 2%
Finally, when someone says that “AI content has no meaning, and it all sucks” I simply smirk at the stupidity. My wife and I lost our beloved old dog Tank late last year. As part of the grieving process, I made a song called Unconditional to commemorate him. You can listen to it here:
No, the music isn’t perfect. It still has the AI artifacts, but do you think that will be permanent? Do you think my wife and I crying together as we listen to this song is fake? Not real? Not meaningful? It doesn’t matter if this particular song isn’t your cup of tea, that’s not the point.
The final irony: it’s the Neo-Luddites who are just imitators. They are parroting greater thinkers before them, better writers, and more original thoughts, and passing them off shamelessly as their own ideas. They are just being edgy for clout and, in the end, are actually the ones not contributing anything meaningful, just using soulless rhetoric to get attention.
TLDR: Erik is lazily recycling centuries-old ideas and the gullible are eating it up. His ideas will be forgotten in the sands of time, just noise. Like tears in the rain.
Great post and couldn't agree more. It's amazing, when I was into photography, it would take me hours, if not days, to setup a scene with proper lighting etc. Now -- I can sit back drink a cup of coffee and narrate the composition and watch in wonder the results that come back.
I also find it interesting that Erick Hoel recently wrote an article about the glorious virtues of what he calls “Aristocratic Tutoring” and blames our current lack of Einsteins on its absence from society.
Seems ironic considering he then lambasts Ai a couple of articles later, the only thing that could possibly bring “Aristocratic Tutors” to the masses.