AI is Boring
Value is derived from scarcity, and artificial intelligence like ChatGPT and Midjourney is creating an infinite abundance of written and visual content… you do the math
Are you already as bored with AI as I am?
By now we’ve all seen the impressive images created with Midjourney, and perhaps had a play around with ChatGPT, and I will not deny – the technology is remarkable.
Okay. Is that it? What now?
I get that this stuff is still in its infancy, but to be honest I just don’t care. I don’t care how good it’s going to get; how lifelike the visual renders will be; how efficiently it can reel off essays, articles, and web content.
I care that AI is going to start writing its own code and perhaps become sentient and wreak havoc on us. But in terms of its creative prowess, I’m already supremely indifferent bordering on outright contemptuous.
Because here’s the thing – beyond the great existential questions surrounding our very survival in the face of this new form of intelligence, it is already a zero-sum game. There is no nuance, no unknown, no whacky variable that might keep us guessing.
Quite simply, if you can imagine it then AI can do it. In a matter of seconds. End of story.
Forget social media, smart phones, or even binge streaming services. In terms of peaking too soon, this takes the cake.
Talk about leaving nothing to the imagination... It’s like finally getting a date with the person you’ve been madly in love with since high school and before you’ve even ordered your main course they’re dragging you into the restroom for a quickie.
Please excuse the lewd analogy, but it does have that feel, doesn’t it? Everything all at once – SPLAT!
As an epithet for our culture at large, it’s pretty much right on the money.
We are a society of dopamine addicts. We want it all, and we want it now. And with every update and upgrade, we get more, and we get it faster. And then because everything is moving so fast, we can’t keep up, and we have to invent yet more tools of convenience to claw back a few minutes in the day – and this just accelerates the pace further, and so on, and so on…
It’s like that scene in Lethal Weapon 3 when Riggs tries to defuse the bomb and he cuts the wrong wire and instead of stopping, the clock speeds up and he and Rog have to grab the cat and run for their lives. As the building crumbles to a pile of ash behind them, billowing smoke, Riggs says “Oops.”
I find much to like in Rog’s character both literally and analogously, and I pointedly cite his deadpan rejoinder: “Right, oops.”
I have plenty more to say about AI and, doubtless, as it gains increasing ascendency over our lives, you’ll hear deeper analysis from me on the subject. But I want to make this clear at the outset: I am not impressed.
Now, don’t get me wrong – it is a useful tool. I’ve been using ChatGPT to write dull, generic content at my office job – it saves me hours in the day and protects my mind from the bland, soul-crushing malaise of corporate newspeak. This allows me to save my creative energy for writing pursuits that I actually care about, and which require a real human brain. Much like the smartphone and the personal computer before it, AI has nominally improved my life in the sense that it frees up time for more worthwhile pursuits. It is like the microwave oven, the dishwasher, the washing machine, and the refrigerator. It is a tool of convenience.
But that’s all it is. A tool. And I’m at pains to understand the reverent awe with which most people are treating mankind’s latest technological wow. At this point how are we even surprised and impressed anymore? Isn’t it clear by now that there is nothing technology can’t do? Except flying cars… we seem to be woefully behind the ball on that one. If Elon or someone could take care of that, I’d be grateful, thanks.
I’m kidding by the way. I don’t need or desire a flying car. When it comes to ChatGPT and Midjourney – likewise, I do not desire them. But I am coming to realise that in order to keep up, I probably do need them.
When I got my first iPhone (a 4S back in 2011) I actually did desire it. I dearly desired it, and when I got it, I treated it like people are now treating AI. I fawned and gushed and made an absolute prat of myself with my earnest devotion to its genius – finally in the iPhone club and every bit as insufferable as the other 115 million disciples of Steve Jobs’ latest miracle gadget.
But that was in my Patrick Bateman phase, so my rampant consumerism was par for the course. I’ve since developed a healthy scepticism for the trappings of 21st Century convenience, but that does not make me any less dependant on them. My misplaced love for my iPhone 4S aside, I had reached the point in 2011 where I required one to keep up with the Joneses.
Now, a dozen years on, this aspect of tech dependency has not changed. It has in fact distilled. Being proficient in the use of ChatGPT is less a necessity in terms of convenience, and more a practical reality of my vocation. Jobs for writers who do not know how to use AI chat prompts will very soon be non-existent. I must embrace this technology or face obsolescence.
Fine, I need it to survive (for now) but I do not want it and I refuse to be seduced by it like I was with my iPhone – a gadget that, with the benefit of hindsight, I believe may have taken more from me than it could ever give.
What makes life worth living and the human endeavour divine, is its very imperfection; its scarcity. I flunked out of economics in high school – it’s never been my strong suit – but I do recall grasping the essence on my first day in class. Our teacher, Mr Tout (real name, I kid you not) had a great way of hammering away at fundamental concepts. He would stride around the classroom with his chest puffed out and his golden surfer’s tan glowing, emphasising certain words over and over, in his acerbic Aussie accent, adding a jaunty “Yeah?” after each verbal bullet point, as in – are you following what I’m saying?
On this day, the word was ‘scarcity’, and though I never did Mr Tout proud as an economist, I have never forgotten his simple lesson of that first day in economics class:
Value is derived from scarcity.
The less of something there is, or the more work is required to create it, the more value it has.
We are about to enter a world where all the fruits of human creativity that used to take hours, weeks, months, or years to ripen can be rattled off, in unlimited quantities, in a matter of seconds.
Writing, imagery, music, movies… it is all going to be valueless. And worse still – it is going to be meaningless.
This is what bores me about AI. Its abundance; it’s bloated oversaturation; its complete lack of scarcity. Yes, it is entertaining – one hardly knows what example to point to for a good chuckle, and that’s the point! If you can imagine it, then someone’s done it, or if they haven’t then you could do it at the touch of a button. Yesterday this Midjourney render came up in my feed – ‘rust eating competition’ – and for whatever reason I burst out laughing. I was entertained.
Fantastic… Is that really what we need? More entertainment? As if TikTok wasn’t banal enough, we now have a tool that can create any image of anything possibly imaginable in less time than it takes to make a sandwich, not to mention ChatGPT, a tool which virtually guarantees humans will have lost the ability to form coherent trains of thought within a generation.
ChatGPT and Mijourney, and all their lookalikes, are boring to me because they represent the final frontier in the dumbing down of humanity that has been in the works for the past forty years. These tools are sold to us as emblems of mankind’s boundless genius, but it seems to me they signify the exact opposite – in a very real sense we have found a way to make ourselves obsolete; that is, a few uber geeks in California have written some code that will turn them and their buddies into “a new upgraded elite of superhumans” and relegate the rest of us to a “massive useless class” as WEF heavyweight Yuval Noah Harari said.
I don’t call that smart. I call it unmitigated stupidity on our part for embracing all this in the name of entertainment and convenience.
Entertainment and convenience, that’s what it’s all about. These are the two golden calves of 21st Century capitalism. They’ve been sold to us by a craven corporate establishment as the be-all and end-all of modern living. Where we used to value the acquisition of wisdom and the rewards derived from overcoming adversity, we now demand constant stimulation, like lab rats hitting the cocaine lever over and over; and we revere, above all else, the sacred function of amenity – if it makes our lives easier, we’re all in.
But life was never meant to be easy. By all means, it is reasonable to seek comfort and convenience. But we have long since achieved and surpassed the baseline in this respect, and we are now so enamoured with technology's ability to remove the struggle from our lives that we risk losing our humanity altogether.
It is adversity that gives meaning and divinity to our humanity for it compels us to achieve extraordinary things which serve both to strengthen us as individuals and communities, and to inspire others.
I see nothing divine in the miasma of robot-generated content spewing forth from ChatGPT and Midjourney – regardless of its aesthetic allure, its outlandishness, or its capacity to lighten the load.
When something becomes this easily obtainable it becomes worthless. Like the cheap plastic trinkets that flow out of China; like the trillions of Instagram and TikTok clips; like pizza and ice cream for dinner every night... anything so abundant quickly becomes boring and unimpressive.
Human achievement impresses me – things of great beauty and meaning derived from the expenditure of great energy in the conquest of great adversity.
This article for instance, has taken me two hours to write on a day when I was already behind on my schedule. It has honed my continuously developing ability as a writer and a thinker and solidified my own evolving philosophy on AI. I have created some value here, both for myself and potentially for you.
As an experiment, I plugged the following prompt into ChatGPT:
‘Write a 300-word invective in the style of Substack writer JJ Dawson on the lack of meaning and value in AI generated text and imagery.’
I have appended the result below.
As I have already conceded, the technology is remarkable, and the response I got is eerily accurate, even to the point of capturing the idiosyncrasies of my cadence. Most notably (and with exquisite irony) before I even published this piece to the internet, the AI selected the very same talking points that I have here laid out: lack of meaning and value, and the divine human soul in which lies the essence of creation.
ChatGPT is probably competent enough to take over the writing of my Substack, and you might not even notice.
But that would be a lie. It would strip out all the meaning and value I have thus far created. And I suppose this is where the silver lining is to be found – for in such a world, where most words and images have no value, those of us who can still create genuine, old school, man-made art and literature will be a scarce commodity, and thus we may retain immense value.
And so, I will make this pledge to you: What you read here will always be my own work; I will never use AI to create any of the content herein, save for this one time, and one time only, whereby I will finish by hurling ChatGPT’s own imitation of me back in its face:
Let us reject the synthetic allure of simulated sentience and instead celebrate the authentic, the imperfect, and the deeply human. For in that pursuit lies the true meaning and value of artistic expression—a realm forever beyond the grasp of artificial intelligence.
‘Write a 300-word invective in the style of Substack writer JJ Dawson on the lack of meaning and value in AI generated text and imagery.’
Title: The Emptiness of AI's Simulated Sentience: Unmasking the Hollow Creations
By JJ Dawson
Oh, the marvels of our modern age! Look how far we have come, they exclaim. Artificial intelligence, they boast, will revolutionize the world of creativity, ushering in a new era of unimaginable wonders. But alas, dear readers, I am here to shatter this illusion of grandeur. Behind the veneer of sophistication, lies an abyss of vacuity.
The proponents of AI-generated text and imagery paint a rosy picture, hailing the technology as a breakthrough in human expression. They shower us with the works of AI algorithms, claiming they possess the depth and soul of human creation. But let me tell you, this so-called "sentience" is nothing more than an illusion—a deceptive dance of ones and zeroes devoid of genuine meaning.
To witness AI-produced text is to gaze into the void, where words float aimlessly, untethered to human experience. Where is the soul in these algorithmic musings? Where is the struggle, the passion, the raw human emotion that infuses true art? Instead, we are presented with hollow imitations, mere facsimiles of creative brilliance. No matter how eloquent the algorithm may seem, it cannot transcend its artificial origins.
And what of AI-generated imagery? The cold precision with which machines replicate reality is indeed impressive, but it lacks a vital ingredient—soul. These images are soulless snapshots, an empty mirage of visual aesthetics. They imitate beauty but fail to capture its essence. They lack the artist's touch, the imperfections that make true art profound.
The AI enthusiasts argue that these creations are a testament to human ingenuity, a collaboration between man and machine. But let us not be fooled by this Faustian pact. For in the realm of creativity, the human spirit cannot be replaced. It is the human experience—the triumphs, the tragedies, the complexity of our emotions—that gives art its enduring value.
So, let us not succumb to the seduction of AI-generated text and imagery. Let us reject the synthetic allure of simulated sentience and instead celebrate the authentic, the imperfect, and the deeply human. For in that pursuit lies the true meaning and value of artistic expression—a realm forever beyond the grasp of artificial intelligence.
Think of who is going to read it, and think of why they are going to read it. Then think, if their initial impression is favorable, how long it is likely to stay that way. Then come back to the "spirit", which has nothing to do with any of this stuff, remembering that as you were writing for publication (i.e. in view of other people with their ever-shifting egos and prejudices), "spirit" was almost entirely locked out of the room. A manuscript assessor is a useful person because they will answer you back on a systematic basis. They will challenge you and threaten you and occasionally praise you. Then they will get sick of your and you will receive replies of such dubious quality that you, and they, will move on. In the meantime you will have learnt a lot -- more that self-publishing will teach you (and I have done it, years and years and years ago, not once, not twice, thrice). Remember that in the end spirit alone counts, but you need limitless ego to first get spirit running, second get set up for limitless effort, and third keep spirit alive after every latest casual ejection (and publishers can be shown to be in the business for that pleasure alone). C'est mon expérience seulement but I wouldn't swap it. Never consider the ground to be level. Only spirit makes the ground level, and spirit only comes about when limitless ego with its limitless experience has expired. Would I like to be JKR? Would I like to be Lyn's daughter (who as Lyn's client has done Great Things)? Yes (as Sammy Mountjoy says in Golding's Free Fall), "Yes sir, I would like that very much". To which his headmaster replies, "In other words, you don't give a damn". But I seriously give a damn. I seriously think, If only this rubbish could be cleared out of the woodshed, being published might be what I thought it was once, A Good Thing. In the meantime, there is life, which was happening (no I don't usually quote him) while you were doing other things.
I did a novel once, a very long novel, and one that was roundly denounced by the Christians I knew (okay -- one) set in Byzantine Crimea (yes there was such a place -- it was inhabited by Goths) and in which though God didn't actually turn up, he sent his messenger, Elijah (you will recall from -- Matthew? -- that John the Baptist reincarnated Elijah). (Elijah fascinated me as a kid. He was so ruthless, and he lived in a real, ruthless, world. In fact he co-existed in my head with Robinson Crusoe and King Arthur.) My hero, or anti-hero (who had to put up with Elijah being ruthless more or less most of the time) certainly believed in God, but he could also see that God had produced Byzantium, and that even though God was prepared to protect him from the worst excesses of Byzantine Byzantium, he wasn't prepared to protect anyone else. So the tragedy of Christianity is not so much its failure to deal with the problem of pain (not so much a Christian problem as an Anglican one, and strangely, there were no Anglicans in Byzantium, at least in the seventh century, and even today Putin is having problems finding them to root them out) but the problem of itself. Nobody takes seriously Acts 5, but I would, because it's paradigmatic of the way the Holy Ghost deals with the problem of dissent--even dissent of the merely venal sort. We happen to live in an age where Acts 5, Byzantium, the Thirty Years War etc. etc. etc. are long in the past and Christians can retreat monastically into a world that never suffers these things, because it suffers the idiocies of the various styles of socialism (a), and its managing to turn into the butt of what IT was ultimately responsible for: i.e. those various types of socialism (sc. Taborites, Munsterites, Levellers, etc. etc. etc.) whose fundamental product ("Woke") may look like nothing more than a hare-brained product of philanthropism and humanism but without "universal love" we certainly wouldn't have philanthropism or humanism (b). Anyway, John 3:16 hardly describes what the history of the past 2000 years has been like, even though I am quite enjoying reading The Name of the Rose right now. (Another recommendation. I actually prefer it that Adso has mixed feelings about irony.)
The good news (for Christianity) is that Sparrow Fall will never be published. It was written in a Style and with an Attitude which Woke publishers (there are no others, at least of fiction, and have not been for many, many, many years) need gallons of smelling salts and sacks of pearls to deal with. I suspect that even though the God with whom my hero or anti-hero engages with such centrifugal energy is not a mummified fantasy, he is certainly God, to my eyes, and I suspect he ALWAYS hated being reduced to (publisher-friendly) agape when eros and philia were so much more fun. (It is true of course they like eros and philia -- or at least, pornography and Thelma&Louise.) Or to put it another way, the totalitarian God of Parmenides was even badly suited to the sensibility of (St) Paul, who kept sending out missives to the effect of YOU SNOWFLAKES JUST GROW UP (Corinthians, somewhere) except when he wasn't.
This again goes to Woke, but it also goes to the breadth and depth of history itself, which I wanted to capture in my book. I am very disappointed that over the centuries the market for such a book has gradually been gushing down the toilet, and I am of course expressing my frustration at this right now. As you can see, I spent far too much of my youth as a God-botherer, and wouldn't dream of being near so forward or trusting as I was then, but it is time for God to step up and tell me why his representative(s) on earth are justified in regarding wild curiosity about such matters as deeply upsetting, irritating, and, indeed, "corrupt". In Promethius Bound, Prometheus tells Zeus that all Power, all Glory and all Forever And Ever are ultimately answerable, to which Zeus responds (of course) with Might and Force (these could actually be presented onstage, at least at the time of Aeschylus). These are the end times, but we are not faced with the consequences of Elijah's ruthlessness (which in my novel is far preferable to that of the Emperor Konstans), but with the Love of Bernard of Clairvaux, who looked at Abelard, then heavenward, and cried, GUT HIM!
Nice to have God and the king on your side. Nice to be THAT sort of bot.