When I was a kid, there was a saying: don’t believe everything you see on TV. “Everything” was the operative word there. With TV, you could be reasonably certain that at least some of it was true. On the internet, I’m not sure anymore.
I used to be confident in my ability to discern generative AI content. The output of Google Veo 3 has me taking a knee. I’m not convinced that if I swiped through it on a scrolling video platform, I would distinguish it as artificial. We might be swiftly reaching the generative AI endgame.
I don’t think the world is ready for it. I think people still approach the internet with a level tacit credibility. But those days must by necessity be over. Without scrutiny and context, and with the indiscriminate faucet of algorithms spewing content at our eyes faster than we can process, we are in a golden age of lies.
I feel this deeply. It feels like I’m seeing so many people incapable of discerning truth from manipulation in *so* many ways, not just art. I think what you’ve described isn’t just relevant for imagery but for a lot of online things anymore.
And even when it can be “called out”, the damage is already done. Even truth can’t negate appearance.
The only path forward that I can see is to stop privileging online content in our lives. To mitigate its impact by reducing its influence and presence. I’m old enough to remember a world without the internet, and I suspect many of those tools may return: small-scale print publications, festivals/fairs/cons/in-person events, book clubs and other specialized social orgs… I mean, we’re already seeing a “retro” resurgence in vinyl and CDs… Reps, agents, and agencies for artists and illustrators that are turned to instead of Instagram, the rise of self-publishing.
I think as things collapse, we’ll see a return to methods of the past. It will take brave execs to set aside the internet paradigm defining “credibly proficient artistry” by how big one’s following happens to be, but I suspect there will be a tipping point sometime.
PS: I follow you on old-school RSS. Things are changing.
Appreciate these thoughts, Corey. I agree that we’ll probably see a return to more analog media or more primitive forms of digital publishing. I think people will just crave it after a while, or it will become like other artisan pursuits when mechanization takes over a field, like handmade soaps in lieu of Dial bars. That’s my hope, anyway. A world in which people give up on human creativity is not a happy world.
And kudos for using RSS readers. Reminds me that I should spruce up my own.