Why Are We So Excited to See Art Die?

I'll give you a hint. It's money. Money and maybe a little more.

Disclaimer: This has been sitting in my drafts for a while so some of the stuff I say might be old news at this point.

This is going to be one of my more passionate and emotional writings. This week, Google revealed Veo 3, an AI program to generate video with audio. It’s honestly incredible how real it looks. The technology is astounding. It’s too bad that it is ruined by the common knowledge that art is dying and we’re excited to kill it. So… this is gonna be a very stream of consciousness post from me.

If it isn’t obvious storytelling is a big passion of mine, in any medium really. It’s so disheartening to see human expression tossed aside for machine generated slop. It’s evident that this is what people want. Not too long ago, the most viewed video on YouTube that month was an AI generated video about a dog saving a baby from a plane crash. I’ve seen the video. It’s literally awful, but whoever “made” it made a lot of money from it. It begs the question. Why is this popular? Are we really that dumb?

Answer is… maybe?

Consumerism and Anti-intellectualism

Sorry to break out the SAT words on you, but they’re important for what I’m trying to explore. Let’s start with consumerism.

consumerism /kən-soo͞′mə-rĭz″əm/ -

Attachment to materialistic values or possessions.

I’m not gonna sit here and try to say I’m guiltless in this. I’m no better than anyone else. I’m not even going to say it’s inherently a bad thing. Stuff is cool and so is having it. But the problem begins when the need to consume is unending. It’s really easy to fall into that trap of endless pleasure whether that be from material possessions or from different kinds of entertainment. When you really think about it, our world is built on the idea of consumerism. This country [USA] is essentially built on the idea of consumerism. What do I mean by that? It’s quite simple. Capitalism. And what do you get when you cross consumerism, capitalism, and a country that runs on it? The worst sin of all, in my opinion. Greed.

In a place where the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, the people forced to carry the brunt of the load (Middle Class and lower) need some way to escape from the difficulties that come with simply living. That’s where consumerism and capitalism come into play. We pay the rich in order to give our lives more meaning. It’s fleeting, but it feels good. And what do the rich want more than anything? They want to save money, because they could never have enough.

Let me put on my rich person costume on for a second. Hold on a sec. Ahem:

“So you’re telling me there’s a way to push product out to consumers and not have to pay people to make it? Sign me up! Oh what’s that? The stuff it makes is soulless garbage? I could give a crap about whether or not the product is good. It’ll still make money.”

Yikes. Sorry about that, I won’t put that costume on again. So anyway, the rich CEOs make a ton of money, because we can’t not consume, while they get to lay off people they don’t deem essential anymore. The gap gets bigger and bigger. So, AI generated content is a proverbial golden goose for those who want to hoard their already millions or billions of dollars. Money they don’t even really need or have any use for.

But hey, profit margins are up. That’s good right?

anti-intellectualism

a social attitude characterized by hostility and distrust towards intellectual thought and intellectuals, often minimizing the value of education, science, and the pursuit of knowledge.

AI is making us dumber. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this Google Gemini ad that has their AI explain to a grown woman what her shadow is. Is that supposed to impress me? Literally, who is this for? I will admit that they’re probably just trying to be silly, but how far off is this from our future? Relying on AI for everything? Is that really progress? If you look at any ad for Google Gemini you’ll find it helping the dumbest people imaginable with the easiest of tasks.

The truth is these companies (and especially our government) want you to be stupid. They want you dumber so they can get what they want, whether it is a larger customer base or just a population they can control. Why do you think there has been such a push-back on our systems of education recently? They are attacking the places that we can learn the most. Uneducated people don’t stand up for themselves. AI is just a very large nail in the coffin of Anti-Intellectualism.

Sounds pretty bleak doesn’t it?

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way.

What Could We Do?

I’m not going to sit here and say that using AI for any reason is an awful think that people should look down on you for. I use it sometimes. Not often but I do use it.

The question that comes is, what is the right way to use it?

1. First and foremost we need to use it less. The massive use of AI will have a massively negative impact on our planet. Each prompt uses a lot of energy that hurts the environment. If there was just one AI company we’d probably be fine, however, that is not the case. Every day new companies trying to utilize or create AI models pop up. I should know, I live near San Francisco. We don’t have the luxury of relying wholly on one system. I’m happy that AI companies want to reduce their environmental impact, but how much are they willing to do if it effects their profits?

2. Stick to text. I can’t even begin to properly explain how bad generating art and videos are. Not only do they use more energy, they also are made by plagiarizing from other artists, more likely than not without their permission. I know Substack has an image generator built in for you to use on posts but I will not be using it. I won’t look down on you if you do, but I highly discourage it.

3. If you are a creative, don’t give up. Oh shoot, how did this get here? I wrote this one for myself. To tell you the truth, it’s hard out here. I’m trying to find work, but a lot of the jobs I’m passionate about (writing, voice acting, etc.) are under constant threat from being completely automated. I’d be lying if I hadn’t considered giving up a couple times. Heck I still do. I can’t let that stop me though. If the difficulty stops me then AI didn’t replace me, I let it take over. Just keep trying.

What Do We Have in the End?

Yeah… sorry about how much of a bummer this post is. I really needed to get things off my chest here. I’m sure I’m not the only person on this platform that has been feeling the weight of all of this. I’m sure it’s hard to feel like people care, at least the people that matter. I get stuck in that loop myself all the time. I’m hard on myself, but I shouldn’t be.

I recently cancelled an ongoing project of mine. When I broke the news to my cast, several sent me messages saying how much they loved working on the project as well as working with me. The project was no success by any means. It was an audio drama that never managed to pick up a true audience. I saw it as a failure, but in reality it was a success in other places. I became connected with some truly irreplaceable people and, honestly, what more could I need. All the more reason to find the next project.

Apologies if this seemed like the ramblings of a madman and sorry about any grammatical errors that might pop up throughout this post. I won’t be fixing them. I want this post to remain as raw and a train of thought as it can be.

Because it’s imperfect. Because I’m imperfect. That’s what makes me human.