Bruh. (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Sunday, March 29, 2026, 14:47 (1 hours, 34 minutes ago) @ Cody Miller

Finally, in this context, I guess my optimism rests on the belief that human-created art, whether with chalk or digital tools, will always be highly valued. I believe there will always be a demand for and therefore mechanisms to authenticate human-created art.

This is the objection that is most fundamental, free from issues of copyright and stealing. No. No it won't. That's the era Generative AI will usher in if it becomes ubiquitous. Generative AI works in their ouroboros artistic cannibalism will become the new objects of hyperreality, which will influence how we approach and see the real world. The real and hyperreal are not distinct and separate, but bleed together influencing each other so that you can no longer meaningfully tell which is which. Real art will thus be incompatible and no longer ring true.

As I said. The very death of human culture.

Hyperbole, thy name is Cody Miller. Alternatively, in this dystopian Blade Runner world where cloned snakes (speaking of ouroboros) perform with strippers, actual snakes will be extremely valuable.

I acknowledge that you may be right in that there are those that say that AI will destroy humanity. If that’s the case, then yup, no humans, no human culture. Otherwise, I disagree with your prognosis.

Look at history and how many times your prediction has been made, usually after some ground-breaking invention or art form. I’ll list a few: the printing press, the steam engine, the novel, radio, motion pictures, the automobile, airplanes, comic books, TV, computers, video games, and of course, the Internet.

More specifically, look at something like Napster. It is certainly true that it caused the death of the music industry as it was circa 1990. It gave rise to the streaming services that we have today. One could argue that those streaming services do not pay artists enough, and that it's more difficult to make a living as a musician or it is not as lucrative as it once was (or that music isn’t as central to our culture as it once was). Yet people are still making and enjoying music.

I hear ringing of the death knell for your industry, but maybe the motion picture industry is transforming, not dying. Movies aren’t having as big an impact on the culture as they used to, but in some ways, movie making is more democratic than ever. I see great movies every year (fewer from Hollywood, but thank goodness human culture doesn’t spring solely from Hollywood). There are real pain points. Cassandras are continually identifying new poisons, but these art-killing toxins are met with pushback from creators. For example, those who champion practical effects over CGI. Those who champion film over digital. But even when new technologies are adopted, authenticity is king. Linklater couldn’t get the film stock that Godard used to make BREATHLESS, but he nonetheless could achieve something similar by shooting digital through certain lenses.

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. It’s a magic trick—not magic. Appreciation of the human involvement in the creation of art is a critical part of the creative circuit. Intrinsic in our appreciation is the knowledge that this is a form of a like being communicating to a like being. We aren’t going to stop wanting or valuing that.

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.