An Extra Helping of the process of getting to total (AI) slop

The “We are all losing our minds” edition

Happy Thursday, that became Friday, because of a busy vacation day! A long tour of a chocolate farm led to an orgy of chocolate consumption. Then a painful belly (no idea why).

This newsletter started with some light stuff, but I realized it linked to the story from Monday.

A Digital Tragedy - in 3 Acts

Act 1 - It starts here, just clowning around right?

Here are three direct clip and pastes from the same person posting on BlueSky, their stream of consciousness generating images.

I find playing with Gemini multimodal image generation to be really fun.

Took a pic: “turn the bottles into a Saturn V complete with tiny ground crew. Add a neon sign to the cups saying ‘moon’ with an up arrow”

“Make the rocket out of legos. Make the crew ducklings on stilts”

Then this:

"Gemini, take this famous shot and turn it into an action figure."

"Now a low-budget streaming reboot that doesn't look quite right"

"Now do it in claymation"

"Now as a terrible Halloween costume"

Finally:

Now turn it into a Broadway musical where the cowboy is singing"

"Now turn him into a mascot, complete with wearable head"

"Make the scene into a billboard where the billboard is where the original film was shot"

"Turn him into a stuffed walrus toy"

These are just some of the actual prompts that a very senior professor and well known AI evangelist uses to generate countless images and videos

I am completely perplexed. Whenever I do almost anything, I try to ask myself Why? first. I attempt to live an intentional life.

But besides why for this I add, Who cares? What a waste of time

What a waste of life!

Act 2 - “Bad” people take unbridled image and video generation too far

On Monday I summarized a disgusting porn scam on Instagram. Turns out it was just the tip of the iceberg. Instagram plays host to more of these disturbing patterns. So instead of create “ a terrible Hallowe’en costume” we have generate Lebron James begging on the street or Steph Curry being raped. (For those that don’t know these are 2 famous basketball players). The next step from “turn him into a stuffed walrus toy” for some is to get AI to depict wildly racist imagery or disgusting cartoons. Click here (paywalled) if you want even more repulsive examples.

There is special Discord (a commonly used messaging platform) dedicated for this type of activity. Turns out that these images and videos aren’t always that easy to create. First you have to have the distasteful vision of what you want. Then you may have to go through 3 to 5 different AI ssoftware products to create your monstrosity. Of course, there is digital support all the way, giving you helpful prompts, for you to unleash your personal scandalous imagery.

Not only doesn’t Instagram try to stop this, several of these freakizoid creators are benefiting from Insta’s direct payout program. There is money to be made in revulsion because lots and lots of people are looking at this stuff. Which leads us to you and I, dear reader.

Act 3 - Laying this mess at our door, where all good tragedies end

We live in a Dunning-Kruger¹ technical literacy age where facility with a few smart phone apps is confused with deep knowledge of technology and its foundations. For this particular case, I want to focus on the majority who blame all of this on THE ALGORITHM, as voiced by the late James Earl Jones in a high reverb bathroom. Say it with me in your deepest voices: THE ALGORITHM.

THE ALGORITHM causes all this. It is Godlike. And AI is the Holy Spirit of this new religion of the complex and unknowable.

Wrong!

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Here is how it works. You are scrolling along. You slow your scroll, you stop your scroll, you go back to look, you interact. All of this is monitored and captured. You phone is not yours; it is THE ALGORITHM’S spy.

So if you stopped to look briefly at images of new makeup, spring opening of baseball, a skinny teenage girl, a woman in a scanty bikini, or one of the dreadful images or videos from Part 2, it is noted and more like it is put into your feed. The more you stop, look, and play around the more it thinks you like this stuff. Even if you are saying WTF what is this trash, the time you spend is recorded.

Only vibe coders (may I never type that phrase again) think that there is sophistication and complex pattern recognition going on.

Those readers who remember my observations of the intense scrollers waiting on the tarmac for the plane to take off, that was really an example of people literally programming their feed unconsciously, which will never end for them. If you slow down to look at a roadside accident, you will get mangled cars and bloody bodies served up aplenty.

It is the same for text. For videos. Across platforms. There is no godlike algorithm doing this. This category of software is more like a mirror. Where you stop. Where you look; repeatedly. Where you rage. Where you engage with self-righteous morality. That becomes the focus.

Time we took responsibility for our own social platform actions and leave James Earl Jones in peace.

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Back on Monday with lighter fluffy sarcasm! AS always thanks for reading and any kind of feedback is appreciated.

1. This effect describes how people with limited competence in a specific area tend to overestimate their abilities, often due to a lack of metacognitive skills to recognize their own incompetence.