We no longer need to imagine this, surely Google Gemini or equivalent can generate this disturbing image for us?! Which brings me to an important question: to what extent is generative AI destroying both our will and our ability to concoct imagery mentally? It may be a slow degradation, but I fear it is afoot.

A satisfying way to conclude a thought-provoking article. Perhaps we are careening toward a great revolt against all things digital. When enough things in life become compromised or ruined entirely, perhaps we'll all push for a return to 1972? That is, after all, a whole 12 years before 1984. ;-)

This fascinates me. We need a mechanism to regulate AI agents and the 'slop code' they are dropping like manure all over the net. If the international community can develop large-scale organizations to help regulate territorial integrity (the United Nations; though something of a failed model), why can't something similar happen for the Internet in this most fraught AI era? The Wild West was eventually tamed and brought to heel - perhaps the net can be also? I'm probably being too optimistic...

This is an excellent observation and a hugely problematic element of the AI-beleaguered internet. The risk of a biased AI generated consensus across any and all fields of inquiry is one of the most frightening elements of the AI era. How are the tech companies training AI to decipher true from apocryphal? Who decides what is misinformation when history is clearly authored by the winners?