Great points shared in this piece. I write from a like-minded perspective and it’s nice to resonate with the idea that this avalanche of slop can have a positive effect.
“…the rapid advancement of AI imagery is parallel tracking with an human advancement of matrix awareness as visual media literacy. With each AI video or image I become more attune and immune to its bedazzlement. This strikes me as a spiritual opening that is vital to retaining our consciousness, our being, our agency from becoming even more manipulated, or our attention being digitally colorized and colonized.” From “But Is It Slop?”
Look for the next in my series “But Is It Slop? 2: Too Cool” out soon.
Great, great text and I agree with all the points, but it made me think about one thing I’m starting to get afraid of. Let’s all try not to fall for whatever new rule (product, space, courses, etc) people are going to start trying to sell us so we can prove we’re human. It’s on us. No new tool is going to do it for us.
The spinning head makes me recall Yes's 1970 album cover The Yes Album. There is also a video on Youtube from a German show back in the day that actually spins the head during one of their songs. (my husband is a huge Yes fan, or I never would have seen that video)
Great article and really refreshing to see. There are some real upshot’s with the slop tsunami. I like your point about not needing to polish our work anymore.
Every point here is spot on; and I am increasingly thinking more about point #10 - this really could be a golden age for creative people. We will have to make sure we seize the moment over the next decade though. That starts with all of us individually.
Absolutely agree and believe every point you made to be true. Over time, it’ll only become more evident, but I’ve felt this exact shift for a while now. In 2023, when the creatives started reacting, I made at least half of the points you mentioned. I remember telling a good friend that, in the long run, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to artists. I still believe that, even more so now than when it was just a hunch. One of the greatest defining aspects of humanity is storytelling, and it’s such a core aspect that the reaction to most AI-produced slop can be described as allergic. After a long break from daily creative work, I fully immersed myself in it in the last two years. Why? Because it’s clear that self-expression and mark-making, in my case, are an essential part of human communication, and no one can fake your mark, no matter how advanced the machines that attempt it are. There’s no soul behind such work, and we can instantly detect that quality. Thank you for sharing this. I’ll definitely write my own essays on this very subject as time permits, as all I see is liberation in the arts rather than deep-seated fear of suffocation.
Spot on! Also explains the current analog movement.
Great points shared in this piece. I write from a like-minded perspective and it’s nice to resonate with the idea that this avalanche of slop can have a positive effect.
“…the rapid advancement of AI imagery is parallel tracking with an human advancement of matrix awareness as visual media literacy. With each AI video or image I become more attune and immune to its bedazzlement. This strikes me as a spiritual opening that is vital to retaining our consciousness, our being, our agency from becoming even more manipulated, or our attention being digitally colorized and colonized.” From “But Is It Slop?”
Look for the next in my series “But Is It Slop? 2: Too Cool” out soon.
Great, great text and I agree with all the points, but it made me think about one thing I’m starting to get afraid of. Let’s all try not to fall for whatever new rule (product, space, courses, etc) people are going to start trying to sell us so we can prove we’re human. It’s on us. No new tool is going to do it for us.
The spinning head makes me recall Yes's 1970 album cover The Yes Album. There is also a video on Youtube from a German show back in the day that actually spins the head during one of their songs. (my husband is a huge Yes fan, or I never would have seen that video)
I like Yes, too! I’ll try and track down that album cover.🙂
Great article and really refreshing to see. There are some real upshot’s with the slop tsunami. I like your point about not needing to polish our work anymore.
Every point here is spot on; and I am increasingly thinking more about point #10 - this really could be a golden age for creative people. We will have to make sure we seize the moment over the next decade though. That starts with all of us individually.
Absolutely agree and believe every point you made to be true. Over time, it’ll only become more evident, but I’ve felt this exact shift for a while now. In 2023, when the creatives started reacting, I made at least half of the points you mentioned. I remember telling a good friend that, in the long run, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to artists. I still believe that, even more so now than when it was just a hunch. One of the greatest defining aspects of humanity is storytelling, and it’s such a core aspect that the reaction to most AI-produced slop can be described as allergic. After a long break from daily creative work, I fully immersed myself in it in the last two years. Why? Because it’s clear that self-expression and mark-making, in my case, are an essential part of human communication, and no one can fake your mark, no matter how advanced the machines that attempt it are. There’s no soul behind such work, and we can instantly detect that quality. Thank you for sharing this. I’ll definitely write my own essays on this very subject as time permits, as all I see is liberation in the arts rather than deep-seated fear of suffocation.