https://www.404media.co/your-ai-use-is-breaking-my-brain/
"A few years ago, while I was covering the rise of AI slop on Facebook, I asked
my friends and family if they were getting AI spam fed into their timelines and
if they could send me examples. A handful of them responded, sending me
obviously AI-generated science fiction scenescapes, shrimp Jesus, and forlorn,
starving children begging for sympathy. But a few of my friends sent me images
that they thought were AI but were not. Their mental guard was up to the point
where they were looking at human-made art and photos and thought it safer to
dismiss them as AI rather than be fooled by it.
To browse the internet today, to consume any sort of content at all, is to be
bombarded with AI of all sorts. People think things that are fake are real,
things that are real are fake. Much has been written about “AI psychosis,” the
nonspecific, nonscientific diagnosis given to people who have lost themselves
to AI. Less has been said about the cognitive load of what other people’s AI
use is doing to the rest of us, and the insidious nature of having to navigate
an internet and a world where lazy AI has infiltrated everything. Our brains
are now performing untold numbers of calculations per day: Is this AI? Do I
care if it’s AI? Why does this sound or look or read so weird? Does this person
just write like this? Is this a person at all?
I see AI content where I’m conditioned to expect and ignore it: In Google’s “AI
Overviews” that famously told us to eat glue pizza, in engagement-bait LinkedIn
posts, and throughout our Facebook and Instagram feeds. But increasingly I have
the feeling that it’s everywhere, coming from all directions, completely
unavoidable. It’s not exactly that I have a revulsion to AI-assisted content or
don’t want to get fooled by it. It’s that something is happening where my brain
has become the AI police because everything feels incredibly uncanny. I will be
going about my day reading, watching, or listening to something and, suddenly,
I notice that something is wildly off. Quite simply, I feel like I’m going
nuts."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
