As of last Tuesday afternoon, there was a giant billboard on Divisadero in SF advertising an ai product with the tagline: What's better than an ai therapist? Your therapist with ai.
Truly horrifying stuff.
Readit Newsthefaux commented on Who does your assistant serve? xeiaso.net/blog/2025/who-... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti
>But that's because, at present, AI generated video isn't very good.
It isn't good, but that's not the reason. There's a paper about 10 years ago where people used some computer system to generate Bach-like music that even Bach experts couldn't reliably tell apart, but nobody listens to bot music. (or nobody except for engine programmers watches computer chess, despite superiority. Chess is thriving more now including commercially than it ever did)
In any creative field what people are after is the interaction between the creator and the content, which is why compelling personalities thrive more, not less in a sea of commodified slop (be that by AI or just churned out manually).
It's why we're in an age where twitch content creators or musicians are increasingly skilled at presenting themselves as authentic and personal. These people haven't suffered from the fact that mass production of media is cheap, they've benefited from it.
The wonder of Bach goes much deeper than just the aesthetic qualities of his music. His genius almost forces one to reckon with his historical context and wonder, how did he do it? Why did he do it? What made it all possible? Then there is the incredible influence that he had. It is easy to forget that music theory as we know it today was not formalized in his day. The computer programs that simulate the kind of music he made are based on that theory that he understood intuitively and wove into his music and was later revealed through diligent study. Everyone who studies Bach learns something profound and can feel both a kinship for his humanity and also an alienation from his seemingly impossible genius. He is one of the most mysterious figures in human history and one could easily spend their entire life primarily studying just his music (and that of his descendants). From that perspective, computer generated music in his style is just a leaf on the tree, but Bach himself is the seed.
> These people haven't suffered from the fact that mass production of media is cheap, they've benefited from it.
Maybe? This really depends on your value system. Every moment that you are focused on how you look on camera and trying to optimize an extractive algorithm is a moment you aren't focused on creating the best music that you can in that moment. If the goal is maximizing profit to ensure survival, perhaps they are thriving. Put another way, if these people were free to create music in any context, would they choose content creation on social media? I know I wouldn't, but I also am sympathetic to the economic imperatives.
thefaux commented on Books will soon be obsolete in school shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/08/... · Posted by u/edent
There is a naive belief that media does not matter so long as the same content is presented. For various reasons, I believe books are far better learning tools than digital devices for most things. Among other things, memory is linked to place and space. A physical book is a link to the real world that grounds the learning in space and differentiates it from other materials. My theory, based on my personal experience, is that reading a physical book, you have an experience with that object that helps link the content into the spacial memory system.
Physical books can be totemic symbols of learning. Just having them around is a reminder of what you've learned, or what you've been putting off if they remain unread.
Physical books are also wonderful gifts that digital can never replicate. A wise old man once gave me a book that he cherished and had been given to him in commemoration of his contribution to its production (it was a very important book). Every one of the hundreds of pages was filled with many of his annotations. Whenever I read from it, I am connected to him and his study. What would be the equivalent for digital? Giving someone a used phone?
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thefaux commented on What kids told us about how to get them off their phones theatlantic.com/ideas/arc... · Posted by u/jc_811
Do kids really get hit by cars at a level that would materially impact the “let them play in the park” calculus?
When I was a kid in the 90s, I knew multiple kids who were severely injured by cars. For whatever reason, this did not seem to have any impact on my mother's parenting and no new limits were placed on my freedom as a result. For the record though, one of the kids I knew who was hit was leaving the property of their school with plenty of adult supervision around at the time of the collision (and received a large settlement from the school).
thefaux commented on What kids told us about how to get them off their phones theatlantic.com/ideas/arc... · Posted by u/jc_811
> ...we asked parents what they thought would happen if two 10-year-olds played in a local park without adults around. Sixty percent thought the children would likely get injured. Half thought they would likely get abducted.
During summer vacation when I was 10 (early 90s) I'd leave the house in the morning and head down to the local park to play basketball or roam the neighborhood with the other kids. We'd ride our bikes to wherever we wanted, and aside from stopping back to eat lunch and dinner, I'd be out until the streetlights went on. I don't recall any major injuries, aside from getting scraped or bumped up from time to time.
I had a similar experience and sadly the culture seemed to shift during the 90s so that children were stripped of most of their autonomy. Having not experienced it themselves, many struggle to even imagine the possibilities or benefits.
I will also mention I experienced periods of absolutely crushing boredom at times during the summer when I did not have friends or parents around and had nothing to do but watch daytime television. But I learned from the boredom. It is sad to me that so many today are instead being fed from the drip of constant personalized entertainment that makes it harder to get to the place of complete boredom that ultimately can spark creativity instead of succumbing to learned helplessness.
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It’s basic game theory. If someone is not nice to you, you have to be not nice for them.
I can't tell if this is serious or not, but I strongly disagree with this advice if it is.
The fact that these models have so many people irritated like there's sand in their pants is enough proof that they're pushing boundaries and making some uncomfortable.
Yes, because the people pushing the boundaries do not understand the value of the thing they are trying to commoditize. If they did, they wouldn't be trying to commoditize it. There is a pervasive attitude among technologists that they can improve things they don't understand through technological efficiency. They are wrong in this case and getting appropriate pushback.
Personally, music is sacred for me so making money is not a part of my process. I am not worried about job loss. But I am worried about the cultural malaise that emerges from the natural passivity of industrial scale consumerism.
Did Google and Yahoo make us dumber?