Two decades ago, logging into the internet meant a lot of possibilities. You could download music for free, chat rooms gave this rush of talking to strangers across the world and there was this grungy aspect of surfing websites and finding weird corners of the internet that gave both you and the internet a personality. Then, this “e”-world seemed like a novelty, mass adoption where a life without it was impossible felt like a dream one would brush away. Then the first social networks emerged and the iPhone and its many clones, followed by cheap data to the point where now being plugged into the global economy means being connected by 4 devices but the whole experience of the internet revolves around a handful of platforms and a few apps.
It is fair that the initial wonder of the internet has faded away into oblivion, it was too good to be true. To reach the economies of scale meant that standardization was inevitable, which induces the feeling of sameness but still there was the element of adding ones own personal touches to the experience of the internet. With generative AI this has changed, the last frontier of personalization on the internet has also become automated which means that every post reads the same, every video looks like a copy of a copy of a copy.
Plus, why would anyone want to create on the internet anyway? The obvious money incentive which means that certain norms have to be adhered to: You can't be too left, can't question the overlords or stirrup trouble. But otherwise with the surveilling apparatus baked deep into the experience of the web, we're just giving more data points to allow ourselves to be policed. Gen AI also means that one's content becomes the fodder for another model of your favorite LLM, further diluting the incentives to create. So the best way to enjoy the internet is as a mute spectator, a consumer rather than a creator. The internet is killing itself and us along with it and we aren't even noticing. Or maybe we aren't supposed to.
Tendencies to over think and over analyze, the influence of one's words and actions. Perfect grammar now the realm of the AI, imperfections making me human. Dissecting the will to live away from the stem of the collective – always hooked in, to Twitter, Facebook and Link-fucking-din. Who are we? Analyzed, processed and spit back into our faces as nothing as magical. Reduced to binaries, bits and bytes, lines of code that can somehow stand in for our consciousness. I here by permit myself to no life, for my computer has taken over and my AI self will talk to your AI self, our brains ceasing or existing in a narrative of over stimulation. Rejecting customs, here I am, a scribble on the internet.
ChatGPT can probably write this essay with perhaps more quality and depth than I ever can. Though the technology looks like magic now, I can only imagine the upcoming implosion of its adoption, making many jobs and hobbyist pursuits irrelevant, why even try if a simple prompt in a computer can produce the same results?
The age of user generated writing and art on the internet might be nearing an end to be replaced by a dedicated AI assistant that does our job of expressing what we feel. The technology demonstrates that human language processing isn't as complex as thought before, which can both be a cause of concern and rejoicing. The burden of being the perfect animal is thus removed from us, we are at the apex, but our individual selves are not as unique as we'd imagine it to be. A future where shells of AI of our personalities talk with each other into perpetuity (have to pay for a subscription before of course) no longer is confined to the seams of a Ray Bradbury novel.
While the fear of ChatGPT replacing white collar workers is true, how the modern workforce will change is only up for imagination. Thirty years ago most of the world would've scoffed that our desks will be shrunk to the size of a computer screen and communication be made so seamless, sitting in the same vantage point now the next 30 years looks fuzzy enough to be magical. The point remains that technological advances have not obliterated human labor changed forms to that a worker from 200 years ago will have nothing in common with the worker of today (elements of class struggle and owning means of production will be a common ground, which tells a thing or two about the nature of capitalism). The means of production will become even blurred as it replenishes the power of the big internet firms that already control our lives. Having a Ministry of Truth also becomes a possibility, as who will be the purveyors of truth in a world where information can be created on the go without human interference? For those who are not blessed with the gospel of machine learning, the new world will be inaccessible except for the pastors of engineering spewing the greatness of the Church of the Computer.
A storm is brewing right on the screens you're reading this essay, where the course of our lives go from here is left to the algorithm.