Some fun, and then serious thoughts

I don’t think I’ve heard AI Slop, but I don’t really stream. My decks are arm’s reach, so during the workday it isn’t rough to flip records. I think my Dad heard AI Slop on some country station, I know some people that are dealing with Spotify having it on ambient “stations” (or whatever they’re called), as well as lo-fi hip-hop. I know Spotify has allowed fake AI bands and music to profit, and that means humans are pushed out of royalties. The worst is the allowing of new music for dead artists. In the last week, they’ve made updates, are labeling AI, and purged 75 Million spammy AI Slop songs.

Beyond there something being connective and community minded about touching and feeling and reading the liner notes of an album, or taking out the record and letting it flip over in your hands as you blow dust off it. The crackle… there’s warmth in analog like rain on a cozy night. It’s self contained, and it’s an active experience of choosing, vs being spoon fed content from an algorithm, where you are the product, and humans are no longer welcome vs AI taking over creativity for us.

Now you’ve got this young AI actress? Of course the first AI a creep in Hollywood would exploit is a young woman, Tilly Norwood. JFC, someone said, “WE HAVE LOST THE PLOT”. I mean, this isn’t Max Headroom, and projected backgrounds vs studio sets save money. I get Hollywood isn’t going to pay for rotoscoping that AI can do and save $20 Million, but this is dumb. James Gunn on Smartless, in a very practical non alarmist but cautious way, had that point on how AI will, somehow, seep into and integrate into Hollywood, inevitably.

The issue so far is knowing what you are watching, knowing if you are renting a digital copy, or if you think you own it, when you simply have paid for long term access, until you don’t have it. Some movies never get past rights issues and there’s plenty of films not streaming. (since that post, many physical releases have happened, but some digital releases are still mired in capitalism, gatekeeping the art). Some digitally purchased films have disappeared out of people’s collection (BECAUSE YOU DO NOT OWN YOUR PURCHASED FILMS), and I’m not fear mongering about this administration and corporate overlords capitulating to mob boss like tactics, but we have seen it… and the moral brigade is out in force banning things they are repressed about. I’ve always heard about airlines censoring and editing movies such that you don’t know what has been edited (here’s how they decide)… but again I can’t really watch films on those seatbacks because of what David Lynch taught us. Soon, vs a licensed and physical release of something (yes, it’s imperfect), you won’t be able to trust anything digitally streaming as to being authentic. Even then, what’s the difference between AI jokes, mistakes, propaganda, bad faith narrators?

One of the most FRUSTRATING aspects of AI Slop is similar to the music. Famous people, in this case Alan Watts the philosopher, have multiple Youtube channels to AI slop lectures that are not him, not his voice, nor anything he ever said, vs “what AI hoovered up and thinks he said”. There’s no tool to combat this, people have no clue they are listening to AI, and it’s crowded his actual voice and work and lectures away. He had 12, 30 minute lectures. He died in the early 1970s. There’s channels with 100s of lectures saying “take a break from social media”. I will not link that single channel, although there are dozens. It’s been reported to the Alan Watts Organization and I am sure legal action is being considered. Technology always outpaces society and legislation. Here are the 12 actual lectures, as recorded in Vallejo, the Sausalito Houseboat! =)

But there’s even something functionally annoying and somewhat soulless about the digital ownership experience. Whether a library, wishlist, or continue watching, you’ve maybe 100s of entries in a library or watchlist, and you’re staring at 4 single movie tiles at one single time when trying to select. There isn’t a single watchlist digitally that allows sorting or filtering within streamers. There is Justwatch, but being so widely distributed across multiple digital ecosystems… is exhausting, to talk about or think about. Conversely, with a physical collection, while someone is making popcorn, you can look at your entire collection, something people mirthfully and consistently have fun showing to other collectors, until you reach the grand finale of in home blockbuster videos. But then, there’s THIS MONSTROSITY, and people were impressed. At least you can peruse the collection, by genre, fit the mood, and look at many selections at once vs that scrolling experience. It reminds me of the new Netflix lowest tier plan, to Just Browse, and “Scroll Endlessly without rights to watch any content”…

I’ve little to say here, other than I’ve collected books for a few years longer than I started collecting records. I also got into collecting first editions of some favorites. I’ll say, kindles are non-smartphone focused technology that is freeing. In the sense that showing Beethoven an IPOD Nano of *every work he had EVER recorded*, as well as *everything* his peers and contemporaries had composed would be life changing fun (actually it would BE UNREAL and possibly the only reason to time travel), it is true that carrying a library in your pocket is indeed a mind-bending, wonderful thing. Until you can’t have it.

It’s all conspiratorial in this weird world, but we have rolling blackouts and maybe I forget to charge it. Maybe the rights change or something changes with digital access. With Archive.org losing their lending license and removing 500,000 books, it’s suggested that libraries may be the next target. What happens when Amazon’s Bezos capitulates to Trump’s threat of removing DEI words, and just accidentally erasing stuff because they do a search and replace (NO JOKE THEY DID THIS AND MESSED UP A BUNCH WITH DOGE… erasing “woke” words like “POC”, people of color, but “POC” meant “point of contact” and it’s like evil muppets)

I know the article at the top was a joke, but as I try to quit the nicotine like addiction to my trained behavior of online use, it was a moment of reflection, appreciation, and hope for my future, while really validating something I always suspected was special, but knew might be an addiction… physical media.

Now with all the above nonsense, it feels like the best investment of my life.