The Bifurcated Landscape

My apologies ... I'm going to be elitist for a little while.

Some centuries ago, the number of persons able to read language was well below one tenth of the population.  In a culture where bookkeeping and communication by letters was becoming all important to both the government and the mercantile class, it was perceived that a literate workforce was sincerely needed ... and so, privately at first, the growing middle class undertook an effort to see that their children, at least, would be sufficiently educated to enjoy the benefits of economic opportunities and growth that were blooming everywhere.

Families with the means to do so hired tutors or sent their children to private schools to ensure they acquired the skills necessary to capitalise on new opportunities.  This shift marked the beginning of a broader movement towards increased literacy ... but it was only ever intended for the purpose of making money.  Those who waxed about the beauty of literature, or who perceived that somehow reading would be a gateway for every person's intellectual development, were much mistaken.  Oh, of course, miller's sons, impoverished monks, immigrant's daughters and the like would learn to read and did accomplish startling, amazing things ... but each one of these were complimented by hundreds of thousands who did no better with their literacy than to read tote boards and yellow journals, for such is the nature of human beings.  We can lead them to enlightenment, we can teach them how to achieve it, but we can't make them see a light no matter how boldly we shine it in their eyes.

For most of the population, better than nine tenths, the value of reading, or of any media, is its focus on sensationalism, scandal and exaggerated reporting.  This easily digestible content mollifies the mind following a stressful, difficult day at work; it eases the loneliness of many, it stifles the sense of unimportance, it encourages a feeling of superiority over those who are clearly better off, and it feeds a kind of hope that says, if such persons of such poor judgment manage to find themselves made important enough to write such things about, perhaps one day, I too shall also be important.

Rather than disparage these qualities, as most would, I rather praise them.  This is the most benefit that the majority of us can ever gain from the media, given the sort of work we do, or our effort to pay attention in the classrooms of our youth, or our willingness to buckle down and achieve skills that were difficult to achieve.  We have all these people in the world; they are entitled to some kind of entertainment ... and it might just as well be one that feeds their emotional natures.  For those who argue that media of this sort incites violence, I'll rush to point out that 100 years ago, when the people of 1st world countries had trouble with their governments, they flowed out into the streets with guns and clubs and committed personal violence directly, face to face.  They did not write a nasty screed on their phone.

Examine the violence on the streets in the 1920s and 1930s.  Look up the Sacco and Vanzetti Executions, Tulsa, the Bonus Army March, the Coal Wars, the Los Angeles Fruit Tramp riots, the Minneapolis Teamsters strike, the Detroit Hunger march, the Harlem Riot ... eight examples of violence worse than Jan. 6 between the years 1921 and 1935.  We live in relatively peaceful times.  The largest segment of our population does not seek the same kind of intellectual or cultural experience what we're supposed to want ... and if they cannot obtain the pressure valve that the present day media provides, they will find another way to express their frustrations and emotions, most likely in a way that we won't enjoy.

I say all this to stress that where it comes to catering to our population, with regards to where the money is, the focus is always going to be on the nine tenths and some, and not the less than one tenth.  The less than one tenth is always going to be the loudest single entity ... the one that proclaims a universality of "intellectual culture," because the smaller group is the one that knows how to write and how to speak.  They possess the skill needed to make film, mix music, produce content and run the extremely technical media network, which requires the sort of skill that required buckling down.  But the smaller group is not the "richer" group.  The richest group, the less than 1%, consumes no media at all, cares nothing whatsoever for media except in how it makes money, and makes much, much more money from the nine tenths and some.  It's important to understand how, functionally, the media actually works, and where it's bread is buttered.

As an aside, it's rather freakish to watch extremely rich men in a room talk about how to harness artists to metaphorical carts to make content that the nine tenths and some will watch.  And do so without the least self-awareness.

Keeping these things in mind ... do not concern yourself much with the manufacturing of A.I. generated music or content.  A.I., as it develops is the artist chained to a cart.  And yes, however we may carp, however we may rail and spit, we are going to be thrust into a world where computer generated content is everywhere and unavoidable.  Moreover, you may rely on the one tenth and less of the population taking a stance that sincerely hates this development, that calls it the end of the world and a hundred other disparative epithets, which all amount to getting one's whip and taking after the sea.

But ... if you feel your ire rising even now, reading this, and or if you feel despair in your soul, recall what work the artist chained to the cart is meant to accomplish.  Harnessed artists produce for the nine-tenths and some ... and this work, beneficial as it is for that part of the human congregation, is of no importance whatsoever where it comes to our cultural development.  It never has been.  It is, in fact, an entirely different industry, for an entirely different purpose, than the industry I undertake at this moment in the creation of this post.  Here, I seek to enlighten, to explain that we, who produce original work, are in no way threatened by this change ... except, perhaps, that we may not be able to also produce shit for the masses in the years going forward, as A.I. will be doing that.  Our days of selling crap to the hoi polloi are, yes, coming to an end.  Unfortunately for some, but not so much for others.

From the time I became conscious of artistry and people's perspective of it, there has long been a discord between those who claimed something was "good" because of an intrinsic uniqueness, as opposed to it's mass popularity.  It has been argued to me upteenth times that some obscure bit of filmmaking that no one's ever heard of is actually quite brilliant because it highlights an extremely precise element of our culture, while it's been argued an equal number of times this other extremely popular thing must be important because it has deeply touched so many human hearts.  I think we're moving towards obliterating this argument at last.  Anything obscure, going forward, will never be "discovered," because it won't find that audience able to personally relate to it's content ... and absolutely everything that is "popular" will be A.I. generated.  By definition.

The idea that "deeply personal storytelling" has a future is on the block.  With direct access to every kind of story that every human has explained to a computer at its fingertips, A.I. is going to obliterate sentimentality to a degree that the "creation of human sentiment" by humans cannot compete.  And hooray for that.  None of the significant works that human beings have produced over the last 3 millennium are expressions of "deeply personal storytelling."  They are examples of problem solving, of holding up human trials and examining right from wrong, morality from immorality, usefulness from uselessness, wisdom from ignorance and so on.  It is only in this century, the century of film, that "deeply personal" has achieved any gratuity.  There is no future in the deeply personal, as we shall find that in mining human thought for garbage suitable for the masses, computers will be better at this schmaltz than we are.

There is an argument that floats around that, although yes, although storytelling has historically been a vehicle for exploring complex themes and universal truths, we're all done with that now because they've all been successfully dissected.  This is why we turned to deeply personal in the first place; to seek something "deeper," something more intrinsic to the human experience ... but personally, I find all this human interest-driven "high art" to be facile and shallow.  Weeping over the misery of other people is what the scandal sheets trade in.  Finding solace in the misfortune of others is what yellow journalism portrays.  We've learned in these last hundred years to create images of such uncompromising beauty through visuals that adds a gloss of human sensation to artwork that's been able to turn sensationalism into a sort of perceived reverence.  But it's empty.  There's no more there than what I can have going out on any summer's day and enjoying real nature.

Of course computers can do this every bit as well as we can.  It doesn't require ANY intellectualism or comprehension, beyond the technical skill of making images appear luscious and heart-aching on film.  And technical prowess, in case the reader fails to remember, is what computers are always better at than us.

The future of the individual artist's value is not to be found in emotional manipulation and visual appeal. This is already dying; we're watching the Oscars crash and burn year by year because they cannot let go of the lead dirigible.  There is only one path left open, where computers cannot go; and that is a return to substantive themes and questions that challenge the less than one tenth of the population intellectually and ethically.  That is, the part of the population that wants to be challenged that way.

Because in an uncomfortably brief period of time, this is going to be the only audience left to us.  Those who whine and chafe against the inevitable, marching with their whips to the sea, don't matter.  The voices on the screens decrying what's coming don't matter.  The endless personal videos mass produced that declaim the value of A.I., because today it's a joke, are speaking to an audience that will rush to A.I. produced content, because they don't have to wait months for more episodes of their favourite shows.  The future is thousands of episodes produced in a few hours, which may be binge-watched from this morning until the grave takes us.

But those will be fetid, repetitive, awful shows that only those who can't wait for the next season of Emily in Paris are anxious to see.  Not us.  We won't enjoy them.  But imagine a world where the watcher can "ship" Emily with any other character in the series — or any other series! — and the new episodes will be churned out in the time it takes to toast a bagel and pour a glass of wine.  The convenience of instant gratification will, for the nine tenths and more, vastly overshadow anything that resonates on a deeper level.

We shall have a bifurcated landscape.  On one side, the mass-produced content that provides easy entertainment for those who seek it.  On the other, creators who focus on delivering content that challenges, provokes or inspires.  The arguments will be substance over style, with style losing ... rather that the present dynamic.  And those who get sick of the style — for heaven knows, they'll get all they want, of whatever kind they want, in grand abundance — will drift into the minority, and scorn those who watch the other side ... much more than today, because the camps will be firmly drawn.  One thing is certain: those who praise style will find no market for their work, of any kind.  It makes sense that they weep so much at the insertion of A.I. into their universe, given how small their universe is.

Art exists for no other purpose than to engage and reflect upon the human condition.  All the A.I. in the world cannot stop that from happening.  It may change the rules, it may alter who gets to play, or how they get paid for it, but it can never end the process of taking the world apart and setting out the pieces for others to examine.  This goes on.  Not in the same way, but ... did you think art was immune from progress?