Oh What the Hell, an AI Diatribe

The first of hopefully not too many of this kind of diatribes

I don’t like to be fenced in. Algorithmic clarity and general online popularity require things like finding a niche and picking a lane, but a niche is literally a recess in which something can be kept, and a lane is basically a long corridor, and while there is no actual fencing required for either of these things, principally they do what a fence would, which is keep me in place.

All of which is to say that when I tried to narrow down to a definition of what a newsletter called Ruptured Screen should cover, the best I could do to serve both myself and the algorithm was call this an examination of intersections between life and screen, as damn near everything we do and enjoy has incorporated a screen in some way. Movies and television, natch. Video games. Books, when you account for e-readers. Hell, it’s pretty much de rigueur to listen to music through a phone, a device also used to access podcasts, which means…screen.

When all else fails, you read this newsletter on a screen, so I have a justification for any topics that exceed my generous definition of whatever the hell I’m doing here.

Unfortunately, screens are also where AI lurks, at least on the consumer side.

The business case for AI seems shaky to me, but that’s not my bailiwick. It probably should be, at least somewhat, since I fell into professional content writing and copywriting almost a decade ago, and that whole area of expertise is being put through the wringer by auto-generated text.

Here’s the thing, though: Those jobs were already so desaturated by data-driven demands and iterative production methods that they started to fit like a hair shirt. I didn’t fall in love with writing because I wanted to maximize the narcotic potential of the words I put into the world, y’know?

If it weren’t for the apocalyptic resource consumption that comes with using AI, maybe I could make some semblance of peace with seeing these tools swallow jobs and lower the ceilings for independent thought and expression in the workplace. Or try to, at least.

But it’s less that I’m tolerant of the professional side of this technology and more that I find its “contributions” to creativity to be so profoundly putrid that thinking about it feels like discovering souls are real and mine will never ascend to Heaven.

I was content to ignore it in this space, as I do…well, basically everything, considering how infrequently I post. But I endured a terrible, close-up whiff of the stuff today thanks to Spotify’s new Wrapped offering, and I’ll be frank, if I didn’t regurgitate up those terrible vapors as outrage, they would have killed me.

“This isn’t really a quote, sorry. I just wanted to acknowledge your frustration at having to come this far to reach the point of this post: I understand it’s more conventional to start with the purpose of the thing and then build around it. But since we’re talking about AI art, it felt like the more appropriate structure was one resembling a descent into Hell, or a flushing toilet. So here we are.”

-This was not a quote

Am I proud to look forward to my yearly Spotify Wrapped? Not especially, but God help me I like seeing a layout of my listening habits over the last twelve months, concerns about the amount of data collection and analysis undergirding it be damned. It turns out my top album for the year was the latest Pallbearer release, Mind Burns Alive, a doom metal album that explores the subject of despair at length. Who am I to deny that it fit the vibe of my 2024?

So yes, I sat through their little slideshow, gritted my teeth a little at reading what my choices “say” about me, worried upon learning I’m in the top four percent of listeners to a doom metal album that, again, is pretty heavy on the despair. And then I got to their AI podcast offering. I couldn’t not pull up the description; it’s like seeing a strange new bug in your house, where you can’t help be a little fascinated by what the hell it has going on even as you’re repulsed by its alienness.

The premise of the AI podcast is that two “AI hosts” will gab about my year’s listening choices. The assumption being that I want anything to do with two digital phantoms cobbling together a string of output they don’t realize are words in order to flatter me about my consumption, which is an assumption so cruel and bizarre I might never recover.

Shouldn’t we all be aghast at the idea of wanting anything to do with this kind of content? Aggressive, tech-blighted infantilization dead-ending any real contemplation of my personal tastes and broader cultural trends doesn’t strike me as all that inviting.

Offensive and loathsome as it is, this flaming bag of content left on my doorstep does get at the main thrust of AI art—it will flatter you and give you a simulacrum of special attention. It’s gratifying in the cheapest and falsest sense, and it’s made possible only through the consumption of a piece of our collective soul. It’s a succubus that whittles away part of your lifeforce in exchange for an over-the-jeans handjob that’s best described as “unusually knuckle-heavy.”

So uh thanks for summoning a lifeforce-eating succubus offering a knuckle-heavy over-the-jeans handjob, Spotify. I could engage with critical writing, interviews with musicians and other experts, and conversations with friends I respect to hone my appreciation of music, but your thing is…also there. And all it took was roughly a shopping center’s worth of rainforest and my dignity to produce.