Atomic TV PLUS The New Hierarchy of Web Media PLUS How Smartphones are Gen Z's TV (for good and ill)

Atomic TV: How AI Will Turn the Web Into an Existentially Threatening Cable TV Package

From The Atlantic:

The trouble with the social-media comparison is that it undersells the sheer destructive potential of AI. As damaging as social media has been, it does not present an existential threat. Nor does it appear to have conferred, on any country, very meaningful strategic advantages over foreign adversaries, worries about TikTok notwithstanding. The same cannot be said of AI.

Social media is fueled by AI, but AI anxiety is very much a new phenomenon. Not science fiction dystopian nightmare scenarios, but contemporary news articles about how we all might be jobless and dead by 2028. How will this change the Internet? Yes, there were viral images of the pope Coat and Trump being arrested. But these AI images went viral because people believed them. Then a collective laugh and sigh. The pope coat is like a meme but it is also like an April Fool’s prank: the novelty wears off fast. As more skepticism of odd celebrity images grow, will the images go viral? Perhaps, but what will this say about the quality of the web, when we’re titillated by photo-realistic images of, say, Kim Kardashian biting a cow? The same thing it has always said: cyberspace is weightless.

But there is another layer. Compare a viral pope picture to, say, a viral tweet about how a certain news event makes someone feel. What is new to the AI movement is that, as we share more and more gee-whiz pics of how great the tech is, we ironically lose more and more expressive content. What was the Trump arrest deepfake pic meant to express? Do we even know the creator’s political stance? How about the pope coat? Is it pro-pope? That’s besides the point: look at what this tech can do!

Even the hackeneyed observational normie memes of the 2010s were fueled by human expressiveness. The slightest facial tics of Hollywood actors were used to capture universally identifiable emotional states.

Another possibility: content that is produced with AI as well as with major human editing and production for razzle-dazzle short films. Like this:

Good news: this means Joe Public can make videos with great special effects. But if Mr. Public can, how much easier will it be for Hollywood studios? The currency of the Internet since the ‘90s has been humor. Now, we may be deluged with shock and awe content that, like the AI arms race fueling it, will be a contest of flashier laser guns and bigger, better spaceships.

In this way, the Web will be less a place to communicate, or even learn, and more a place to veg out and watch studio (and fan-made) spectacles. The actual singularity may be in 2030. The TV singularity will probably come this fall.

Wait, what about the existential threat? That is the paradox: the existential threat caused by AI will be soothed by escapist videos (or by how-to videos on how to make this content). Like the ‘60s, when the horrific news about Vietnam and civil rights abuses were met on TV by escapist fare like Gilligan’s Island and F-Troop.

The upside, though: a generation is starting to turn off their smartphones, much like hippies left their TVs and got in the van decades ago.

How Smartphones are Gen Z's TV (for good and ill)

Speaking of Gen Z and smartphones, there is a steep generation gap in Internet culture. Gen X and Millennials spent plenty of time online before the ubiquity of smartphones. The youngest Millennial was 13 years old when smartphones were ubiquitous in 2009: the year the more affordable Droid smartphone alternative was introduced to the public. Most of Gen Z grew up with smart phones though. They may love TikTok, but they also want more “dumb” flip phones that do not drain them.

Compare this to the ‘50s, when most boomers had no conception of a life without TV. As they grew into the ‘60s. TV was not catching up fast enough to the counterculture’s growing concerns. Of course by the ‘70s, boomers returned to cushy showbiz TV jobs like prodigal children, but this time on their terms.

Hopefully Gen Z has a similar narrative arc. I would argue there is a direct correlation between the Internet sucking and the rise of smart phones. Here are a few links where I wax nostalgic about the ‘00s. By the 2010s, everything became content and no one was content and here we are now in the zombie media era. Ironic how smartphones led to brainless content.

The New Hierarchy of Web Media

From the top:

Networked Media

As we get more fascinating human/AI hybrid spectacles, expect TikTok (if it is not banned) and YouTube (which recently beat Netflix as the top streamjng platform) to remain the very center of the Web. There may be a future when we have generative AI sites generate content tailor made to our whimsiest fancies , but until then, expect to learn about these astonishing advances on networked media.

Chatbots

I honestly never felt that Google search was bad. Even when it was drowned with sponsored content, I was not flummoxed. It’s only in comparison to Chat GPT3 that I am increasingly disappointed with how unhelpful traditional search is. And even though the most viral examples of AI are currently bizarre deepfake pranks, most people will be drawn to the practical side of chatbots (recipes, work-related queries, etc.). Then the friendship and romance with these bots will come.

Subscription Media

From YouTube Lifetime Subscriptions to Chat GPT 4’s $20 a month price tag, the advertiser-run web is slowly becoming a less popular idea. Although there may be a dip in revenue for more traditional subscription-based web media like Patreon and Substack, it will still look like a Scrooge McDuck-worthy mountain of coins compared to…

Social Media

Here we are, at the very rock bottom of new media. In 2019, Instagram and Twitter were the cool kids dancing to their glittery EDM pop. Now Zuckerberg and Musk are asking for subscriptions for services that were once free for the end user. Refer back to the second paragraph on this page: we are living in a time of less expressive content. Much like the end of the Vietnam War was marked by Star Wars and Love Boat, social media will become the smoldering ruin of the culture war as hordes flock to the glowing escape pod of networked media.