Thank you for this thought-provoking piece – it invites disagreement in the best possible way.
Still, I sense a structural issue: observations morph into explanations, quotes masquerade as evidence. Take McLuhan’s claim that nationalism emerged with the printing press – a neat idea, but historically reductive. It sidesteps the military, bureaucratic, and linguistic machinery of absolutist states that actively forged national identity long before mass literacy.
This tendency recurs: technology’s influence is overstated, while the human impulse to imitate – to belong – is curiously underplayed. Hairstyles in the ‘50s, Bogart’s signature slouch, feuilleton phraseology – all precede TikTok. Technology amplifies imitation, but doesn’t invent it.
The “we” in the essay remains elusive. Who exactly are “we,” when I live in a small town with residents from over a hundred nations? And who, precisely, is the “dominant voice,” when our media use is increasingly fragmented?
The idea of fighting homogenisation with “quantitative metrics of novelty” sounds oddly self-defeating – a standardisation of deviation, if you will.
In the end, many of the proposed solutions reminded me of an old Volkswagen slogan: Individuality. Factory-installed. The user is cast as consumer; responsibility outsourced to tech – even for the erosion of shared culture.
That said, reading your piece – and interrogating it with the help of a language model – became a curious little process of discovery: an oddly old-fashioned, quietly contemporary dialogue. For that, my sincere thanks.
The other day I was watching Kowloon Generic Romance. Upon first glance, I thought Kudo the love interest was a total jerk. His fiancee is no more, replaced by a generic. A clone. A very identical one at that! Even the clone has feelings, hence I hated Kudo lol
But slowly as I'm moving towards episode 12, the season finale, I'm starting to agree with this man. He'd rather love a human. Somebody who ages. Somebody who's flawed. Somebody who's had a past. Whose existence is temporary
The main character clone is basically AI. Anime be calling us out with this one
Oh this is eerily familiar. What’s striking is that the very tools meant to liberate expression have ended up narrowing it. We were promised infinite choice, but got algorithmic déjà vu. The printing press forged nations; the internet forges niches … but somehow everyone’s niche now looks the same. Maybe the real question isn’t what we consume, but why we keep reaching for the same flavors of sameness, even when no one’s forcing us to.
great article. loved it. Looking at the title, I was thinking you'd talk about AI being used to remove Indian accents in call centers. That is another literal example of AI erasing accents and homogenization towards American or British english accents.
Top stuff
Thank you for this thought-provoking piece – it invites disagreement in the best possible way.
Still, I sense a structural issue: observations morph into explanations, quotes masquerade as evidence. Take McLuhan’s claim that nationalism emerged with the printing press – a neat idea, but historically reductive. It sidesteps the military, bureaucratic, and linguistic machinery of absolutist states that actively forged national identity long before mass literacy.
This tendency recurs: technology’s influence is overstated, while the human impulse to imitate – to belong – is curiously underplayed. Hairstyles in the ‘50s, Bogart’s signature slouch, feuilleton phraseology – all precede TikTok. Technology amplifies imitation, but doesn’t invent it.
The “we” in the essay remains elusive. Who exactly are “we,” when I live in a small town with residents from over a hundred nations? And who, precisely, is the “dominant voice,” when our media use is increasingly fragmented?
The idea of fighting homogenisation with “quantitative metrics of novelty” sounds oddly self-defeating – a standardisation of deviation, if you will.
In the end, many of the proposed solutions reminded me of an old Volkswagen slogan: Individuality. Factory-installed. The user is cast as consumer; responsibility outsourced to tech – even for the erosion of shared culture.
That said, reading your piece – and interrogating it with the help of a language model – became a curious little process of discovery: an oddly old-fashioned, quietly contemporary dialogue. For that, my sincere thanks.
The other day I was watching Kowloon Generic Romance. Upon first glance, I thought Kudo the love interest was a total jerk. His fiancee is no more, replaced by a generic. A clone. A very identical one at that! Even the clone has feelings, hence I hated Kudo lol
But slowly as I'm moving towards episode 12, the season finale, I'm starting to agree with this man. He'd rather love a human. Somebody who ages. Somebody who's flawed. Somebody who's had a past. Whose existence is temporary
The main character clone is basically AI. Anime be calling us out with this one
Since nobody else is commenting, I might as well make myself comfortable here
We're here for it!
Oh this is eerily familiar. What’s striking is that the very tools meant to liberate expression have ended up narrowing it. We were promised infinite choice, but got algorithmic déjà vu. The printing press forged nations; the internet forges niches … but somehow everyone’s niche now looks the same. Maybe the real question isn’t what we consume, but why we keep reaching for the same flavors of sameness, even when no one’s forcing us to.
In this context, would turning up the temperature make the outputs more mid? Aka higher likelihood of the middle of the distribution?
great article. loved it. Looking at the title, I was thinking you'd talk about AI being used to remove Indian accents in call centers. That is another literal example of AI erasing accents and homogenization towards American or British english accents.
The title sort of came from that; I did think of including it as an example, unfortunately couldn’t find the right fit.
Suddenly, I've great respect for 2012 vampire fics. They had so much more personality than chatgpt stories