Over the last year, odds are good that you've seen what's been dubbed "AI slop"—unhinged, nonsensical "art" generated by artificial intelligence tools. Maybe you've seen a bizarre cinematic animated mini-movie on Facebook, surreal pseudo-photographs on Instagram, or propagandistic images on what was once known as Twitter, now X. After seeing enough of this, a realization dawned on Jacob Silverman, a journalist in New York who covers technology and politics: if it's machines making this art, and bots who are showering them with likes, where do humans fit in?

The answer is that actual living people are being squeezed out of what Silverman has, in a recent Financial Times article, deemed the "hostile internet". Elon Musk's X will sell advertisements, and authority, to absolutely anyone; AI-powered chatbots are worryingly easy to manipulate; and it has never been easier for people suffering from mental illness to find positive reinforcement of their ideas, both from distant humans and AI. None of this is to the betterment of humanity.

Silverman joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to discuss these trends of digital devolution, and how we can navigate these murky waters on a sinking ship.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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