...follow real people.
Right now my social media feeds are full of superficial AI generated or supported slop. Much of it obvious chosen in hopes that it will appeal to me and almost all of it presented it multiple variations on a theme. The last couple of weeks it's been all "Gen-X people are great" all the time for me. Jeeze, people! Subtle much? Somebody is A/B testing like crazy.1
To be sure, superficially appealing slop was a staple of social media before generative AI burst forth from the lab, but this feels different to me. Previously we had artisanal slop—2each title hand-crafted (albeit often poorly) by people with idiosyncratic views and genuine pockets of expertise and ignorance. Even the ones that were just a voice track overlayed on some photos or animations had character. Now we're getting smooth, undifferentiated pap with really good production values but no soul.
And really, there are two things you can do in response if this bother you. The first is just don't do social media at all. That's probably best. But if you must, be mindful about the the content you tell the algorithm you want. For me that means content generated by a single person or a small team, with human sensibilities in the driver's seat.3 And if I don't feel confident about it I assume it's too much AI and nope out early.
1 Do you remember when congress called the tech bros to testify. The biggest travesty of the whole dog-n-pony show was that no one asked them how many tuneable dials "the algorithm" had and how often they tweaked them. It doesn't matter what company we're talking about, the answers are "a lot" and "we have whole teams of salaried professions who work on that continuously". The algorithm is not a thing apart for company policy (which was the crafted message of the testimony), rather it is an expression of the policy.
2 Do you see what I did there?
3 And of course, keeping up your intake of content that engages deeply with difficult topics (which means long-form and wrestling with uncertainty, ambiguity, and doubt), is the cognitive equivalent of making sure you get enough vitamins, minerals, and fiber in your diet.
