AI has sucked up everything else... Now they need original ideas

Some of us knew this day would come. It's hard to explain to the technologists, but artists don't just reconfigure what's come before. They take an imaginative leap into things which have NEVER been seen before. It's not that AI can't do that... It's that AI probably can't inspire more and better art in the process. Art feeds or art, driven by ILLOGICAL connections. 

Fast Company: I write novels and build AI. The real story is more complicated than either side admits,  2025-Jun-13, by Lauren Oliver:

LLMs like ChatGPT have already consumed virtually all the data available online. To meaningfully improve, they now need a continuous influx of new content, including original art. Without it, they’re headed for a recursive loop: generating content that feeds on other AI-generated content, leading to increasingly low-quality or bizarre results.

To put it bluntly, generative AI companies need artists and the work they haven’t made yet.

Why Not Liberal Podcasters?... Possibly why not.

An excellent analysis, and interesting suggestions from a liberal who can stand to sit through the 'Bro' podcasts. 

New York Times: The Achingly Simple Lesson That Democrats Seem Determined Not to Learn, 2025-Jun-11 by Michael Hirschorn

But if the bro-casters lack a coherent policy agenda, what they do have is a well of knowledge, honed from years of touring the country from one chuckle hut to another, about how to talk to people without talking down to them. And in a world where authority of all kinds (medical, professorial, journalistic, political) is in decline, where information from top-down media is losing ground to an infinitude of bottom-up sources, this precise kind of realness matters. Authenticity, it seems, is what fills the void when authority dies.

Democrats long since forgot how to communicate that way. They operate on the assumption that ideas and governance are the primary things that move people. That’s why we get endless debates about what Democrats should stand for that are of interest to insiders and hugely off-putting to everyone else. The problem isn’t getting the ideology right; it’s using words like “ideology” to begin with. Democrats are very much not out there going: This is my truth.... 

Pete Buttigieg, the former secretary of transportation and a veteran of dozens of Fox News guest spots, spent nearly three hours on the [Andrew Schulz]  show in April. Go listen to it. It’s amazing. Once Mr. Buttigieg weathers a couple of pro forma gay jibes, he has the opportunity to speak at length, in detail, with humor and passion, about why Trumpism is bad for America. Mr. Schulz, in turn, lays out a road map for left-of-center politicians looking to reach wayward men that every Democratic consultant should pay heed to. [Emphasis added.]

No "social" post should neglect the opportunity to start a conversation

I've been guilty of dividing in my mind the promotional and conversational. Promotional posts are poorer if they don't promote a little conversation. 

One Man & His Blog: When did you last reply to someone on a social network?, 2025-Jun-9 by Adam Tinworth

When did you last use it as a place to interact and discuss, rather than as a place to promote and sell? When did you last use it as a place for personal contact and relationship, rather than as a marketing tool? Are you paying lip-service to the idea of community, or are you putting the effort into developing a real relationship with your audience?

This is also the only true antidote to the rise of the dead internet. As algorithmic services reward posts with the most “engagement”, more social networks full up with AI slop, purpose-created to be algorithmically effective. The counter to that is to reject simplistic “engagement” as a metric, and think of value:

• If I get thousands of likes on a low-effort piece of content, how does that help me to build a community around my content? It doesn't.
• Conversely, if I get a small number of people engaging around some more personal posting, isn't that helping develop an actual, emotional bond?

... Many people in journalism overweight the intellectual need for our work, and undervalue the emotional connection it can build. 

Using AI to Learn How to Communicate

This is what I want to be doing with AI. 

Dustin Stout's blog: Teaching My Kids About AI: Lessons That Changed How I Think About Technology, 2025-May-25 by Dustin Stout

The Plot Twist That Changed Everything

After months of our AI education experiment, I noticed something. My kids weren’t just better at using AI. They were better at everything requiring communication:

• School presentations became clearer
• Arguments with siblings became more logical (still loud, but logical)
• Homework instructions were followed more accurately
• Creative writing assignments flourished

That’s when it hit me: We weren’t teaching them to use AI. We were using AI to teach them to think.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most kids (and adults) are learning AI backwards. They’re learning tools and tactics. They’re memorizing prompts. They’re following templates.

But AI isn’t just another tool. It’s a thinking partner. And you can’t partner effectively with something if you can’t think clearly yourself.

The kids who will thrive in the AI age aren’t the ones who know the most tricks. They’re the ones who can:

• Think clearly about what they want
• Communicate those wants precisely
• Iterate based on feedback
• Paint vivid pictures with words
• Stay specific when others are vague

Sound familiar? These are the same skills that make humans successful in any era.

Community comes before strategy

NY Times: To Take on Trump, Think Like a Lion, 2025-05-28 by Carl Safina, an ecologist and professor at Stony Brook University.

Like those waking lions, we don’t know how the coming challenges will play out. We know that there will be failures and that success is possible. But it’s important that we now reaffirm our sense of pride, our shared purpose, our dedication to our common good. As the lions showed me, community comes before strategy.

So many people are waiting in the tall grass of decency, ready to rush out to restore the nation that we have all loved, the great America that promises liberty and justice for all.

So let us rouse and rub noses and greet and remind ourselves who we are.