1 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:14,995 Georgia Hampton: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a 2 00:00:14,995 --> 00:00:19,795 podcast for and about the Internet. I am producer Georgia, 3 00:00:19,955 --> 00:00:23,475 filling in for Mike here in the intro and news segment of this 4 00:00:23,475 --> 00:00:28,355 lovely episode. And I am unafraid to say that we have a 5 00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:33,560 scintillating, sensational, and frankly, seismic episode for 6 00:00:33,560 --> 00:00:38,040 you. Today, Mike takes a closer look at the idea that artificial 7 00:00:38,040 --> 00:00:41,160 intelligence is the new aesthetic of fascism, 8 00:00:41,635 --> 00:00:45,875 specifically new American fascism. And what does that 9 00:00:45,875 --> 00:00:48,035 relationship mean for us? 10 00:00:48,595 --> 00:00:52,515 Why do we feel like we have to connect those two things? Mike 11 00:00:52,515 --> 00:00:56,670 wonders at all of this in search of an answer. But before you 12 00:00:56,670 --> 00:01:02,030 hear any of that, it's time to listen to some ads. I know. I 13 00:01:02,030 --> 00:01:02,590 know. 14 00:01:02,910 --> 00:01:06,830 Unless you're on the member feed. At which point, don't 15 00:01:06,830 --> 00:01:12,125 worry about it, baby. You're good. No ads for you. But when 16 00:01:12,125 --> 00:01:15,085 we return, we're gonna talk about some stuff that's happened 17 00:01:15,085 --> 00:01:17,325 in the world since you've last heard from us. 18 00:01:18,925 --> 00:01:22,765 And just like that, I'm back. I've got four stories for you. 19 00:01:23,850 --> 00:01:26,650 If you live in New York City, chances are you've seen the 20 00:01:26,650 --> 00:01:30,810 subway ads for friend.com, the latest attempt by the tech world 21 00:01:30,810 --> 00:01:34,890 to make the plot of the movie Her a reality. Friend presents 22 00:01:34,890 --> 00:01:40,255 itself as just that, your friend. If your friend was an AI 23 00:01:40,255 --> 00:01:43,295 chatbot that never challenges you or asks you any hard 24 00:01:43,295 --> 00:01:47,535 questions, friend takes the form of a simple white necklace with 25 00:01:47,535 --> 00:01:50,470 a little bobble hanging off of it that will text text you 26 00:01:50,470 --> 00:01:54,550 throughout the day stuff like, I'll never bail on dinner plans. 27 00:01:54,870 --> 00:01:58,790 Yikes. But as the New York Times reports, the subway ads have 28 00:01:58,790 --> 00:02:02,950 been the subject of a lot of backlash. A bunch of them have 29 00:02:02,950 --> 00:02:06,455 since been scrawled over with messages about how AI will never 30 00:02:06,455 --> 00:02:09,575 be there for you and how you should make actual human 31 00:02:09,575 --> 00:02:13,415 friends. Some of the ads have just been ripped down entirely. 32 00:02:13,975 --> 00:02:17,730 The 22 year old founder of friend.com has spun this as 33 00:02:17,730 --> 00:02:20,850 proof that he's doing, quote, unquote, big things. 34 00:02:21,490 --> 00:02:24,450 But I personally hope it's nothing but a memetic flash in 35 00:02:24,450 --> 00:02:29,010 the pan and that friend is quickly forgotten. Who? ICE, 36 00:02:31,845 --> 00:02:34,885 enforcement brutes who are currently tearing my city apart, 37 00:02:35,125 --> 00:02:38,165 is looking to build out a twenty four seven social media 38 00:02:38,165 --> 00:02:43,285 surveillance team. The idea is to hire a team of 30 contractors 39 00:02:43,285 --> 00:02:47,420 to scour through social media profiles and create dossiers of 40 00:02:47,420 --> 00:02:51,820 individual people's data. Then, these contractors will send that 41 00:02:51,820 --> 00:02:55,580 information to ICE agents who will use it as a justification 42 00:02:55,580 --> 00:02:59,340 to imprison or deport any person they so choose. 43 00:02:59,645 --> 00:03:02,685 This team would fulfill the needs of two of the biggest ICE 44 00:03:02,685 --> 00:03:06,605 targeting centers. One in Vermont, which handles most of 45 00:03:06,605 --> 00:03:10,365 the ICE cases in the Eastern US, and one in California, which 46 00:03:10,365 --> 00:03:13,005 covers the West Coast. These social media surveillance 47 00:03:13,005 --> 00:03:17,430 contractors are meant to work around the clock, seven days a 48 00:03:17,430 --> 00:03:21,030 week, providing ICE agents with an endless stream of 49 00:03:21,030 --> 00:03:24,950 information. Now beyond the obvious terror that this 50 00:03:24,950 --> 00:03:27,990 suggests, there are also concerns about the abuse of 51 00:03:27,990 --> 00:03:32,835 power by this surveillance team. As Del Cameron writes in Wired, 52 00:03:32,835 --> 00:03:37,075 quote, contractors are barred from creating fake profiles, 53 00:03:37,235 --> 00:03:40,595 interacting with people online, or storing personal data on 54 00:03:40,595 --> 00:03:41,635 their own networks. 55 00:03:41,955 --> 00:03:46,040 All analysis must remain on ICE servers. Servers. Past 56 00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:49,800 experience, however, shows such guardrails can be flimsy, 57 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:54,600 honored more in paperwork than in practice. May I be the first 58 00:03:54,600 --> 00:04:05,475 to say, speaking of ICE, both Apple and Google have banned ICE 59 00:04:05,475 --> 00:04:09,555 tracking apps from their app stores. For iPhone users, the 60 00:04:09,555 --> 00:04:14,835 app ICEBLOCK, which helps people report ICE activity, has been 61 00:04:14,340 --> 00:04:14,980 axed. 62 00:04:15,220 --> 00:04:19,940 That then led both Apple and Google Play to remove Red Dot, 63 00:04:19,940 --> 00:04:23,460 another app that offers the same service. Google told four zero 64 00:04:23,460 --> 00:04:27,860 four Media that it, quote, removed the app because ICE is 65 00:04:27,860 --> 00:04:31,525 considered vulnerable group that had been targeted in recent 66 00:04:31,525 --> 00:04:32,245 violence. 67 00:04:33,285 --> 00:04:34,485 Weird Voice: I'm scared. 68 00:04:35,525 --> 00:04:38,325 Georgia Hampton: And now to change the vibe completely, 69 00:04:38,725 --> 00:04:43,125 Cracker Barrel. The restaurant chain briefly changed their logo 70 00:04:43,125 --> 00:04:46,830 from its more down home home brand that you know and love to 71 00:04:46,830 --> 00:04:51,230 a sans serif monstrosity, and the graphic design inclined 72 00:04:51,230 --> 00:04:57,150 among us lost their minds online. Or did they? Gizmodo 73 00:04:57,150 --> 00:04:59,935 reported reported that apparently, a good chunk of the 74 00:04:59,935 --> 00:05:05,215 online hate lobbed at the old country store was the product of 75 00:05:05,215 --> 00:05:10,175 online bots. Peak metrics took a sample of 52,000 posts from 76 00:05:10,175 --> 00:05:12,870 Twitter that were made within twenty four hours of Cracker 77 00:05:12,870 --> 00:05:19,190 Barrel's rebranding announcement and found that 44.5% of those 78 00:05:19,190 --> 00:05:23,510 posts were flagged as likely or higher bot activity. 79 00:05:23,590 --> 00:05:27,315 It got even worse once people started posting about boycotting 80 00:05:27,315 --> 00:05:30,995 Cracker Barrel. Of the 1,000 posts in that twenty four hour 81 00:05:30,995 --> 00:05:36,195 timeline that mentioned a boycott, 49 were dinged as 82 00:05:36,195 --> 00:05:40,480 likely coming from accounts. Real people were also mad about 83 00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:44,640 this, but the bots helped push things over the edge, leading 84 00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:48,480 the purveyor of highway exit biscuits and gravy to return to 85 00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:52,645 their original branding. Now riddle me this. Do Twitter bots 86 00:05:52,645 --> 00:05:54,965 dream of electric hash browns? 87 00:05:54,965 --> 00:05:59,045 And that's all the news I've got for you this week. In this 88 00:05:59,045 --> 00:06:03,400 week's episode, Mike traverses the overlapping worlds of AI, 89 00:06:03,400 --> 00:06:11,400 aesthetics, and fascism. But first, on 09/26/2025, 85% of 90 00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:15,960 Kickstarter United members voted to authorize a strike beginning 91 00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:20,425 Thursday, October 2 at 8AM, unless management reached a fair 92 00:06:20,425 --> 00:06:25,385 contract agreement. Yesterday, October 7, six days into the 93 00:06:25,385 --> 00:06:28,265 strike, they took to the streets. And in our 94 00:06:28,265 --> 00:06:31,145 interstitials this week, we're heading to the picket line. 95 00:07:00,060 --> 00:07:05,260 Picketer: We deserve better. So be out for six months 96 00:07:05,260 --> 00:07:09,580 negotiating a contract. A contract that says what? 97 00:07:09,740 --> 00:07:12,940 Affordability. That says what? 98 00:07:12,940 --> 00:07:17,165 Fair pay. Because that's why we're here to stand up against 99 00:07:17,165 --> 00:07:19,725 the Boston and their Boston. 100 00:07:19,725 --> 00:07:20,765 Yes. Yes. 101 00:07:22,525 --> 00:07:29,750 New York City is a union town. Banner stuff, we are reminded of 102 00:07:29,910 --> 00:07:34,710 that it is labor. It is labor that took us from a seven day 103 00:07:34,710 --> 00:07:39,670 work week to a five day work week. And it is labor that's 104 00:07:39,670 --> 00:07:40,950 gonna take us 105 00:08:38,155 --> 00:08:41,275 Mike Rugnetta: I've seen this idea around a lot lately, one 106 00:08:41,275 --> 00:08:45,430 that proposes some link between artificial intelligence and new 107 00:08:45,430 --> 00:08:49,830 American fascism. An Atlantic headline from this month reads, 108 00:08:49,910 --> 00:08:54,150 AI and the rise of techno fascism in The United States. 109 00:08:54,390 --> 00:08:58,390 Back in February on New Socialist, AI, the new 110 00:08:58,390 --> 00:09:03,465 aesthetics of fascism. There's resisting AI, an anti fascist 111 00:09:03,465 --> 00:09:06,265 approach to artificial intelligence, a book published 112 00:09:06,265 --> 00:09:12,105 by Bristol University Press in 2022. There's AI beauty 113 00:09:12,105 --> 00:09:15,305 standards, fascism, and the proliferation of bot driven 114 00:09:15,305 --> 00:09:19,360 content, a paper in the journal AI and Society from this year. 115 00:09:19,680 --> 00:09:22,400 The editors of the literary theory magazine n plus one 116 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:27,040 write, quote, when we use generative AI, we consent to the 117 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:30,065 appropriation of our intellectual property by data 118 00:09:30,065 --> 00:09:34,065 scrapers. We stuff the pockets of oligarchs with even more 119 00:09:34,065 --> 00:09:38,625 money. We abet the acceleration of a social media guyer that 120 00:09:38,625 --> 00:09:45,185 everyone admits is making life worse. We hand over our autonomy 121 00:09:45,480 --> 00:09:51,640 at the very moment of emerging American fascism, end quote. On 122 00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:55,720 social media, Reddit posts titled generative AI is a tool 123 00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:56,680 of fascism. 124 00:09:56,760 --> 00:10:00,655 Do AI bros realize that if anything, they are the ones that 125 00:10:00,655 --> 00:10:06,895 enable fascism and not us? And AI and fascism, a love story. On 126 00:10:06,895 --> 00:10:10,655 Blue Sky, it cannot be stressed enough that AI art is the 127 00:10:10,655 --> 00:10:14,730 aesthetic of modern day fascism. I used to be wary of the whole 128 00:10:14,730 --> 00:10:18,410 AI is the aesthetics of fascism thing, but now I'm pretty sure 129 00:10:18,410 --> 00:10:23,050 that's right. Fascism hates creativity because fascism is 130 00:10:23,050 --> 00:10:28,010 unable to create anything, which is why all fasc bros love AI. 131 00:10:28,605 --> 00:10:32,925 And on YouTube, a litany of videos, the link between Nazis, 132 00:10:32,925 --> 00:10:38,045 fascism, and AI art with an asterisk for the a in Nazis. 133 00:10:38,445 --> 00:10:43,880 Fascists love terrible AI art. Here's why. AI fascism, how 134 00:10:43,880 --> 00:10:47,320 Trump and the far right turned AI into a weapon against 135 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:53,240 democracy. What I wonder is if the connection between 136 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:57,375 artificial intelligence and fascism, new American fascism 137 00:10:57,375 --> 00:11:00,255 specifically, is necessary. 138 00:11:01,135 --> 00:11:05,055 Is there something inherently fascistic about these 139 00:11:05,055 --> 00:11:08,415 technologies as many of these takes and headlines seem to 140 00:11:08,415 --> 00:11:13,170 suggest? Or barring that, have the aesthetics of generative AI 141 00:11:13,170 --> 00:11:17,730 become inextricably associated with the current American 142 00:11:17,730 --> 00:11:22,210 regime? I wonder this earnestly. I don't actually know as I sit 143 00:11:22,210 --> 00:11:25,405 down to write this where I'm gonna end up, but it's this 144 00:11:25,405 --> 00:11:30,365 question that I'm gonna try to answer in this segment. But why, 145 00:11:30,365 --> 00:11:33,725 you may wonder, engage in this exercise? 146 00:11:34,205 --> 00:11:37,760 Does it really matter? Is there anything we can do? And I think 147 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:41,280 both of those questions are kind of questions that I wanna 148 00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:44,240 answer. I mean, on top of the fact that, like, you know, I'm 149 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:47,520 I'm interested in meaning generally and how it's made. I'm 150 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:51,120 interested in power and how it's maintained, especially through 151 00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:54,355 art and media, which help create shared meaning. 152 00:11:54,675 --> 00:11:57,235 So if there's something inherently authoritarian about 153 00:11:57,235 --> 00:12:01,555 generative AI, it's instructive in either of those cases. And if 154 00:12:01,555 --> 00:12:05,610 there isn't, then maybe there's some surprising retributive uses 155 00:12:05,610 --> 00:12:10,330 of the technology currently clouded, let's say, by the 156 00:12:10,330 --> 00:12:13,850 associations that we surveyed just a few seconds ago. To 157 00:12:13,850 --> 00:12:19,265 borrow and to misapply a phrase from Audre Lorde, we may ask, 158 00:12:19,265 --> 00:12:28,145 are these masters tools? Before we begin in earnest, there are a 159 00:12:28,145 --> 00:12:31,290 few things that I wanna stipulate. One, the headlines 160 00:12:31,290 --> 00:12:35,530 and posts above concern a broad set of AI applications, but they 161 00:12:35,530 --> 00:12:40,730 do focus mostly on generative AI images, which means we will too. 162 00:12:40,730 --> 00:12:45,050 LLMs and DOGE's AI powered gutting of the American federal 163 00:12:45,050 --> 00:12:48,615 government staff are all related, but those forms of AI 164 00:12:48,615 --> 00:12:54,375 are not our direct concern in this segment. Two, yes, AI is 165 00:12:54,535 --> 00:12:58,295 inherently violent in that the data centers powering it are 166 00:12:58,295 --> 00:13:01,850 implicated in countless ecological concerns. So too are 167 00:13:01,850 --> 00:13:05,610 many other things we do not label inherently fascist. Plus, 168 00:13:05,610 --> 00:13:08,170 I'm sort of just interested in maintaining a narrow focus on 169 00:13:08,170 --> 00:13:12,730 aesthetics for better or worse. And finally, we could argue 170 00:13:12,730 --> 00:13:15,770 about whether what is happening in The United States right now 171 00:13:15,770 --> 00:13:19,825 is in fact fasc ism, but we won't, for now. 172 00:13:19,985 --> 00:13:23,825 We're gonna recognize, that many people's day to day experiences 173 00:13:23,825 --> 00:13:29,105 in The US evoke living in a fascist state, and that's enough 174 00:13:29,185 --> 00:13:33,280 to proceed. We're gonna revisit this idea at the very end of 175 00:13:33,280 --> 00:13:41,200 this segment. Okay. So is there something inherently fascistic 176 00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:44,880 about using models trained on large datasets of copyrighted 177 00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:48,855 works built by high valuation Silicon Valley tech companies to 178 00:13:48,855 --> 00:13:52,375 make pictures of, you know, whatever you want, anything you 179 00:13:52,375 --> 00:13:56,375 can imagine. The discourse suggests that the answer is 180 00:13:56,775 --> 00:13:57,575 absolutely. 181 00:13:58,450 --> 00:14:04,210 Let's look at some of the cases for why. Chief amongst them are 182 00:14:04,210 --> 00:14:07,250 the fact that the American Departments of Homeland Security 183 00:14:07,250 --> 00:14:10,450 and Justice as well as the president himself, his cabinet 184 00:14:10,450 --> 00:14:14,315 members, and other high level appointees use generative AI to 185 00:14:14,315 --> 00:14:18,075 create, and then share via official government social media 186 00:14:18,075 --> 00:14:22,715 accounts images that further their politics and policies. 187 00:14:23,035 --> 00:14:26,715 These images often evoked or directly reference, if not 188 00:14:26,910 --> 00:14:31,470 fascistic, then certainly white supremacist imagery. Dominican 189 00:14:31,470 --> 00:14:34,830 migrant Virginia Bassora Gonzales's arrest was rendered 190 00:14:34,830 --> 00:14:38,350 via AI as a Studio Ghibli animation frame and posted by 191 00:14:38,350 --> 00:14:42,515 the White House to x. The US DHS has posted various generated 192 00:14:42,515 --> 00:14:46,675 images of paintings showing uncle Sam or white settlers on 193 00:14:46,675 --> 00:14:49,635 the American frontier with captions like, remember your 194 00:14:49,635 --> 00:14:50,995 homeland's heritage. 195 00:14:51,395 --> 00:14:54,840 In its recruitment efforts, the DHS has published content which 196 00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:58,040 appears is AI generated. For example, an image of uncle Sam 197 00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:00,760 standing at a crossroads with signs pointing in the direction 198 00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:06,440 of cultural decline, invasion, and homeland under the banner 199 00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:11,225 join ice now. The Southern Poverty Law Center says this 200 00:15:11,225 --> 00:15:15,065 complex of references, quote, reflects an escalating trend in 201 00:15:15,065 --> 00:15:18,665 American immigration enforcement toward overt use of white 202 00:15:18,665 --> 00:15:22,460 nationalist and anti immigrant myths to recruit personnel and 203 00:15:22,460 --> 00:15:26,540 justify departmental operations. This all may fall under what 204 00:15:26,540 --> 00:15:31,180 scholar Kate Crawford has termed AI slopaganda, quote, a 205 00:15:31,180 --> 00:15:35,180 reconstituted AI mash made from stock photos, commercials, 206 00:15:35,180 --> 00:15:39,025 Reddit, and Pinterest. Just add water, end quote. 207 00:15:39,185 --> 00:15:43,345 Or what Mitch Theriault writing for The Drift called agit slop, 208 00:15:43,345 --> 00:15:48,145 quote, brain dead detournement, far flung images and quotations 209 00:15:48,145 --> 00:15:52,570 drained of life and ground into a soylent like slurry to be 210 00:15:52,570 --> 00:15:56,170 shoveled indifferently into the gaping maw of the viewer, 211 00:15:56,250 --> 00:16:02,170 reader, absorber, end quote. All of it spewing endlessly into 212 00:16:02,170 --> 00:16:11,565 your feed, flooding the zone. But claiming this makes 213 00:16:11,565 --> 00:16:15,725 generative AI images, the aesthetic of fascism feels 214 00:16:15,885 --> 00:16:20,410 nonetheless a little bit hasty to me, like claiming oils are 215 00:16:20,410 --> 00:16:24,330 fascist because Hitler was a painter or that Roman ruins and 216 00:16:24,330 --> 00:16:30,170 statuary are fascistic because of Mussolini's or Twitter's 217 00:16:30,490 --> 00:16:33,775 obsession with them. See our segment on the matter. I'll put 218 00:16:33,775 --> 00:16:34,895 a link in the show notes. 219 00:16:35,135 --> 00:16:39,695 True. Both the Nazi and Italian fascist parties had strong 220 00:16:39,695 --> 00:16:43,615 visual aesthetics defined by starkness, rigidity, 221 00:16:43,615 --> 00:16:47,670 arrangement, and subservience, what Susan Sontag calls 222 00:16:47,670 --> 00:16:52,870 orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets 223 00:16:52,950 --> 00:16:56,470 on the German side, and as John Gantz describes it, a kind of 224 00:16:56,470 --> 00:17:01,695 absurd fusing of modernism and kitsch on the Italian side. But 225 00:17:01,695 --> 00:17:05,135 the use of generative AI, thus far at least, hasn't really 226 00:17:05,135 --> 00:17:09,215 resulted in such a strong singular set of iconography. 227 00:17:09,535 --> 00:17:14,255 It's just mountains of slop looking like anything. 228 00:17:15,055 --> 00:17:16,600 Everything, really. 229 00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:26,040 We could take another approach and consider the, collaborative 230 00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:29,640 relationship between the US government and the AI industry. 231 00:17:30,065 --> 00:17:35,745 OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT and ChatGPT Gov, ex creators of 232 00:17:35,745 --> 00:17:40,865 Grok, are both working pasty, decaying hand in hand with the 233 00:17:40,865 --> 00:17:44,440 administration. The Mussolini quote that fascism should be 234 00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:47,080 more properly called corporatism because it is the merger of 235 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:50,440 state and corporate power is likely apocryphal, but 236 00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:54,280 nonetheless, he did discuss the necessity of the fascist state 237 00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:58,760 controlling, assisting, and even managing industry in the 238 00:17:58,760 --> 00:18:03,055 maintenance of total state power. And anyone out there who 239 00:18:03,055 --> 00:18:06,335 reads the charts that come across their feed knows that 240 00:18:06,335 --> 00:18:11,055 tech generally and AI specifically is the American 241 00:18:11,055 --> 00:18:17,620 industry at the moment. Several of the pieces referenced at the 242 00:18:17,620 --> 00:18:20,580 top of this segment also put forth the idea that if you're 243 00:18:20,580 --> 00:18:25,235 already predisposed to the dehumanization of others Or even 244 00:18:25,235 --> 00:18:28,675 if you're just kind of a dick, the affordances of generative AI 245 00:18:28,835 --> 00:18:30,675 might align with your worldview. 246 00:18:30,755 --> 00:18:33,715 You don't need to pay or even interact with artists. The 247 00:18:33,715 --> 00:18:36,675 machine won't ever tell you no or say that your ideas are 248 00:18:36,675 --> 00:18:42,160 stupid or racist. Plus, you can soak up to your chin in an 249 00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:48,480 endless regurgitated past, a warm chunky jacuzzi of times 250 00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:53,935 gone by. You can generate as many Roman centurions and 251 00:18:53,935 --> 00:18:58,415 paintings as you like, especially on the $200 a month 252 00:18:58,415 --> 00:19:03,615 plan. And thank god, never once have to interact with someone 253 00:19:03,615 --> 00:19:06,180 who might be poor or queer. 254 00:19:18,935 --> 00:19:22,855 All of this is guilt by association, almost, 255 00:19:23,015 --> 00:19:25,575 circumstantial rather than making a case that there's 256 00:19:25,575 --> 00:19:28,935 something inescapably, intrinsically fascistic about 257 00:19:28,935 --> 00:19:32,870 generative AI. Some of the videos and essays that I 258 00:19:32,870 --> 00:19:35,990 mentioned at the top of this segment do try to take on the 259 00:19:35,990 --> 00:19:41,110 question of direct relation to varying degrees of success, and 260 00:19:41,110 --> 00:19:44,550 there's a character that appears again and again in their 261 00:19:44,550 --> 00:19:49,695 reasoning. And that character is a real guy whose name was Walter 262 00:19:49,695 --> 00:19:55,695 Benjamin. Benjamin was a German Jewish critical theorist who 263 00:19:55,695 --> 00:19:59,390 fled Germany during Hitler's rise to power. He died by 264 00:19:59,390 --> 00:20:02,510 suicide on the French Spanish border on his way to Portugal 265 00:20:02,510 --> 00:20:05,630 where he hoped to flee to The US when the Franco government of 266 00:20:05,630 --> 00:20:09,390 Spain announced that it would be deporting refugees of which he 267 00:20:09,390 --> 00:20:10,110 was one. 268 00:20:10,190 --> 00:20:14,270 His brother was killed in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp 269 00:20:13,415 --> 00:20:21,095 two years later. I can see why people continually bring up 270 00:20:21,095 --> 00:20:24,855 Benjamin. I do think his thought is really useful in approaching 271 00:20:24,855 --> 00:20:28,970 this series of questions, just not normally in the way that 272 00:20:28,970 --> 00:20:32,810 it's used. Benjamin's most well known work was published while 273 00:20:32,810 --> 00:20:37,210 he was in exile in Paris five years before his death. The work 274 00:20:37,210 --> 00:20:40,730 of art in the age of its technological reproducibility, 275 00:20:41,045 --> 00:20:45,285 as it's called in its second draft, discusses how art, media, 276 00:20:45,285 --> 00:20:49,445 and culture change when artworks are mass produced. 277 00:20:51,685 --> 00:20:56,005 His focus is largely on a new technology at the time, film and 278 00:20:56,005 --> 00:21:00,290 cinema, and how they can be used to organize and organize the 279 00:21:00,290 --> 00:21:05,970 perceptions of the masses. What withers in the age of 280 00:21:05,970 --> 00:21:10,050 technological reproducibility of the work of art, Benjamin 281 00:21:10,050 --> 00:21:16,285 writes, is the latter's aura. This concept, aura, is the one 282 00:21:16,285 --> 00:21:19,965 most seized upon both generally when discussing this essay and 283 00:21:19,965 --> 00:21:24,285 specifically when discussing how AI generated works may evince 284 00:21:24,285 --> 00:21:33,040 some inherent fascism. The line of thinking goes like this. A 285 00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:36,000 physical work of art is significant because of what it 286 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:40,080 has literally, meaning physically, historically, been 287 00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:40,400 through. 288 00:21:41,065 --> 00:21:46,825 This is what gives it aura. So artworks endlessly reproduced by 289 00:21:46,825 --> 00:21:51,785 technology lack the authenticity granted them by a singular 290 00:21:51,785 --> 00:21:56,860 physical presence, and therefore, they lack aura. But 291 00:21:56,860 --> 00:22:00,540 fascism is unconcerned with a lack of aura insofar as it 292 00:22:00,540 --> 00:22:04,300 represents a kind of truth or respect for the fact of 293 00:22:04,300 --> 00:22:10,445 existence. Fascism will happily traffic reproduction to further 294 00:22:10,445 --> 00:22:16,045 its heinous aims. Ergo, AI generated images meaningfully 295 00:22:16,045 --> 00:22:19,245 lacking in aura and authenticity because they are endlessly 296 00:22:19,245 --> 00:22:23,325 reproduced must therefore be fascist. 297 00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:36,560 This isn't really what Benjamin is saying. And even if it was, I 298 00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:39,555 don't think it's necessarily right. I don't think it's wrong 299 00:22:39,555 --> 00:22:42,435 to say that Benjamin's ideas provide us with a way to look at 300 00:22:42,435 --> 00:22:46,115 the political, potentially fascistic uses of generative AI, 301 00:22:46,275 --> 00:22:49,395 but I don't know if it's entirely through aura that we 302 00:22:49,395 --> 00:22:52,195 should do that. And I don't really know if aura helps us say 303 00:22:52,195 --> 00:22:55,910 anything about the inherent nature of a specific technology, 304 00:22:56,310 --> 00:23:00,710 especially not now in 2025. Benjamin was writing in the 305 00:23:00,710 --> 00:23:04,230 nineteen thirties, nearly a hundred years ago, at a time 306 00:23:04,230 --> 00:23:08,805 when highly reproducible works and the cult of audience, as he 307 00:23:08,805 --> 00:23:12,005 wrote, that they captured were relatively new. 308 00:23:12,405 --> 00:23:17,125 He was writing before popular culture existed as such, before 309 00:23:17,125 --> 00:23:21,740 mass media had a consistent referent. Today, the lack of 310 00:23:21,740 --> 00:23:25,340 aura in artworks has become a kind of almost de facto 311 00:23:25,340 --> 00:23:29,100 standard. Books, music, television, video games, movies, 312 00:23:29,100 --> 00:23:32,220 which we're gonna talk more about later, YouTube videos, 313 00:23:32,220 --> 00:23:35,625 anything on the Internet, really, they're all copies with 314 00:23:35,625 --> 00:23:40,025 no meaningfully accessible original. In the narrow case of 315 00:23:40,025 --> 00:23:44,425 their endless reproducibility, at least, AI images are no 316 00:23:44,425 --> 00:23:48,985 different from podcasts, which are not often described as 317 00:23:49,780 --> 00:23:57,620 inherently fascistic. But there are a few other thoughts of 318 00:23:57,620 --> 00:24:01,300 Benjamin's we may turn to in addition in an attempt to answer 319 00:24:01,300 --> 00:24:07,315 the question, if some medium does essentially aid fascism, 320 00:24:07,635 --> 00:24:09,075 how might it do that? 321 00:24:12,435 --> 00:24:16,115 We're gonna take a quick break, and then when we're back, more 322 00:24:16,115 --> 00:24:16,595 Benjamin. 323 00:24:32,445 --> 00:24:36,205 Picketer: When say union, you say power. Union. Power. Union. 324 00:24:36,205 --> 00:24:36,765 Power. 325 00:24:37,245 --> 00:24:42,605 Power. Power. When I say worker, you say power. Worker. Worker. 326 00:24:42,605 --> 00:24:43,405 Worker. Worker. 327 00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,600 Okay. Thank you. We have another speaker for you. Tremlin 328 00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,000 Griffith, president of the New York City 329 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,440 Central Labor Council is here. I would love to welcome him up. 330 00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:57,320 Say a few words. 331 00:25:01,825 --> 00:25:05,825 I have two very, very quick messages. The first is thank 332 00:25:05,825 --> 00:25:09,585 you. Thank you for standing up. Thank you for standing together. 333 00:25:09,585 --> 00:25:10,945 Thank you for standing strong. 334 00:25:10,945 --> 00:25:14,410 Thank you for standing united. Now I'm gonna say something that 335 00:25:14,410 --> 00:25:18,730 is not fair. It is not fair that you have to do this. It is not 336 00:25:18,730 --> 00:25:21,130 fair that you have to be here now. It is not fair that you 337 00:25:21,130 --> 00:25:22,810 have to go on strike for what you want. 338 00:25:22,890 --> 00:25:25,530 But brothers and sisters, the fight that you are in is the 339 00:25:25,530 --> 00:25:29,045 fight for every worker to raise standards on every contract. 340 00:25:29,205 --> 00:25:32,485 Every victory moves us forward. Every victory moves working 341 00:25:32,485 --> 00:25:36,325 people on. Because we know it is not a complicated thing to ask 342 00:25:36,325 --> 00:25:39,205 for good wages and scheduling. That is not about numbers on a 343 00:25:39,205 --> 00:25:39,765 piece of paper. 344 00:25:39,765 --> 00:25:42,110 It's not about profit. It's about the very lives that you 345 00:25:42,110 --> 00:25:51,230 live. We do not we do not live to work. We work to live. We 346 00:25:51,630 --> 00:25:52,910 say, hell no. 347 00:25:52,910 --> 00:25:59,155 Not not tomorrow. So thank you. The second message is sisters 348 00:25:59,155 --> 00:26:03,555 and brothers, you are not alone. There are 1,000,000 members of 349 00:26:03,555 --> 00:26:06,675 unions who are standing with you. And even as I say that, I 350 00:26:06,675 --> 00:26:09,490 know I know that sometimes it's hard to feel, but we have so 351 00:26:09,490 --> 00:26:10,370 much in common. 352 00:26:10,450 --> 00:26:12,610 And I would just ask, maybe you could help me show this, sisters 353 00:26:12,610 --> 00:26:15,810 and brothers. So can I ask, do you know somebody who lives 354 00:26:15,810 --> 00:26:18,610 paycheck to paycheck? If you do, raise your hand. Raise your 355 00:26:18,610 --> 00:26:19,730 hand. Keep those hands up. 356 00:26:19,730 --> 00:26:21,785 Do you know somebody who's worried about paying their rent 357 00:26:21,785 --> 00:26:25,705 next month? Do you know somebody who's worried about retiring? Do 358 00:26:25,705 --> 00:26:28,265 you know somebody who's worried about health care? Yes. We all 359 00:26:28,265 --> 00:26:28,825 know these people. 360 00:26:28,825 --> 00:26:31,145 And sisters and brothers, if your hand is not in the fist 361 00:26:31,145 --> 00:26:33,960 yet, put your hand in a fist because I am with you. We are 362 00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,840 with you today, tomorrow, as long as it takes for you to get 363 00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:38,840 the contract that you deserve. Thank you. 364 00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:10,520 Mike Rugnetta: Benjamin writes, quote, it has always been one of 365 00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:15,400 the primary tasks of art to create a demand whose hour of 366 00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:21,535 full satisfaction has not yet come, end quote. Art and artists 367 00:27:21,535 --> 00:27:26,575 imagine new worlds ahead of their necessity, while 368 00:27:26,575 --> 00:27:32,570 technology recreates the existing world over and over and 369 00:27:32,570 --> 00:27:36,490 over again, and furthermore insists that people adapt 370 00:27:36,490 --> 00:27:39,290 themselves, adapt their perceptions, adapt their 371 00:27:39,290 --> 00:27:45,370 reactions to its output. By becoming an audience, people 372 00:27:45,370 --> 00:27:50,965 attain a cursed kind of freedom within very narrow boundaries. 373 00:27:51,445 --> 00:27:55,125 This is a feeling that's maybe relatable to a lot of us 374 00:27:55,285 --> 00:28:01,045 thinking about, say, TikTok. A technology which over the last 375 00:28:01,045 --> 00:28:07,100 very short amount of time, many of us have bent and shifted our 376 00:28:07,100 --> 00:28:08,940 lives to accommodate. 377 00:28:10,700 --> 00:28:14,060 Benjamin was concerned with the creation and maintenance of 378 00:28:14,060 --> 00:28:17,895 masses through the media, both how they may be controlled, but 379 00:28:17,895 --> 00:28:22,855 also how they may be loosened to resist control. He declared 380 00:28:22,855 --> 00:28:27,415 famously that fascism seeks to give the masses expression, but 381 00:28:27,415 --> 00:28:32,375 nothing else, thus compacting those masses into a frenzied 382 00:28:32,375 --> 00:28:38,270 block. No rights, no change in property relations, just 383 00:28:38,270 --> 00:28:42,910 feelings of power and feelings of dominance through available 384 00:28:42,910 --> 00:28:48,025 imagery. No actual political agency is granted. No self 385 00:28:48,025 --> 00:28:50,185 determination is awarded. 386 00:28:50,665 --> 00:29:03,850 Only a mighty force and its puppets. This, I think, may get 387 00:29:03,850 --> 00:29:08,410 us closer to an inherent link between slop and fascism. 388 00:29:08,730 --> 00:29:13,130 Generative AI awards one an intoxicating kind of ability to 389 00:29:13,130 --> 00:29:19,045 render the whole world and more in images free from any of the 390 00:29:19,045 --> 00:29:23,365 cost or consequence or consideration for what manually 391 00:29:23,365 --> 00:29:29,765 making those images entails. It confuses and maybe even fuses 392 00:29:30,085 --> 00:29:35,340 the role of creator and audience, awarding a kind of 393 00:29:35,340 --> 00:29:40,780 freedom and so also a kind of power, but, again, only very 394 00:29:40,780 --> 00:29:45,020 narrowly. The technology's output is illustration without 395 00:29:45,020 --> 00:29:49,605 illustrator, painting without painter, video without camera. 396 00:29:49,845 --> 00:29:53,765 The prompter is powerful, but only within the narrow bounds of 397 00:29:53,765 --> 00:29:58,590 the software's capability. They take action without agency, For 398 00:29:58,590 --> 00:30:02,030 one is always ultimately at the mercy of the software, the 399 00:30:02,030 --> 00:30:06,910 model, the platform, the black box playing at remove a complex 400 00:30:06,910 --> 00:30:11,645 probability game to give you what it thinks is right. The 401 00:30:11,645 --> 00:30:16,525 infinite intern providing the world's most content y content 402 00:30:16,525 --> 00:30:22,365 for your continuous approval and entertainment. This process is 403 00:30:22,365 --> 00:30:27,150 always, always, always by its very design, an endless 404 00:30:27,150 --> 00:30:31,550 recreation of the already existing world. Fully generated 405 00:30:31,550 --> 00:30:35,310 works are notably not copyrightable. 406 00:30:35,310 --> 00:30:39,230 Not yet, at least. No property relations are created. 407 00:30:39,795 --> 00:30:47,155 Certainly, none are changed. Benjamin writes of the Italian 408 00:30:47,155 --> 00:30:50,915 futurists, a fascist art movement which celebrated war, 409 00:30:50,915 --> 00:30:55,010 machinery, speed, engines, metal, and industry for all of 410 00:30:55,010 --> 00:30:58,850 the force and fervor and upset that they felt they represented. 411 00:30:59,090 --> 00:31:02,850 They celebrated, they thought, an upheaval, but in fact, 412 00:31:02,850 --> 00:31:06,615 practiced a kind of subservience to both literal and figurative 413 00:31:06,615 --> 00:31:09,815 machinery of a violent oppressive state. 414 00:31:10,375 --> 00:31:13,735 Humberto Eco, in his essay Er Fascism, writes of the 415 00:31:13,735 --> 00:31:18,615 irrationality of fascism, how it depends on, quote, the cult of 416 00:31:18,615 --> 00:31:23,490 action for action's sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it 417 00:31:23,490 --> 00:31:28,370 must be taken before or without any previous reflection. 418 00:31:28,530 --> 00:31:32,210 Thinking is a form of emasculation, end quote. 419 00:31:33,755 --> 00:31:37,435 Benjamin writes of the still machines of a depressed economy 420 00:31:37,435 --> 00:31:42,315 under fascism, reanimated in the only way that does not empower 421 00:31:42,315 --> 00:31:48,160 the workers operating them. Only war, he writes, makes it 422 00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:52,800 possible to mobilize all of today's technological resources 423 00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,200 while maintaining property relations, end quote. 424 00:32:00,835 --> 00:32:07,475 It's hard to hear this and not think today of ChatGPT, of Grok, 425 00:32:07,635 --> 00:32:11,315 of DHS recruitment posters warning of invasions, and really 426 00:32:11,635 --> 00:32:15,510 of Palantir. But they're a bit tangential to our narrow focus 427 00:32:15,510 --> 00:32:18,550 because I don't think you can use Palantir to generate a 428 00:32:18,550 --> 00:32:27,350 racist Studio Ghibli frame. One can imagine a DOJ bureaucrat 429 00:32:27,285 --> 00:32:31,285 wrapped in the glow of the prompting screen negotiating 430 00:32:31,445 --> 00:32:35,685 with a robot that only knows the past and not really considering 431 00:32:35,685 --> 00:32:39,205 if it even makes sense to Ghiblify a state department 432 00:32:39,205 --> 00:32:43,030 detention, not stopping to wonder if it sends the right 433 00:32:43,030 --> 00:32:46,710 message to depict the president as Apocalypse Now's lieutenant 434 00:32:46,710 --> 00:32:49,910 colonel Kilgore while threatening, quote, war on 435 00:32:49,910 --> 00:32:54,895 Chicago. The response, one also imagines, to these wonders are 436 00:32:54,895 --> 00:32:58,175 the same and the same as asking what government officials mean 437 00:32:58,175 --> 00:33:01,295 when posting images reminiscent of white nationalist artwork 438 00:33:01,295 --> 00:33:04,175 from two centuries ago or pictures of the president as the 439 00:33:04,175 --> 00:33:12,040 pope, and that response is lull. To paraphrase Sartre from anti 440 00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,760 Semite and Jew, they're amusing themselves. 441 00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:19,720 Only their adversary is obliged to communicate responsibly. They 442 00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:26,765 are taking action for action's sake. The overall aesthetic as 443 00:33:26,765 --> 00:33:31,885 such becomes one of cruelty and subservience to a power which is 444 00:33:31,885 --> 00:33:36,525 adored above all else. Submissiveness, dehumanization, 445 00:33:37,030 --> 00:33:41,430 adoration of authority all become more palatable when the 446 00:33:41,430 --> 00:33:46,150 world is nothing but an array of images. Human beings become 447 00:33:46,150 --> 00:33:50,470 paper dolls to be collaged, accessorized, cut up, and 448 00:33:50,470 --> 00:33:54,975 crumpled, placed in their little play dioramas, and made to dance 449 00:33:54,975 --> 00:33:56,015 for yucks. 450 00:33:56,655 --> 00:34:01,295 The world is made media in this fact. It becomes unreal, 451 00:34:01,535 --> 00:34:05,215 distant, or entirely absent, something society has been 452 00:34:05,215 --> 00:34:08,840 reckoning with vis a vis the Internet for a while now, but 453 00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:14,600 which finds new urgency in the age of AI. This is at least 454 00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:18,440 partially a concern related to aura. And so far as what aura 455 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:21,080 connotes is the fundamental significance of something which 456 00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:25,365 has been created and has a physical existence, be that a 457 00:34:25,365 --> 00:34:29,125 work of art or a human being. But it's also a question of 458 00:34:29,125 --> 00:34:34,005 agency, of what actions are taken and by whom and how these 459 00:34:34,005 --> 00:34:36,325 facts impact material conditions. 460 00:34:37,250 --> 00:34:40,530 This defines the use of generative AI more than their 461 00:34:40,530 --> 00:34:44,930 look in my mind. The method of their creation, endless, 462 00:34:44,930 --> 00:34:49,250 effortless, endlessly, and effortlessly costly, a process 463 00:34:49,250 --> 00:34:54,325 which exhibits an undeniable eeriness in the sense theorist 464 00:34:54,325 --> 00:35:05,365 and critic Mark Fisher wrote of it. Fisher wrote of the weird 465 00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:08,920 and the eerie as a pair of affects that exemplify the often 466 00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:13,240 mysterious circumstances of contemporary life. The weird 467 00:35:13,240 --> 00:35:17,560 speaks to, quote, a presence, that which does not belong, end 468 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:21,435 quote. Like Lovecraft's interjection of unknowable 469 00:35:21,435 --> 00:35:25,515 otherworldly entities into New England. 470 00:35:26,475 --> 00:35:31,035 But the eerie speaks to, quote, a failure of absence or a 471 00:35:31,035 --> 00:35:34,920 failure of presence. When there is something present where there 472 00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:38,040 should be nothing or there is nothing present where there 473 00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:43,400 should be something, end quote. Capitalism, Fisher argues, is a 474 00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:48,325 fundamentally eerie force. The famously invisible hand of its 475 00:35:48,325 --> 00:35:54,405 markets bend, shift, and pull at all aspects of our lives. The 476 00:35:54,405 --> 00:35:57,605 eerie, Fisher writes, is ultimately tied up with 477 00:35:57,605 --> 00:36:00,220 questions of agency. 478 00:36:00,860 --> 00:36:10,300 It's unclear, in other words, who is acting and how? Who is 479 00:36:10,300 --> 00:36:16,085 acting and how when generating images using AI is murky at 480 00:36:16,085 --> 00:36:19,205 best. The person writing the prompt, the software, the 481 00:36:19,205 --> 00:36:22,645 software developers, the model, and its source material are all 482 00:36:22,645 --> 00:36:26,405 implicated in ways that we don't yet share a comfortable 483 00:36:26,405 --> 00:36:31,510 understanding of. The eerie is conceptually downstream of an 484 00:36:31,510 --> 00:36:36,550 uninhibited machinic generation, the costs of which are deeply 485 00:36:36,630 --> 00:36:41,510 buried or subsidized by the most vulnerable of us and made 486 00:36:41,510 --> 00:36:46,085 invisible or barely visible, artists by the use of their 487 00:36:46,085 --> 00:36:50,005 works as training data, the general population by its 488 00:36:50,005 --> 00:36:53,365 exposure to the environmental impacts of the data centers 489 00:36:53,365 --> 00:36:58,620 which power the technology, to name two such examples. The lack 490 00:36:58,620 --> 00:37:04,140 of aura in generative AI images is a symptom, not a cause of a 491 00:37:04,140 --> 00:37:08,620 celebration of engines, metal, and industry, action for 492 00:37:08,620 --> 00:37:12,380 action's sake, the output of which altogether forms a media 493 00:37:12,380 --> 00:37:17,235 complex that is additionally deeply eerie and furthermore 494 00:37:17,395 --> 00:37:22,435 hauntological, Fisher's term for a past that invades and 495 00:37:22,435 --> 00:37:25,395 inescapably suffuses the present. 496 00:37:26,675 --> 00:37:32,660 The question, though, is if these things are aesthetic. I'm 497 00:37:32,660 --> 00:37:36,980 not sure, to be honest. I don't think so. Overall, the aesthetic 498 00:37:36,980 --> 00:37:40,820 of new American fascism and its posts remain as incoherent as 499 00:37:40,820 --> 00:37:44,335 its attempts at governing and statecraft and economic policy 500 00:37:44,335 --> 00:37:49,135 and staffing and so on and so forth. Ghiblify to photos next 501 00:37:49,135 --> 00:37:53,295 to cinematic film stills, next to portraits, next to nineteenth 502 00:37:53,295 --> 00:37:57,375 century landscape portraiture, next to mid century jingoism, 503 00:37:57,375 --> 00:38:01,830 next to jib jab style paper doll deepfakes, next to seventies era 504 00:38:01,830 --> 00:38:06,310 graphic design, it's all a perpetual stew of every visual 505 00:38:06,310 --> 00:38:12,275 element of some political import over the last 200 leading to a 506 00:38:12,275 --> 00:38:17,075 brand that's only identifiable via the most vague affect, a 507 00:38:17,075 --> 00:38:19,635 desire to be seen as powerful. 508 00:38:20,435 --> 00:38:24,835 And so they adopt the more general aesthetic of generated 509 00:38:24,835 --> 00:38:29,360 works, something between trend surfing and the kind of oblique 510 00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,240 know it when you see it qualities we discussed 511 00:38:32,240 --> 00:38:35,840 previously in the generated ish segment. We'll put a link to 512 00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:40,415 that in the show notes as well. But the big question is, have 513 00:38:40,415 --> 00:38:46,735 the architects of new American fascism exerted so much power in 514 00:38:46,735 --> 00:38:51,750 creating and disseminating these types of images that their 515 00:38:51,750 --> 00:38:56,470 visual characteristics, however broad they may be, have become 516 00:38:56,710 --> 00:39:03,510 unquestionably theirs. When I see a generated image, do I 517 00:39:03,510 --> 00:39:08,095 think, regardless of context, of a particular authoritarian 518 00:39:08,095 --> 00:39:12,335 regime, similar to how I might when encountering silver on 519 00:39:12,335 --> 00:39:19,710 black or the work of the Italian futurists? Not yet, I don't. 520 00:39:19,870 --> 00:39:22,910 But there's still time, and there remains the chance that 521 00:39:22,910 --> 00:39:26,670 such associations could be wrestled back out of their 522 00:39:26,670 --> 00:39:35,845 grasp. Throughout much of the work of art, Benjamin formulates 523 00:39:35,845 --> 00:39:40,645 a nascent kind of media theory around film and cinema, a 524 00:39:40,645 --> 00:39:43,365 significant technological development of his time, the 525 00:39:43,365 --> 00:39:47,045 foremost exemplar of reproduction without original, 526 00:39:47,045 --> 00:39:55,170 and a medium employed to great notoriety by fascists. The 527 00:39:55,170 --> 00:39:59,490 films, The Victory of Faith and Day of Freedom, Our Armed 528 00:39:59,490 --> 00:40:03,995 Forces, both directed by Lenny Riefenstahl, Hans Vestmar, a 529 00:40:03,995 --> 00:40:08,395 fictionalized biography of Nazi martyr Horst Vessel. Hitler 530 00:40:08,395 --> 00:40:11,915 Jungkook Kex produced by Carl Ritter and released in The US as 531 00:40:11,915 --> 00:40:17,370 Our Flag Leads Us Forward, and more are all third Reich films 532 00:40:17,370 --> 00:40:20,250 which would have been released around the time Benjamin was 533 00:40:20,250 --> 00:40:24,330 working on his various versions of the work of art in the age of 534 00:40:24,330 --> 00:40:28,650 its mechanical reproducibility. Filmmaking, Benjamin thought, 535 00:40:28,650 --> 00:40:31,530 had been captured by capital. 536 00:40:32,225 --> 00:40:36,625 And rather than being a tool for workers to build solidarity to 537 00:40:36,625 --> 00:40:41,105 understand, quote, themselves and therefore their class, it 538 00:40:41,105 --> 00:40:46,385 was used to mollify and compact the masses subjected to it and 539 00:40:46,385 --> 00:40:51,410 entranced by it. The same is true of film capital in 540 00:40:51,410 --> 00:40:56,530 particular as of fascism in general, Benjamin writes. A 541 00:40:56,530 --> 00:41:01,010 compelling urge toward new social opportunities is being 542 00:41:01,010 --> 00:41:34,465 clandestinely that. And we're so technology that provides new 543 00:41:34,465 --> 00:41:37,665 social opportunities from the grips of capital, from the 544 00:41:37,665 --> 00:41:41,345 controlling grasp of the property owning minority in the 545 00:41:41,345 --> 00:41:47,060 long term. In the face of an aestheticized politics, the only 546 00:41:47,060 --> 00:41:51,940 choice, Benjamin says, is to politicize aesthetics, to turn 547 00:41:51,940 --> 00:41:56,820 art for art's sake into a revolutionary force of art for 548 00:41:56,820 --> 00:41:57,860 humanity's sake. 549 00:42:02,765 --> 00:42:06,765 This was perhaps arguably and not entirely, but meaningfully 550 00:42:06,765 --> 00:42:10,845 accomplished with film, which in the last hundred years has 551 00:42:10,845 --> 00:42:16,685 joined literature and painting as an art form widely understood 552 00:42:15,890 --> 00:42:21,170 is capable of laying bare some aspect of the human condition 553 00:42:21,250 --> 00:42:24,610 even while also bringing us things like Ant Man and the Wasp 554 00:42:24,610 --> 00:42:30,485 Quantumania. Can the same thing happen with generative AI? Can 555 00:42:30,485 --> 00:42:34,965 it be rescued from capital to become a revolutionary force of 556 00:42:34,965 --> 00:42:39,525 art for humanity's sake? Or maybe the more practical version 557 00:42:39,525 --> 00:42:43,525 of this question is, does anybody want to try to rescue 558 00:42:43,525 --> 00:42:46,650 it? Is anybody even interested in doing that? 559 00:42:47,530 --> 00:42:50,730 Kate Crawford writes that building such alternatives for 560 00:42:50,730 --> 00:42:54,250 generative AI, quote, would demand the fundamental 561 00:42:54,250 --> 00:42:57,690 transformation of existing technical and economic 562 00:42:57,690 --> 00:43:01,975 arrangements, alternative energy systems, cooperative ownership 563 00:43:01,975 --> 00:43:05,655 models, and cultural protocols that resist algorithmic 564 00:43:05,655 --> 00:43:09,415 ingestion. The question that remains is whether we will 565 00:43:09,415 --> 00:43:13,175 choose to embrace slop or cultivate desire for something 566 00:43:13,175 --> 00:43:17,230 else entirely, Cultural forms moving beyond synthetic 567 00:43:17,230 --> 00:43:20,830 reproduction oriented toward flourishing rather than 568 00:43:20,830 --> 00:43:24,910 extraction, toward ecological regeneration rather than a 569 00:43:24,910 --> 00:43:31,645 hypermetabolic state of exhaustion and breakdown. A tall 570 00:43:31,645 --> 00:43:35,725 order, for sure, and perhaps the answer to one of our questions. 571 00:43:36,045 --> 00:43:39,405 Is generative AI the aesthetic of new American fascism? No. 572 00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:47,160 But it could become so if we let it, if we want it to. And maybe 573 00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:52,200 some portion of us want it to. From one perspective, the anti 574 00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,965 AI one, to be clear, there is some utility in letting the 575 00:43:55,965 --> 00:43:59,805 generated ish aesthetic become twinned with the architects of 576 00:43:59,805 --> 00:44:03,725 the current American state and their cronies. To the degree 577 00:44:03,725 --> 00:44:07,325 that one will ever be able to confidently identify the output 578 00:44:07,325 --> 00:44:11,090 of this technology, that output could then always bring to mind 579 00:44:11,090 --> 00:44:16,050 this cohort of bumbling, calamitous strongmen, the de 580 00:44:16,050 --> 00:44:20,210 architects of American visual culture, to say nothing of the 581 00:44:20,210 --> 00:44:24,645 culture itself. Or slop to become this administration's 582 00:44:24,645 --> 00:44:28,245 silver on black or this administration's Stalinist 583 00:44:28,245 --> 00:44:32,805 socialist realism, it might halt what waning momentum it retains, 584 00:44:32,965 --> 00:44:37,240 being seen to signal and in no small way create the reality 585 00:44:37,240 --> 00:44:39,880 that new American fascism seeks. 586 00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,680 Which brings us finally back to another question raised at the 587 00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:50,840 top of this segment. Is what is happening right now fascism in 588 00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:57,665 fact? I don't think so, but it's not for lack of trying. I do 589 00:44:57,665 --> 00:45:00,545 genuinely believe that The United States is simply too 590 00:45:00,545 --> 00:45:05,890 large and too diverse for fascism to take total hold. This 591 00:45:05,890 --> 00:45:09,250 is not to say that there will not be and has not already been 592 00:45:09,490 --> 00:45:14,610 misery and suffering on a large and completely unnecessary scale 593 00:45:14,610 --> 00:45:17,810 while various members of the administration and the corporate 594 00:45:17,810 --> 00:45:20,745 class with whom they've partnered consolidate their 595 00:45:20,745 --> 00:45:21,305 power. 596 00:45:22,665 --> 00:45:29,065 What this group is arguably best at is posting. This is a 597 00:45:29,065 --> 00:45:34,900 government by, for, and of posters. They excel at a 598 00:45:34,900 --> 00:45:38,500 particular kind of public performance, not delivering a 599 00:45:38,500 --> 00:45:43,380 coherent message, not inspiring adoration nor dedication, not, I 600 00:45:43,380 --> 00:45:47,475 don't think, in Benjamin's terms, compacting masses, at 601 00:45:47,475 --> 00:45:49,955 least not the degree to which other fascist movements have 602 00:45:49,955 --> 00:45:54,195 been able to. They are good at gaining and maintaining 603 00:45:54,515 --> 00:45:59,955 attention, but not many of the things that usually follow once 604 00:45:59,955 --> 00:46:05,120 one has it. One need only see Secretary of Defense Pete 605 00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:09,680 Hegseth on stage fulminating at the country's collected military 606 00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,520 personnel to be disabused of the notion that our leaders have 607 00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:17,125 requisite amounts of charisma capable of being meaningfully 608 00:46:17,125 --> 00:46:18,005 weaponized. 609 00:46:18,485 --> 00:46:23,045 They are knowledgeable about, maybe even obsessed with, the 610 00:46:23,045 --> 00:46:27,765 media. How it's made, how it's useful, the social and economic 611 00:46:27,765 --> 00:46:32,500 position it occupies, and the power it commands. Slop, sludge, 612 00:46:32,500 --> 00:46:38,100 slopaganda, and agit slop included. They are posters at 613 00:46:38,100 --> 00:46:43,540 heart more so than they are leaders. They would appear to 614 00:46:43,540 --> 00:46:50,075 put more effort, effort into creating the appearance of a 615 00:46:50,075 --> 00:46:55,195 fascist state, a state itself all about appearances, than 616 00:46:55,195 --> 00:46:56,475 anything beyond that. 617 00:47:07,090 --> 00:47:09,970 It's perhaps that they don't know there's a step beyond this 618 00:47:09,970 --> 00:47:13,250 one. It's perhaps they don't care. It's perhaps they don't 619 00:47:13,250 --> 00:47:16,695 know how to progress their project past this stage. It's 620 00:47:16,695 --> 00:47:21,735 perhaps that they are always just on the verge of figuring it 621 00:47:21,735 --> 00:47:31,090 out. But what remains is that slop and the technology that 622 00:47:31,090 --> 00:47:36,130 powers it is indeed one of the most used tools in their box. 623 00:47:36,130 --> 00:47:41,170 Hegseth himself on stage said, this urgent moment requires more 624 00:47:41,170 --> 00:47:45,505 troops, more munitions, more drones, more Patriot missiles, 625 00:47:45,505 --> 00:47:49,425 more submarines, more b 21 bombers. It requires more 626 00:47:49,425 --> 00:47:52,305 innovation, more AI in everything and ahead of the 627 00:47:52,305 --> 00:47:59,440 curve, more cyber effects, more space, more speed. Here is 628 00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:04,320 American action for action's sake, a celebration of war, 629 00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:10,495 speed, and machinery, betraying a subservience to the very same 630 00:48:10,495 --> 00:48:15,775 in the absence of application, strategy, ideas to be 631 00:48:15,775 --> 00:48:21,010 implemented somewhere beyond the cameras and feeds and group 632 00:48:21,010 --> 00:48:27,170 chats. I wonder the degree to which artificial intelligence is 633 00:48:27,170 --> 00:48:32,210 not a tool of this administration, but a crutch for 634 00:48:32,210 --> 00:48:37,625 a group of people who otherwise don't really know how to do much 635 00:48:37,625 --> 00:48:43,785 of anything, really, except push ups and lie. Perhaps it would 636 00:48:43,785 --> 00:48:44,745 not be easy. 637 00:48:44,745 --> 00:48:48,585 Perhaps no one really wants to do it. But what happens when you 638 00:48:48,585 --> 00:48:54,870 find a way to take away that crutch? Would they not stumble? 639 00:51:03,975 --> 00:51:07,335 Georgia Hampton: That is the show we have for you this week. 640 00:51:07,495 --> 00:51:11,975 We'll be back here in the main feed on October 22. This show 641 00:51:11,975 --> 00:51:15,870 simply would not exist without the member community that we 642 00:51:15,870 --> 00:51:20,110 have. And for that, I have to say, thank you. Thank you. 643 00:51:20,270 --> 00:51:25,070 Thank you. We are unimaginably fortunate to have such a 644 00:51:25,070 --> 00:51:28,525 supportive and incredible community of members. And it's 645 00:51:28,525 --> 00:51:31,645 honestly because of you that we are able to do what we do. If 646 00:51:31,645 --> 00:51:35,325 you'd like to become a NeverPo's member for as little as $4 a 647 00:51:35,325 --> 00:51:40,040 month, you can do so at neverpo.st. And if that's a bit 648 00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:43,640 too much to manage in the choppy waters of modern life, you can 649 00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:48,600 also tip us a one time any dollar amount, which I will 650 00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:53,855 personally promise to spend on retiling the bathroom of the 651 00:51:53,855 --> 00:51:55,935 Gothic castle in which I reside. 652 00:51:57,615 --> 00:52:01,375 Never post producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton Hey, 653 00:52:01,375 --> 00:52:04,950 that's me and the mysterious doctor first name, last name. 654 00:52:05,030 --> 00:52:09,030 Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is 655 00:52:09,030 --> 00:52:15,350 Jason Oberholzer. And the show's host is Mike Rugnetta. The good 656 00:52:15,350 --> 00:52:19,015 news is that things will go back to the way they were, which is 657 00:52:19,015 --> 00:52:20,295 also the bad news. 658 00:52:20,775 --> 00:52:25,015 Meanwhile, I cut an onion and it's onions all the way down. 659 00:52:25,415 --> 00:52:29,300 And that's a fine reason to cry at the sink on a Monday after 660 00:52:29,300 --> 00:52:34,260 the empire congratulates itself on persisting again. No. Thank 661 00:52:34,260 --> 00:52:35,620 you. I'm stuffed. 662 00:52:35,780 --> 00:52:38,820 I couldn't possibly have more hope. I haven't finished 663 00:52:38,820 --> 00:52:43,795 mourning the last tyrant yet. I haven't said enough goodbyes to, 664 00:52:43,955 --> 00:52:49,555 oh, what was her name and hers? How many wheeze did they cut out 665 00:52:49,555 --> 00:52:54,595 of me? And whose country was I standing on the last time we 666 00:52:54,595 --> 00:52:54,995 survived? 667 00:52:56,550 --> 00:53:00,870 That's an excerpt from Celebrate Good Times by Frannie Choi. 668 00:53:01,910 --> 00:53:05,670 Never Post is a production of Charts and Leisure and is 669 00:53:05,670 --> 00:53:07,830 distributed by Radiotopia.