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Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello,
and welcome to Never Post, a

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podcast for and about the
Internet. I'm your host, Mike

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Rugnetta, and we have a sloppy
episode for you today. A couple

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weeks ago during our '20 twenty
six stream week, the team got

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together and recorded a paper
report live. Paper report is a

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segment wherein the staff of
Never Post read a number of

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academic papers and discuss
their reactions as a group, and

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it is normally members only
content. So special treat for

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you all, a peek into the kinds
of things you get as a member.

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In this edition of Paper Report,
we discuss a set of papers all

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from one edition of the European
Journal of Cultural Studies, the

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Cultural Commons special issue
on brain rot, AI slop, and.

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We're gonna take a quick break
right now and listen to some ads

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unless you're on the member
feed. And when we return, Mike

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from a couple weeks ago is gonna
explain more. Friends, hello,

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and welcome to the most recent,
the newest, the second edition

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of Paper Report where members of
the Never Post staff read

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academically published papers,
academic papers from journals,

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and give you our thoughts upon
them after having read them

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allegedly.

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Georgia Hampton: I did.

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Mike Rugnetta: Hans. Joining us

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Hans Buetow: in I did. I did. I
read. I know how to read.

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Mike Rugnetta: I did read. Hi,
guys. Been to parties, and I

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know how to read. I

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Jason Oberholtzer: love these
saga journals.

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Mike Rugnetta: Joining us in
order of how recently I think

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they read the paper, new most
recent first.

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Georgia Hampton: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

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Mike Rugnetta: Hans Butoh.

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Hans Buetow: Yeah. I did read
it. I read it.

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Georgia Hampton: I read it.

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Hans Buetow: Did I understand
it? Did I have yogurt dripping

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out of my mouth while I shoveled
it in?

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Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, we don't
need that. No one needs that.

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Mike Rugnetta: Never never post
senior producer.

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Jason Oberholtzer: On my stream
week.

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Hans Buetow: This is your first
introduction to me. Yes.

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Jason Oberholtzer: Talking
yogurt on my stream week.

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Hans Buetow: It's

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Mike Rugnetta: more likely than
you think. Never post producer

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producer Georgia Hampton.

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Georgia Hampton: I'd say that's
correct.

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Hans Buetow: So when when did
you read yours?

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Georgia Hampton: I did read it
this morning. I was going to

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last night, but ended up not
having time. But I had, like, a

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good chunk of time, and it felt
normal and regular style.

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Hans Buetow: Unbothered. Regular
style. Well, now that I've had

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so much yogurt, I feel normal
and regular too.

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Mike Rugnetta: So No. No. I
mean, you did just eat yogurt.

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So

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Georgia Hampton: I hate that
this

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Jason Oberholtzer: through line
is now uneditable.

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Hans Buetow: This is what you
get when you are a member of

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Never Post.

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Jason Oberholtzer: I'm going to
open standalone Melodyne to

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figure out how to delete yogurt
from this.

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Mike Rugnetta: Never Post
executive producer Jason

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Overholt.

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Jason Oberholtzer: I'm an adult,
and I read my paper yesterday.

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Georgia Hampton: I'm just a
little I'm just a baby.

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Hans Buetow: Oh, no. Georgia.

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Jason Oberholtzer: I feel

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Georgia Hampton: so bad. Girls?
Girls?

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Mike Rugnetta: I'm a baby.

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Hans Buetow: Girls? Girls? Mike,
we're assuming Mike Rugnetta

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host, esteemed host, we're
assuming that you probably read

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this days ago, weeks ago. Oh,
yeah. Wow.

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Well,

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Georgia Hampton: before I mean,
should we say that you assigned

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us papers?

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Mike Rugnetta: Went went to the
author's houses individually

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Hans Buetow: Yes.

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Mike Rugnetta: Across the world.
Yes.

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Hans Buetow: I'm guessing you
read all of ours too.

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Mike Rugnetta: Put a pen in
their hands while they were

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sleeping. Oh. Whispered into
their ear. Wow.

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Hans Buetow: Automatic writing.
Automatic writing.

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Georgia Hampton: Yes. Yeah. It's
automatic writing.

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Mike Rugnetta: Write that paper
you've been thinking about. Wow.

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No. You've got slop in there.
Oh, no.

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No.

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Hans Buetow: It's just yogurt.
It's just yogurt.

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Mike Rugnetta: I read the
introduction over the weekend,

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and I read my paper last night.
Mhmm. But I have had these open

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for a while. So let's talk about
what it is we're gonna do and

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what the sort of overarching
theme here is. So each of the

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four of us have read an
individual paper from a special

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collection that was published, I
wanna say really recently, like

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as recently as this month, but I
could be wrong, by the European

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Journal of Cultural Studies.

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It is a special issue, and the
special issue is called Cultural

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Commons on Brain Rot, AI Slop,
and the Enchidification of the

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Internet. This is a special
collection from the European

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Journal of Cultural Studies that
is, I believe, all open access,

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which is something that we got
lucky with last time too for our

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paper report. All the papers
were open access. This time, I

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purposefully went and looked to
see if there was anything that I

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could get where we could have an
interconnected conversation with

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a bunch of things that were open
access. And we really lucked out

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because not only is that the
case, it's also about slop and

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then shitification and brain rot
and stuff.

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So right in our wheelhouse.
Yeah. All this to say, that

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means you, the audience, if you
want, you can go and read some

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of these things. So, Hans, I'm
doing a screen share. Do you

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wanna pull

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Hans Buetow: do wanna I got you,
babe.

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Mike Rugnetta: Show that there?
So we all read this, which is

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the introduction, the
introductory statement to the

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collection, and there are just a
few things that I wanna talk

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about in relation to

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Hans Buetow: it. Okay.

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Mike Rugnetta: Well I read this.

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Georgia Hampton: I I thought so.
Okay.

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Mike Rugnetta: Jason, Georgia,
did you guys read this or no?

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Yes. Okay. Great. Jason?

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Jason Oberholtzer: My mic isn't
working.

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Hans Buetow: Okay. Great.

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Georgia Hampton: I don't know
where I am.

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Mike Rugnetta: So the long and
short of this is, like, most of

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this is just they go over what
is in the collection. So, like

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Mhmm. This is the paper that I
read. This is the paper that

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Jason read. We won't go through
all of this because a bunch of

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it is just saying what they're
going to do so that there is

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some context for having done it.

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But there are things in here
that I think are really useful

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to have in our brains and to
understand and to just sort of

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like think with as we hear about
these things. Brain rot, this is

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like a description of brain rot
that's interesting, but I think

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it's stuff that we all maybe as
regular users of the Internet,

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like understand. We don't need
this spelled out for us. The

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term brain rot is also widely
used in this context to refer to

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not just a style of content, but
a state of being that is

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imagined to arise from engaging
with it, an existential

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condition characterized by a
sense of cognitive or sensory

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depletion brought on by being
chronically online. And we

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talked about this in a segment
that we did was it a year ago?

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Was that last year? Yeah. Yeah.
Like teens using teens looking

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at content that they termed
brain rot as a way to sort of

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escape the affective pressures
of productivity that like so

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much of using the Internet,
encountering the media

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environment, using media in
their day to day lives is very

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very hard to not feel as though
you are expected to be

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productive even when those
things are at least nominally

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entertainment. So brain rot is a
way to be like, no.

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I'm gonna use media. I'm gonna
interact with the information

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environment, and I'm not gonna
be productive. I am in fact

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going to be the opposite of
productive. I'm going to look at

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something meaningless, and not
only is it going to have no

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intellectual effect on me, it
actually might have a

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deleterious one. Yes.

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Like, I might just choose to
poison myself a little bit.

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Jason Oberholtzer: And then
somehow this like instigated a

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discourse with our listeners
where people got so concerned

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that what they were doing was
brain rot. That, like, fell

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exactly into, like, the
capitalist trap that these

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papers are talking about, where
people were writing in, like, is

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it okay to read a book? Or do
the crossword. Do you have to

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have fun?

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Georgia Hampton: Doing the
crossword specifically being

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something that someone was
considering brain rot, which

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just to clarify, it is not
You're just at all.

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Hans Buetow: You're just fine.
We hold you. We we see you, but

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you're okay.

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Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Is
talking with my friends

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brainwashed?

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Hans Buetow: Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. Exactly.

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Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Fellas. Is
it is it gay to rot the brain?

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So I think that's so that's a
great thing to keep in mind.

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Right?

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It's not just a genre of media,
it is a state of being. And this

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is kind of the nugget of the the
special collection, the special

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special issue. What we will
suggest is that the terms brain

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rot, AI slop, and
engineification signal a new

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phase of digital capitalism, one
emerging in the wake of

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generative AI's widespread
integration into the foundations

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of platform culture. These
concepts, we argue, exemplify a

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further intensification of what
has been described as platform

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capitalism, which I think we're
all familiar with, or more

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recently, vibes capitalism

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Hans Buetow: Mhmm.

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Mike Rugnetta: Where attention,
data, and affect are

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relentlessly mined for value. In
this context, content is

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increasingly loosened from
communicative or

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representational value,
functioning as a means of

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modulating attention at scale
and optimizing the emotions,

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moods, and atmospheres that flow
through platforms. This process

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can be seen and felt at many
different cultural, social, and

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economic levels. Yeah. Which
like, boom.

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That's just describing how it
is.

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Hans Buetow: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That that feel you hear that,

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and you're like, yeah. The water
is wet.

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Yeah.

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Mike Rugnetta: There are two
things that I wanna focus on

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here, which are which are, like,
minor, but I think they're

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worth, like, giving a little bit
of time to. The first is when

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the word content first started
to become a label that was put

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on things that were put online,
the group of people who were the

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most against it and, you know,
and I'm sure still are, one of

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their main sort of arguments
against it was that it really is

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just saying the quiet part loud
in a way. Just like when you

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call what is what is content? It
is contents. It is the un

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undifferentiated mass of things
inside of a container that

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collects things.

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Doesn't necessarily matter what
those things are. It's just a

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mass collective term for what's
inside something else. The

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suggestion being that it kind of
doesn't matter what it is, or

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that you can't really see what
it is. They're just it's just

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contents. It's things on the
other side of an opaque

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container.

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And the sort of like next
logical jump to it was like,

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it's just things that you put
next to ads. Mhmm. It is the

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undifferentiated mass of media
that goes into the container of

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a web page that also contains
advertisements. There doesn't

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need to be given much thought to
what it is other than to make

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sure that you can figure out how
to get people to look at it and

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value it so that they will give
it their time, and so that they

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will then see the ads next to
the content, which really is

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just the the other content next
to the content that we call

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content. Right?

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Ads and ads is content is the
contents also in the container

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where the content is.

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Jason Oberholtzer: I need a
cigarette.

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Hans Buetow: That's an old idea.
Right? That's exactly the same

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idea. That's what a magazine is.
A magazine is a container.

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100%. Like, that's the word for
container. So you have an

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ammunition magazine, which is,
you know, something that houses

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your ammunition. You have a
information magazine, which is a

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thing that houses your
information, and it's got the

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ads. It's placing content next
to ads.

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The ads themselves are a form of
content. So it makes sense that

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that would be the framework we'd
enter into And, Mike, what time

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period are we talking about that
that was generally our

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framework? Up until when?

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Mike Rugnetta: I mean, up until
when or starting when?

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Hans Buetow: I think up until
when.

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Mike Rugnetta: So you're saying,
like, when when is the point at

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which calling things content
became just what those things

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are called? Yeah. What those
what that piece of media is

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called. Yeah. I don't know.

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Six years ago? Five years ago?

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Hans Buetow: Wow. That recent.
Okay.

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Mike Rugnetta: I think so. Okay.
I think that there was probably

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still a pretty like, at the
start of the pandemic or maybe

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right before, there was still
some meaningful amount of

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resistance to calling certain
amounts of things or certain

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types of things content

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Hans Buetow: that

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Mike Rugnetta: I don't think is
as strong Yeah. Isn't as sort of

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adamant as it used to be.

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Jason Oberholtzer: I think
you're right. There was some

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amount of marshaling of irony
while we were beating the

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retreat on that term that now
has given up.

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Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. So
this next part of like content

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increasingly loosened from
communicative or

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representational value
functioning as a means of

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modulating attention at scale is
like that's sort of the next

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level of that. Right? Like,
content is not only contents in

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container where there is also
ads.

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It is also the means to an end,
the means to a programmatic end

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of just figuring out what it is
that people will spend their

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time doing. So in a way, right,
it's like thinking about

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content, thinking about media
and the information environment

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and all of these things that
contain for an audience so much

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cultural, social, artistic,
emotional meaning and saying,

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well, actually, none of that
matters. Yeah. Or or really all

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of that is just secondary. What
this is really about is putting

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it through the ringer in order
to figure out what second order

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things we can say about it so
that we know whether or not

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someone will watch it for six
minutes.

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It doesn't matter what it's
about. It doesn't matter what it

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depicts. It doesn't matter what
the signs of it are. It just

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matters how much time someone
will spend on it, which to me

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feels like

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Hans Buetow: And it doesn't
matter who spends it?

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Mike Rugnetta: No. No. Not at

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Georgia Hampton: all. Doesn't
even matter if it's a person.

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Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, it's an it's
an operational purpose rather

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than, like, a representational
purpose.

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I mean, that goes into the paper
I read, which is very much about

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the aesthetics of that and the
purpose of that aesthetics,

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which is so

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Mike Rugnetta: I'm very excited
to hear about

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Hans Buetow: it.

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Georgia Hampton: It's so
interesting. I'm I kind of wanna

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turn it into an episode or
something. It's so cool. But,

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anyway, yes. That, like, it
doesn't really matter what it

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is.

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Even, like, the content doesn't
matter beyond its function of

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generating engagement

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Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.

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Georgia Hampton: From anything.

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Mike Rugnetta: And I think that
we feel that. That is something

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that people feel. It feels like
you, in a lot of ways, being

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online right now, and in some
spaces more than others, in the

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large corporate social spaces,
most increasingly incorrectly

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00:15:07,180 --> 00:15:11,900
named social spaces, it feels as
though you get stuck, or it

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feels as though there is a
massive amount of work that

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needs to be done in order to
continue to apprehend these

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things. And I think that all of
this is related, and this is

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what this last section that's
highlighted that I wanna talk

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00:15:24,235 --> 00:15:27,595
about gets to, which is for
everyday users, exposure to

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00:15:27,595 --> 00:15:31,770
brain rot and slop content
through platforms entails an

304
00:15:31,770 --> 00:15:36,970
intensification of affective and
cognitive labor. That just means

305
00:15:36,970 --> 00:15:44,425
that all of this stuff being so
bad and generated by the second

306
00:15:44,585 --> 00:15:49,705
order significance of media that
you are familiar with and do

307
00:15:49,705 --> 00:15:55,065
appreciate means that it's just
harder to feel and think about

308
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these things.

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It's like there's just a a husk
around them that you have to

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break through. Navigating
endlessly shifting kaleidoscopic

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00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:09,200
feeds now require continuous
acts of appraisal, filtering,

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00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:12,635
and interpretation, even as the
distinction between authentic

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and synthetic content becomes
increasingly unstable. Right? So

314
00:16:16,875 --> 00:16:22,395
it doesn't matter if it looks
real or feels real, and maybe

315
00:16:22,395 --> 00:16:26,030
doesn't matter that it is real.
You still, because of the

316
00:16:26,030 --> 00:16:29,790
environment, feel like you have
to do extra affective and

317
00:16:29,790 --> 00:16:32,430
cognitive labor to appreciate
these things.

318
00:16:32,750 --> 00:16:36,925
This affective labor entertains
entertains, but leaves us more

319
00:16:36,925 --> 00:16:40,685
depleted, contributing to a
shitty new layer to the forms of

320
00:16:40,685 --> 00:16:43,805
digital fatigue that
characterize user experiences of

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00:16:43,805 --> 00:16:47,165
platforms more broadly. I could
tell you for sure they were so

322
00:16:47,165 --> 00:16:51,160
excited to write shitty new
layer justified by

323
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:53,640
Georgia Hampton: I know. It
really it really stood out. I

324
00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:55,800
was like, oh, absolutely. I

325
00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:58,600
Mike Rugnetta: just think this
is, like, so like, very

326
00:16:59,160 --> 00:17:02,360
powerful. I relate to this in a
way, and I think it puts it in

327
00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:04,200
terms that I find really strong.

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00:17:05,285 --> 00:17:09,125
Hans Buetow: So we read some
papers about it. Yeah. And let's

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00:17:09,125 --> 00:17:10,565
elaborate on what this is.

330
00:17:10,565 --> 00:17:11,845
Mike Rugnetta: Georgia, do you
wanna go first

331
00:17:11,845 --> 00:17:14,805
Georgia Hampton: since you I can
go first, Tony. So the paper I

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00:17:14,805 --> 00:17:18,165
read is called doing the
numbers, the operational

333
00:17:18,165 --> 00:17:24,290
aesthetics of AI slop. And it's
it it's so good. Like, I I

334
00:17:24,290 --> 00:17:28,450
really Totally. I really
recommend you guys also reading

335
00:17:28,450 --> 00:17:28,770
it.

336
00:17:28,770 --> 00:17:30,290
Like, I think it's so
interesting.

337
00:17:30,370 --> 00:17:31,490
Hans Buetow: I Who's our author?

338
00:17:31,490 --> 00:17:33,330
Georgia Hampton: Forgive me for
what I'm about to do

339
00:17:33,330 --> 00:17:41,035
pronunciation wise. Jernej
Markels and Jaco Kemper. And

340
00:17:41,035 --> 00:17:43,515
there's, I think, a couple other
authors, but those are the two

341
00:17:43,595 --> 00:17:47,115
listed. Yeah. Selfishly, I was
so happy you assigned this to me

342
00:17:47,115 --> 00:17:51,120
because in my brief stint as a
philosophy major, which ended

343
00:17:51,120 --> 00:17:55,200
very quickly, aesthetics was my,
focus of philosophy.

344
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:59,200
And so this is very interesting
to me. But basically, what this

345
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:04,405
paper argues in its most
simplified form is that AI slop

346
00:18:04,405 --> 00:18:10,245
creates an operational aesthetic
culture in comparison to, like,

347
00:18:10,245 --> 00:18:12,165
a representational aesthetic
culture.

348
00:18:12,165 --> 00:18:12,965
Mike Rugnetta: Interesting.

349
00:18:12,965 --> 00:18:16,165
Georgia Hampton: So what that
means is I'll quote directly

350
00:18:16,165 --> 00:18:20,110
from the paper. It does this,
quote, in the sense that its

351
00:18:20,110 --> 00:18:24,750
primary aim is not to represent
the world, but rather to act on

352
00:18:24,750 --> 00:18:29,150
it. It functions as a signal
aimed at maximizing engagement

353
00:18:29,150 --> 00:18:32,465
metrics. So, basically, what we
were just talking about, that

354
00:18:32,465 --> 00:18:36,465
rather than creating any kind of
visual media whose aesthetic

355
00:18:36,465 --> 00:18:40,705
goal is to represent or even
elicit, like, a subjective

356
00:18:40,705 --> 00:18:44,705
relationship with that media
itself for you to spend any

357
00:18:44,705 --> 00:18:50,060
meaningful time with it to
garner meaning from it, none of

358
00:18:50,060 --> 00:18:56,140
that is even a goal anymore with
AI Slop. The goal instead is to

359
00:18:56,140 --> 00:18:58,540
generate engagement.

360
00:18:58,780 --> 00:19:01,660
Engagement that doesn't even
necessarily have to be human

361
00:19:01,660 --> 00:19:05,345
engagement. This paper goes on
to specifically mention that so

362
00:19:05,345 --> 00:19:07,745
much activity online is bots.

363
00:19:08,145 --> 00:19:08,545
Hans Buetow: Mhmm.

364
00:19:08,545 --> 00:19:12,225
Georgia Hampton: And for AISLOP
to kind of reach its aesthetic

365
00:19:12,225 --> 00:19:16,800
goals, its operational goals, it
doesn't matter if the

366
00:19:16,800 --> 00:19:20,080
engagement, the comments, the
sharing, anything is actually

367
00:19:20,080 --> 00:19:23,040
done by human beings. And in
fact, it often isn't done by

368
00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:27,200
human beings. And that all of
this, this operational kind of

369
00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:32,905
aesthetic culture to to the
authors of this piece may offer,

370
00:19:32,905 --> 00:19:37,945
like, the clearest example,
like, visualization of

371
00:19:38,345 --> 00:19:43,320
capitalism and its goals. Woah.
So I have I have quotes that

372
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:44,600
basically say this.

373
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:50,280
Let me find them. I have several
bolded things. AI slop binds an

374
00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:53,160
infinite reproduction and
recombination of established

375
00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:56,225
cultural reference to a
quantifiable model of aesthetics

376
00:19:56,225 --> 00:20:00,305
that favors rapid engagement and
circulation. And then moving on,

377
00:20:00,385 --> 00:20:03,185
the generative culture of AI
slops seems to push the

378
00:20:03,185 --> 00:20:06,945
structural cynicism of
capitalism, which believes in

379
00:20:06,945 --> 00:20:11,210
nothing but meaningless
calculations to its extreme form

380
00:20:11,290 --> 00:20:15,050
as AI platforms remove meaning
from content and reduce it

381
00:20:15,050 --> 00:20:18,970
almost exclusively to its
exchange value. Like, they use

382
00:20:18,970 --> 00:20:22,730
an example of this that I
probably could pull very quickly

383
00:20:22,730 --> 00:20:27,625
from the actual paper of what
they called, I believe, shrimp

384
00:20:27,625 --> 00:20:28,425
Jesus.

385
00:20:29,145 --> 00:20:31,785
Hans Buetow: Mhmm. Yeah. Shrimp
Jesus. I remember shrimp Jesus.

386
00:20:31,785 --> 00:20:34,745
Georgia Hampton: Imagine an AI
rendering of Jesus as a shrimp

387
00:20:34,745 --> 00:20:38,980
or, like, Jesus with, like,
gigantic rolls of money. Like

388
00:20:38,980 --> 00:20:42,740
like, there's it's often Jesus.
It's often, like, religious

389
00:20:43,140 --> 00:20:46,260
patriotic symbolism, like, you
know, that kind of thing. Trying

390
00:20:46,260 --> 00:20:50,845
to interpret them is pointless,
not

391
00:20:50,845 --> 00:20:51,485
Mike Rugnetta: just pointless.
Yeah.

392
00:20:51,485 --> 00:20:54,285
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Like,
they literally write, recourse

393
00:20:54,285 --> 00:20:57,645
to an interpretive framework
that would, for instance, read

394
00:20:57,645 --> 00:21:01,885
shrimp Jesus as a representation
of faith or a symbol of god's

395
00:21:01,885 --> 00:21:05,930
love feels as pointless as
eating soup with a fork. Nice.

396
00:21:06,170 --> 00:21:08,330
Nice. They they were having a
lot of fun with this one.

397
00:21:08,330 --> 00:21:12,170
Yeah. Good job. And, basically,
most of the paper is kind of

398
00:21:12,170 --> 00:21:16,490
examining what this operational
aesthetic is, what its aims are.

399
00:21:16,490 --> 00:21:21,355
But that's that's the core of
it. That, like, AI slop is a as

400
00:21:21,355 --> 00:21:25,195
an aesthetic as something that
is, you know, presenting an

401
00:21:25,195 --> 00:21:30,480
aesthetic message, if you can
even say that, is not only,

402
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,600
like, denying the kind of
representational, like,

403
00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:37,040
subjective interaction that you
would have with any kind of

404
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:41,920
aesthetic media that isn't this,
but rather is, like, redrawing

405
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:46,215
the boundaries of what that
means to include an aesthetic

406
00:21:46,215 --> 00:21:49,495
that only values its operational
like, output.

407
00:21:49,735 --> 00:21:52,535
Its engagement. Its
engageability.

408
00:21:53,175 --> 00:21:55,735
Mike Rugnetta: It it makes me
think of two things. A David

409
00:21:55,735 --> 00:21:58,830
Bowie interview that I watched
recently where he was like, I

410
00:21:58,830 --> 00:22:02,430
think the worst territory for an
artist to be in is to be

411
00:22:02,430 --> 00:22:05,790
thinking about what the end
product will be before you've

412
00:22:05,790 --> 00:22:09,390
made it and to imagine who is
going to like that end product.

413
00:22:09,550 --> 00:22:12,110
And he was like, not only do I
think that that makes bad art, I

414
00:22:12,110 --> 00:22:15,345
think that that's in fact bad
for society. Yes. And that it

415
00:22:15,345 --> 00:22:19,185
is, like, literally pretty
destructive and dangerous.

416
00:22:19,505 --> 00:22:23,985
And I was like, That's that's
now in a lot of ways.

417
00:22:24,065 --> 00:22:24,625
Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah.

418
00:22:24,625 --> 00:22:28,385
Mike Rugnetta: The consideration
of the end product before it is

419
00:22:28,385 --> 00:22:32,800
finished and the thought of how
many likes or streams or

420
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:35,520
whatever will this get. It's
like, gotta make the thing on

421
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:36,960
purpose that will be good.

422
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:39,760
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. And then
on top of that, you have just

423
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:44,255
the sheer volume of this kind of
aesthetic media, which also this

424
00:22:44,255 --> 00:22:46,815
paper goes into pretty
interestingly about, like

425
00:22:46,975 --> 00:22:47,295
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.

426
00:22:47,295 --> 00:22:49,455
Georgia Hampton: The components
of this operational aesthetic

427
00:22:49,775 --> 00:22:55,055
dealing directly with immediacy.
And, you know, what better tool

428
00:22:55,055 --> 00:22:59,470
to do this than generative AI,
which can create images of

429
00:22:59,470 --> 00:23:04,190
shrimp Jesus in half a second?
Like, it's Yeah. It's just it's

430
00:23:04,190 --> 00:23:07,710
the perfect tool for this kind
of I don't even wanna say

431
00:23:07,710 --> 00:23:10,430
abundance, because that's not
what it is. It's just volume.

432
00:23:10,510 --> 00:23:14,535
It's noise. This paper even
touched on something I'm always

433
00:23:14,535 --> 00:23:17,815
interested in, which is, you
know, the online culture that's

434
00:23:17,815 --> 00:23:23,495
fixated on, like, cores and
moods and vibes as replacements

435
00:23:23,495 --> 00:23:27,510
of any kind of meaningful
aesthetic categorization because

436
00:23:27,510 --> 00:23:28,790
that's not really what it is.

437
00:23:28,790 --> 00:23:31,030
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Or, like,
art making community, really, is

438
00:23:31,030 --> 00:23:31,830
Georgia Hampton: what Exactly.

439
00:23:31,830 --> 00:23:33,110
Mike Rugnetta: Like it replaces.
Yeah.

440
00:23:33,110 --> 00:23:36,230
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Even
something as culturally broad

441
00:23:36,390 --> 00:23:41,715
as, like, I don't know, goth or
something. Like, it's not even

442
00:23:41,715 --> 00:23:45,555
that. It's just, like, what what
is the thing I can look up and

443
00:23:45,555 --> 00:23:48,355
see a bunch of content about?

444
00:23:48,355 --> 00:23:49,955
Mike Rugnetta: Hans, you look
like you're gonna say something.

445
00:23:50,355 --> 00:23:53,555
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Because my
paper, titled feed them slop.

446
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:55,920
Mike Rugnetta: Yum

447
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:59,440
Hans Buetow: yum. Alignment,
attunement, and the affective

448
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:04,960
lure of slopaganda by Robert
Topinka goes a little bit hard

449
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:07,360
at some of the points that you
were just making. Like, the pave

450
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:10,695
it's a great pivot from what you
were just saying in Georgia of

451
00:24:10,695 --> 00:24:14,935
this idea of ambience. Right? So
he's talking Robert's talking a

452
00:24:14,935 --> 00:24:18,455
lot in this about ambience is
that it's this is all about how

453
00:24:18,455 --> 00:24:24,775
the attunement of a Slop AI is
ambient rhetoric.

454
00:24:26,050 --> 00:24:30,610
It's not so it's drawing in the
concept of ambient rhetoric, and

455
00:24:30,610 --> 00:24:33,570
so he says, which describes
rhetoric not as persuasion

456
00:24:33,570 --> 00:24:37,410
between individual agents, but
as a process of attunement to

457
00:24:37,410 --> 00:24:40,850
conditions, moods, and
affordances. Sure.

458
00:24:41,255 --> 00:24:44,775
Mike Rugnetta: That's the vibe.
That sounds like the vibe.

459
00:24:44,935 --> 00:24:47,415
Hans Buetow: And that's actually
what it's and that's why it's

460
00:24:47,415 --> 00:24:50,855
not for anyone specifically. It
it does the whole thing here.

461
00:24:50,855 --> 00:24:56,120
And so in this, he actually
actually goes into he talks

462
00:24:56,120 --> 00:25:00,200
about Trump's Gaza as being,
like, a a form of this, is that

463
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,000
it's really easy to deny what's
behind it and what's intended

464
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,965
and who it's for and what it
means, but it somehow resonates.

465
00:25:06,965 --> 00:25:08,085
Right? That's where he jumps
off.

466
00:25:08,085 --> 00:25:13,445
It somehow resonates with us.
And he goes through and ends up

467
00:25:13,445 --> 00:25:18,805
with Charlie Kirk and the and
the Kirk and the yeah. And what

468
00:25:18,805 --> 00:25:22,160
I found interesting about this
kinda culmination of his

469
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:30,160
argument into this is that this
is completely acceptable to a

470
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:34,880
wide range of people. It
resonates rhetorically across a

471
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:35,040
lot

472
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:36,160
Mike Rugnetta: of Perfect sense.

473
00:25:36,375 --> 00:25:37,335
Hans Buetow: This makes perfect
sense.

474
00:25:37,335 --> 00:25:37,815
Jason Oberholtzer: If you

475
00:25:37,815 --> 00:25:39,895
Hans Buetow: are on one side,
you're gonna look at this, and

476
00:25:39,895 --> 00:25:42,375
you're gonna grab it. You're
gonna be like, you see? And if

477
00:25:42,375 --> 00:25:45,335
you are on the other side,
assuming it's a binary, you're

478
00:25:45,335 --> 00:25:47,415
gonna grab it. You're gonna look
at it. You're gonna say, you

479
00:25:47,415 --> 00:25:48,055
see?

480
00:25:48,215 --> 00:25:51,630
And it's a picture of it I'm
just gonna read you a little do

481
00:25:51,630 --> 00:25:58,350
people know about the the Kirk
about about this wild world?

482
00:25:58,670 --> 00:26:02,510
Unfortunately. So this is
quoting. Soon after his murder,

483
00:26:02,510 --> 00:26:05,785
Charlie Kirk was reborn as
Terminator in AI generated

484
00:26:05,785 --> 00:26:08,345
videos featuring the far right
conspiracist, Alex Jones,

485
00:26:08,345 --> 00:26:13,385
depicted with a Hitler mustache
rousing Kirk from his bed. After

486
00:26:13,385 --> 00:26:15,945
referring to Jones with the n
word, a recurring trope in

487
00:26:15,945 --> 00:26:19,850
subsequent Kirkinator video,
Kirk joins Jones in a superhero

488
00:26:19,850 --> 00:26:23,850
style flight to Agartha, a white
sceptered subterranean kingdom

489
00:26:23,850 --> 00:26:29,130
presided over by a smiling Hulk
Hogan, JD Vance in purple gowns

490
00:26:29,130 --> 00:26:32,330
with an oversized head and curly
hair, the big boy Vance meme,

491
00:26:32,755 --> 00:26:36,515
and a white Cash Patel welcoming
Kirk to Valhalla referencing

492
00:26:36,515 --> 00:26:38,515
Patel's actual remarks

493
00:26:38,515 --> 00:26:40,035
Mike Rugnetta: after this. Is a
new one for me.

494
00:26:40,035 --> 00:26:43,715
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Woah. Woah.
Woah. Like, what a description.

495
00:26:43,715 --> 00:26:48,690
And so what all what he's saying
all of that is is all of that is

496
00:26:48,690 --> 00:26:55,490
simply AI being trained into
feeling out the vibes. Mhmm. And

497
00:26:55,490 --> 00:26:59,115
the and the rest of the
rhetorical resonances that will

498
00:26:59,115 --> 00:27:02,235
get it shared. It's kind of it
reminded me a little bit of,

499
00:27:02,235 --> 00:27:07,755
like, biological, the way that,
natural selection is described

500
00:27:07,755 --> 00:27:08,315
to us. Right?

501
00:27:08,315 --> 00:27:11,115
You have this mutation, and if
it works with the current

502
00:27:11,115 --> 00:27:14,210
circumstances, you're gonna be
able to reproduce. And so if you

503
00:27:14,210 --> 00:27:16,770
make something that's not
resonant in a particular way,

504
00:27:17,170 --> 00:27:19,570
then it's not gonna reproduce.
And there's one line in here

505
00:27:19,570 --> 00:27:22,130
which I think is just
fascinating. Ambient rhetoric.

506
00:27:22,130 --> 00:27:26,850
When talking about ambient
rhetoric, the ambient resonance

507
00:27:26,850 --> 00:27:30,025
of something, how well it
bounces off of the walls into

508
00:27:30,025 --> 00:27:36,105
us, can help explain why slop
resonates even when it's crude,

509
00:27:36,345 --> 00:27:39,145
meaningless, or pointless, which
is where I think a lot of us get

510
00:27:39,145 --> 00:27:40,185
stuck in thinking about it.

511
00:27:40,185 --> 00:27:44,720
Being like, but but but but the
thing. Mhmm. And it talks about

512
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,080
ambient rhetoric doesn't matter.
That stuff doesn't matter

513
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:52,480
because its effective lure is
that affect as an experience of

514
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:56,375
intensity is distinct from
emotion, which is intensity

515
00:27:56,375 --> 00:28:00,135
owned, recognized, and assigned
subjective content.

516
00:28:00,135 --> 00:28:02,775
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Emotion is
the thing you have the word for.

517
00:28:03,175 --> 00:28:04,535
Georgia Hampton: Yes. Yes.

518
00:28:04,775 --> 00:28:08,135
Hans Buetow: But that's not what
AI and the people making the AI.

519
00:28:09,070 --> 00:28:11,630
That's not the realm they're
functioning on.

520
00:28:11,630 --> 00:28:14,350
Georgia Hampton: No. I mean,
it's pure vibe. Like right?

521
00:28:14,350 --> 00:28:17,310
Hans Buetow: It's like Pure
rhetorical attune like, the

522
00:28:17,310 --> 00:28:19,470
thing I like about this paper is
there's all rhetorical

523
00:28:19,470 --> 00:28:24,775
attunements. Right? They have
effect ambient resonance,

524
00:28:24,775 --> 00:28:28,855
ambient propaganda, ambient
rhetoric. They have the they

525
00:28:28,855 --> 00:28:32,295
started out with the emotional
sediment of looking at one of

526
00:28:32,295 --> 00:28:32,615
these.

527
00:28:32,615 --> 00:28:34,215
Mike Rugnetta: Hans, chat is
raising some interesting

528
00:28:34,215 --> 00:28:39,060
questions about how active this
process is as far as, like, an

529
00:28:39,060 --> 00:28:44,500
an operator of the technology,
you know, versus letting a

530
00:28:44,500 --> 00:28:48,260
generative system kind of figure
out what things should look

531
00:28:48,260 --> 00:28:51,535
like. Right? We assume that
there is always human

532
00:28:51,535 --> 00:28:54,175
involvement in the act of
posting, but there does not

533
00:28:54,175 --> 00:28:57,375
necessarily need to be human
involvement, or there can be

534
00:28:57,375 --> 00:29:00,815
varying amounts of human
involvement in the act of

535
00:29:01,615 --> 00:29:03,215
prompting and generating.

536
00:29:03,215 --> 00:29:05,800
Hans Buetow: Well, they actually
address that because they talk

537
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,760
about the prompt that the prompt
is actually one of the most

538
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,400
important things about that.

539
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:15,160
Mike Rugnetta: Well, because I
imagine that it both it encloses

540
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:20,805
space and leaves certain space
open for interpretation, and I

541
00:29:20,805 --> 00:29:24,565
would expect that the tension
between those two things is

542
00:29:24,565 --> 00:29:29,600
where the model gets to be like,
well, you know, however however

543
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:34,480
it is made by Sam Altman or John
Anthropic. I don't know. I've

544
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:34,800
always

545
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,120
Hans Buetow: John Anthropic.

546
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,440
Mike Rugnetta: You know, like,
however it is designed. Right?

547
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:43,665
Those are those are the places
where it gets to huge scare

548
00:29:43,665 --> 00:29:47,025
quotes, decides what what things
look like.

549
00:29:47,025 --> 00:29:49,265
Hans Buetow: Yeah. And so what
you're doing is the line is in

550
00:29:49,265 --> 00:29:52,225
the case of AI slop, the
prompter is a rhetor, as in

551
00:29:52,225 --> 00:29:55,265
rhetorical, is the rhetor
constraining the model's

552
00:29:55,265 --> 00:29:59,400
capacity in ways attuned to
ambient affects. When you're in

553
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,080
there doing these prompts, you
are essentially taking this vast

554
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:08,040
90% of this data has been taken
from very privileged places with

555
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:13,535
very specific particular point
of view and narrowing the beam

556
00:30:13,535 --> 00:30:17,615
onto that. And so it it it gives
it enough parameters to be able

557
00:30:17,615 --> 00:30:21,935
to say to be successful enough
of the time at saying, I'm

558
00:30:21,935 --> 00:30:23,535
catching the vibe. Yeah.

559
00:30:23,615 --> 00:30:27,470
And it's kind of because it's
wide aperture like that that

560
00:30:27,470 --> 00:30:30,990
it's not I'm targeting this
person or I'm saying this thing.

561
00:30:31,310 --> 00:30:33,950
And he's talking about, like,
this is you can anyone can get

562
00:30:33,950 --> 00:30:36,670
suckered into any of this stuff,
and so it's not even for any

563
00:30:36,670 --> 00:30:41,550
individual ideology or anything.
It can kind of go anywhere. It

564
00:30:41,550 --> 00:30:42,510
just has to resonate.

565
00:30:42,755 --> 00:30:45,715
Mike Rugnetta: I would be so
curious to know, but not curious

566
00:30:45,715 --> 00:30:51,555
enough to do it myself. Like, if
you were to run, like, a local

567
00:30:51,555 --> 00:30:56,835
Chinese model that had a that
was, like, benchmarked six

568
00:30:56,835 --> 00:31:00,230
months ago or something just on
your computer

569
00:31:00,470 --> 00:31:00,710
Hans Buetow: Yeah.

570
00:31:00,790 --> 00:31:03,990
Mike Rugnetta: And then ask it
to generate similar things.

571
00:31:04,070 --> 00:31:06,630
Right? But then go and do
something that's always

572
00:31:06,630 --> 00:31:09,270
connected to the Internet,
that's a frontier model that,

573
00:31:09,270 --> 00:31:12,710
like, people are constant you
know, these companies are

574
00:31:12,710 --> 00:31:18,495
constantly updating. You know,
is how what's the vibe gulf

575
00:31:18,495 --> 00:31:20,015
between the two? Mhmm.

576
00:31:20,015 --> 00:31:21,935
And is there and is there one?

577
00:31:22,015 --> 00:31:25,455
Hans Buetow: Mhmm. I think
that's important. And and and

578
00:31:25,455 --> 00:31:27,615
part of it is, like, what's
being trained into them. Right?

579
00:31:27,615 --> 00:31:31,750
Part of it is that, you know,
he's talking in this paper about

580
00:31:31,750 --> 00:31:34,870
how it's all being encoded just
in what's being trained, what is

581
00:31:34,870 --> 00:31:35,670
being trained on.

582
00:31:35,670 --> 00:31:38,070
That's giving it a parameter of,
oh, this is the universe in

583
00:31:38,070 --> 00:31:41,590
which I exist because this is
the sum total of my data. Okay.

584
00:31:41,715 --> 00:31:44,275
I get kind of the boundaries,
and then you further refine the

585
00:31:44,275 --> 00:31:45,235
boundaries in there.

586
00:31:45,795 --> 00:31:47,395
Mike Rugnetta: That's
fascinating. Yeah.

587
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:57,040
Georgia Hampton: Jason, I wanna
know about your paper.

588
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,080
Jason Oberholtzer: I think it's
actually a good place to end up

589
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,920
with these three, because the
paper that I read titled

590
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,600
Degenerative AI, AI Slop Brain
Rot, and the Gimmick of

591
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:13,895
Generative Culture, which was
authored by Adeel Gallip, who's

592
00:32:13,895 --> 00:32:17,895
at the University of Amsterdam
in The Netherlands, and Ludmilla

593
00:32:17,895 --> 00:32:22,855
Lapinacci, who's at the
University of Leeds, spends a

594
00:32:22,855 --> 00:32:26,020
fair amount of time on the
framing of things. And I'm going

595
00:32:26,020 --> 00:32:30,660
to jump to their final sentence
where they tell you their point

596
00:32:30,660 --> 00:32:31,940
before we take you guys through
the journey.

597
00:32:31,940 --> 00:32:32,820
Georgia Hampton: Of course.

598
00:32:32,820 --> 00:32:35,060
Mike Rugnetta: For anybody who
doesn't read a lot of academic

599
00:32:35,060 --> 00:32:38,025
papers, a thousand percent, you
should read the abstract first

600
00:32:38,025 --> 00:32:39,785
and the conclusion second. Yes.

601
00:32:39,785 --> 00:32:41,705
Hans Buetow: Big time. Big time.
Yes.

602
00:32:42,505 --> 00:32:44,825
Jason Oberholtzer: Because they
are arguing that we focus on

603
00:32:44,825 --> 00:32:49,385
this kind of media. Brain Rot as
a media, as something that,

604
00:32:49,385 --> 00:32:52,330
like, we are all the
conversation heretofore has been

605
00:32:52,330 --> 00:32:55,370
like in the weeds of it. They're
taking the container. And

606
00:32:55,370 --> 00:32:58,570
they're thinking we should look
at it differently or from a

607
00:32:58,570 --> 00:33:00,650
different critical position. So
they say, ultimately, in

608
00:33:00,650 --> 00:33:03,795
focusing on those genres and
experiences that are usually

609
00:33:03,795 --> 00:33:07,075
assumed to be invariably
unproductive and degenerative,

610
00:33:07,315 --> 00:33:10,115
we hope to highlight their
potentiality for critical

611
00:33:10,115 --> 00:33:13,795
academic inquiry, which can
perhaps further explore them as

612
00:33:13,795 --> 00:33:17,530
particular frictive forms that
complicate and contribute to

613
00:33:17,530 --> 00:33:20,730
discussions on the growing and
shitification of digital

614
00:33:20,730 --> 00:33:21,370
culture.

615
00:33:21,610 --> 00:33:26,010
In making that argument, they're
relying really heavily on this

616
00:33:26,010 --> 00:33:31,450
paper from 2020. This book
actually from 2020 from Xi'an

617
00:33:31,450 --> 00:33:35,475
Nye, The Theory of the Gimmick,
Aesthetic Judgment and

618
00:33:35,475 --> 00:33:40,755
Capitalist Form. And I spent
some time today looking through

619
00:33:40,755 --> 00:33:43,315
parts of that book. It's I
bought it. It seems fascinating.

620
00:33:43,315 --> 00:33:44,675
I cannot wait for it to get
here.

621
00:33:44,675 --> 00:33:45,560
Georgia Hampton: Sounds awesome.

622
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:47,400
Mike Rugnetta: I gave you this
one, Jason, because I was like,

623
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,680
if anybody on the staff is gonna
be into a book about the gimmick

624
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:52,680
Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be Jason.

625
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:54,440
Hans Buetow: Oh, that's awesome.
That's my back.

626
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:58,280
Georgia Hampton: Objectionable
and yet strangely attractive.

627
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,735
Yeah. This is what they call the
gimmick. This looks awesome.

628
00:34:02,815 --> 00:34:03,535
Hell yeah.

629
00:34:03,535 --> 00:34:07,695
Jason Oberholtzer: So I think
one of the main challenges, with

630
00:34:07,935 --> 00:34:11,535
the paper even though they they
present their case, I think,

631
00:34:11,615 --> 00:34:15,290
fairly, legibly. But one of the
challenges is that they are the

632
00:34:15,290 --> 00:34:19,850
the bulk of their argument is we
should think of brain rot along

633
00:34:19,850 --> 00:34:24,490
the lines that Nye is thinking
about the gimmick as this

634
00:34:24,490 --> 00:34:29,465
ultimate form of, like,
capitalist output. And so, like,

635
00:34:29,465 --> 00:34:31,625
they give you the answer for why
that should be true, and then

636
00:34:31,625 --> 00:34:34,105
the answer to like deeply what
that means, I think is contained

637
00:34:34,105 --> 00:34:38,665
in 350 pages of Ni's work. So I
do not have the rest of that,

638
00:34:38,665 --> 00:34:41,400
but I have like the outline of
it to give you why they think

639
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,360
that is interesting, and I think
it's interesting enough to have

640
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,760
bought the book. So they start
the paper, do Gadelope and

641
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,280
Lupinacci, kind of cataloging
some of the interesting

642
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:57,575
terminology that is used most
frequently to describe this

643
00:34:57,575 --> 00:34:59,815
material, to describe brain rot
stuff.

644
00:35:00,055 --> 00:35:04,135
And I just put it all under the
heading of body stuff. Yeah. It

645
00:35:04,135 --> 00:35:08,400
is Cronenbergen. So this is from
their paper. Slop has become the

646
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,160
shorthand for derivative, and
low quality synthetic content

647
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,120
that aims to simply fill up and
saturate social media, and keeps

648
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,920
us passively entertained,
resulting in feeds that are

649
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:20,560
contextless, stupefying, and
most importantly, never ending.

650
00:35:21,165 --> 00:35:24,445
In this scope, AI slop is often
described with references to

651
00:35:24,445 --> 00:35:27,725
metabolic processes, in which
the content itself is analogous

652
00:35:27,725 --> 00:35:31,965
to an unappetizing ultra
processed food that is easy to

653
00:35:31,965 --> 00:35:36,250
digest, even though not tasteful
or particularly refined. More

654
00:35:36,250 --> 00:35:38,970
broadly, generative AI has been
described as operating within a

655
00:35:38,970 --> 00:35:42,570
metabolic cycle of consumption
and excretion, resulting from

656
00:35:42,570 --> 00:35:45,850
Big Tech devouring the total
creative output of humankind,

657
00:35:45,850 --> 00:35:48,785
and then puking out extremely
bad versions of this

658
00:35:48,785 --> 00:35:50,145
regurgitated work.

659
00:35:50,305 --> 00:35:51,185
Georgia Hampton: Jesus.

660
00:35:51,425 --> 00:35:54,305
Jason Oberholtzer: And that is
like, there's seven citations to

661
00:35:54,305 --> 00:35:57,185
that. They are they are full
quoting other people's Mean it.

662
00:35:57,265 --> 00:35:59,985
Yes. Phrase by phrase, they're
full quoting other people's

663
00:35:59,985 --> 00:36:03,100
language that they've used to
make these sentences.

664
00:36:03,500 --> 00:36:05,260
Hans Buetow: You know what this
reminds me of? It's a little bit

665
00:36:05,260 --> 00:36:08,620
of the the episode that Mike did
about horror.

666
00:36:08,700 --> 00:36:10,700
Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. And Oh,
Foodgore.

667
00:36:10,780 --> 00:36:13,420
Hans Buetow: Right? Though this
feels very similar about, like,

668
00:36:13,420 --> 00:36:15,900
the horror that we're attracted
to. Please continue, Jason. Tell

669
00:36:15,900 --> 00:36:16,540
us more.

670
00:36:16,540 --> 00:36:18,335
Jason Oberholtzer: So they
didn't say that brain rot in

671
00:36:18,335 --> 00:36:21,615
turn, so that is slop, our
regurgitative Cronenbergian

672
00:36:21,615 --> 00:36:25,295
mess. And brain rot is primarily
understood here as a popular

673
00:36:25,295 --> 00:36:29,135
genre of surrealist AI generated
or assumed to be AI generated

674
00:36:29,350 --> 00:36:33,910
slop. And therefore, largely
under suspicion both for its

675
00:36:33,910 --> 00:36:37,510
apparent meaninglessness and its
potential hidden meanings.

676
00:36:37,510 --> 00:36:40,550
Encoded meanings, really, like
Yes. Yeah.

677
00:36:40,550 --> 00:36:43,750
Exactly that. They continue this
framing here and I think like

678
00:36:43,750 --> 00:36:47,615
this is sort of important here.
This happens both like as a way

679
00:36:47,615 --> 00:36:50,495
of being or as a way of like
feeling about it and like a

680
00:36:50,495 --> 00:36:54,415
couple quotes they pull here to
describe the feeling or the

681
00:36:54,415 --> 00:36:58,335
state of being in brain rot is
an overwhelming almost narcotic

682
00:36:58,335 --> 00:37:02,480
effect, Unsatisfying and
annoying. A deterioration of a

683
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:06,080
person's mental or intellectual
state. And here is where like we

684
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:08,800
start the parallels into what
Nye is basically saying at

685
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:09,120
length

686
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:09,280
Hans Buetow: Yeah.

687
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,160
Jason Oberholtzer: Is the
capitalist economy in which we

688
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,435
exist where output starts to
take on these sorts of

689
00:37:15,435 --> 00:37:18,875
qualities. And then the second
piece of framing here is as a

690
00:37:18,875 --> 00:37:21,595
method of production, the
production of brain rot.

691
00:37:21,595 --> 00:37:24,555
Described as easy to generate AI
material, produce with minimal

692
00:37:24,555 --> 00:37:28,990
effort, a world of creativity
without craft, deskilled, which

693
00:37:28,990 --> 00:37:32,990
people are offloading. And so
therefore, it becomes a gimmick,

694
00:37:33,070 --> 00:37:37,390
the gimmick of generative
culture. Illegitimate, wasteful,

695
00:37:37,630 --> 00:37:38,990
and deceptive.

696
00:37:39,070 --> 00:37:42,755
So in the theory of the gimmick,
Nye argues that the

697
00:37:42,755 --> 00:37:46,835
contradictions that explain why
tricks are perceived as icky and

698
00:37:46,835 --> 00:37:50,355
yet somehow alluring are related
to three interconnected issues

699
00:37:50,355 --> 00:37:54,195
of capitalist life. Labor,
value, and time.

700
00:37:54,195 --> 00:37:54,835
Georgia Hampton: That's it.

701
00:37:54,835 --> 00:37:56,570
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Those
are the big three. I tried to

702
00:37:56,570 --> 00:38:00,650
briefly summarize what go into
those three buckets here. Labor,

703
00:38:00,730 --> 00:38:05,690
these gimmicks are both time
wasting and time saving. So we

704
00:38:05,690 --> 00:38:06,810
think about brain rot.

705
00:38:06,810 --> 00:38:10,855
The creation of brain rot is
time saving. It takes nobody, no

706
00:38:10,855 --> 00:38:13,415
amount of time to make a thing
and isn't that a productivity

707
00:38:13,415 --> 00:38:16,615
gain, but it is time wasting
that when you touch it, your

708
00:38:16,615 --> 00:38:19,975
time is getting sucked from you.
You are rotting into this space.

709
00:38:19,975 --> 00:38:23,140
This is not a productive use of
your time. So we have created

710
00:38:23,140 --> 00:38:26,900
production by saving creation
hours by turning to this, and

711
00:38:26,900 --> 00:38:30,420
yet stolen production by having
you engage with it at the same

712
00:38:30,420 --> 00:38:30,740
time.

713
00:38:30,740 --> 00:38:32,500
That's the paradox and the labor
of it.

714
00:38:32,500 --> 00:38:34,260
Georgia Hampton: Can I say
something that is very in line

715
00:38:34,260 --> 00:38:34,660
with

716
00:38:34,660 --> 00:38:34,820
Mike Rugnetta: Yes?

717
00:38:34,900 --> 00:38:37,405
Georgia Hampton: What you're
saying from my paper, which is

718
00:38:37,405 --> 00:38:40,525
that from an aesthetic
perspective, you know, so many

719
00:38:40,525 --> 00:38:44,525
AI adherents declare that these
models and tools will

720
00:38:44,525 --> 00:38:48,445
democratize art making and
creative processes. The paper I

721
00:38:48,445 --> 00:38:53,400
read argues that the only thing
it democratizes is the

722
00:38:53,400 --> 00:39:00,440
participation in a specific form
of aesthetic productivity. Yes.

723
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:03,480
Like, you're doing is
Productivity. Democratizing

724
00:39:03,695 --> 00:39:04,415
speed.

725
00:39:04,415 --> 00:39:07,055
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. It democrat
you democratize access to

726
00:39:07,055 --> 00:39:09,055
output. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

727
00:39:09,055 --> 00:39:10,895
Hans Buetow: Yep. That's good.
Well said.

728
00:39:10,895 --> 00:39:13,695
Mike Rugnetta: I think it's this
is also related to the stuff

729
00:39:13,695 --> 00:39:16,415
that's from the introduction,
which is like, there is a way in

730
00:39:16,415 --> 00:39:20,860
which the affective and
intellectual labor that is

731
00:39:20,860 --> 00:39:25,900
needed or that is sort of forced
from you when appraising feeds

732
00:39:25,900 --> 00:39:29,980
full of this stuff causes time
to dilate a little bit. There's

733
00:39:29,980 --> 00:39:35,425
a kind of speed bump or
roadblock or we'll talk about it

734
00:39:35,425 --> 00:39:39,265
in my paper, a kind of goo you
get stuck in that, like, slows

735
00:39:39,265 --> 00:39:42,865
everything down just because of
all of the extra labor that you

736
00:39:42,865 --> 00:39:48,660
have to exert in order to even
perceive and contextualize it

737
00:39:48,820 --> 00:39:49,060
Hans Buetow: Yeah.

738
00:39:49,060 --> 00:39:51,380
Mike Rugnetta: An effort which
is maybe pointless in some

739
00:39:51,380 --> 00:39:51,940
senses.

740
00:39:51,940 --> 00:39:54,500
Jason Oberholtzer: And I think
it's really relevant that a lot

741
00:39:54,500 --> 00:39:59,305
of analysis reaches for the same
kind of language. Like our

742
00:39:59,305 --> 00:40:05,305
disgust is ironically so
viscerally human that all we can

743
00:40:05,305 --> 00:40:09,625
do is talk about slop and
metabolic process and goo and

744
00:40:09,625 --> 00:40:13,730
ooze and that is just the
feeling that this emotes from

745
00:40:13,970 --> 00:40:17,570
ironically, one of like the more
anodyne mechanical processes of

746
00:40:17,570 --> 00:40:21,410
creation. Okay. So that's labor.
Labor.

747
00:40:21,410 --> 00:40:24,690
We got time wasting and time
saving in conflict with each

748
00:40:24,690 --> 00:40:29,075
other. Value. This is again,
sort of the theory of the

749
00:40:29,075 --> 00:40:34,115
gimmick as proposed by Nye, now
sort of used as a skin to

750
00:40:34,115 --> 00:40:39,075
approach brain rot. Value of
brain rot is quote, compelling

751
00:40:39,155 --> 00:40:43,620
but meaningless. Their
computational capitalism's most

752
00:40:43,620 --> 00:40:46,820
recent hype and also its biggest
embarrassment.

753
00:40:46,900 --> 00:40:50,500
It is bad economics. Companies
are losing money, the promised

754
00:40:50,500 --> 00:40:54,740
savings are not materializing,
and in fact, and this is quoting

755
00:40:54,740 --> 00:40:58,905
from them, AI sloppers do not
make much money from circulating

756
00:40:58,905 --> 00:41:03,225
slop, but rather through selling
how to slop tutorials.

757
00:41:03,305 --> 00:41:05,305
Hans Buetow: Oh. Cool.

758
00:41:05,385 --> 00:41:09,210
Mike Rugnetta: You too can slop.
You there, sir. Would you like

759
00:41:09,210 --> 00:41:09,770
to slap?

760
00:41:09,770 --> 00:41:11,690
Georgia Hampton: Greetings,
trameleur.

761
00:41:11,770 --> 00:41:13,770
Hans Buetow: I'm one. Come on.

762
00:41:14,250 --> 00:41:15,690
Jason Oberholtzer: What do you
buy in?

763
00:41:15,690 --> 00:41:17,130
Georgia Hampton: What do you
sell in?

764
00:41:17,290 --> 00:41:20,010
Jason Oberholtzer: So that is
the paradox of value.

765
00:41:20,245 --> 00:41:24,485
Compelling, but meaningless. And
beyond the tumult and the fervor

766
00:41:24,485 --> 00:41:29,045
of its financing, actually, it
is inconsistent to tell the

767
00:41:29,045 --> 00:41:33,810
extent to which value is being
produced. Finally, time. They

768
00:41:33,810 --> 00:41:38,210
talk about the current moment in
generative AI and brain rot

769
00:41:38,450 --> 00:41:42,850
technology, specifically, as
presented here already in a

770
00:41:42,850 --> 00:41:47,810
state of temporal manipulation
where it is already quote too

771
00:41:47,810 --> 00:41:48,290
late.

772
00:41:49,115 --> 00:41:50,155
Georgia Hampton: Interesting.

773
00:41:51,355 --> 00:41:54,875
Jason Oberholtzer: AI has
arrived. Everybody is using it.

774
00:41:54,875 --> 00:41:58,315
We need to have it. There is
nothing we can do to turn this

775
00:41:58,315 --> 00:42:01,115
around. It has already arrived,
and it is too late to do

776
00:42:01,115 --> 00:42:01,755
anything about it.

777
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,120
All of which are deeply untrue
things.

778
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:05,440
Georgia Hampton: Yes.

779
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:06,720
Jason Oberholtzer: But this is
how it is presented.

780
00:42:06,720 --> 00:42:10,160
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Yes. I refer
you to my most re recent

781
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:11,200
episode.

782
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:11,840
Georgia Hampton: Mhmm.

783
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:12,480
Jason Oberholtzer: Yes.

784
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:14,560
Georgia Hampton: Yeah.
Inevitability is an interesting,

785
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:17,200
like, concept in the middle of
all this.

786
00:42:17,615 --> 00:42:18,095
Jason Oberholtzer: Right?

787
00:42:18,095 --> 00:42:20,815
Georgia Hampton: Because there's
also a a sort of I feel like

788
00:42:20,815 --> 00:42:24,815
when inevitability is invoked in
conversations about this, it is

789
00:42:24,815 --> 00:42:31,055
very much producing a level of
cynicism and hopelessness,

790
00:42:31,055 --> 00:42:35,260
powerlessness. Like, it's not
treated as something we can

791
00:42:35,260 --> 00:42:38,940
engage like, the that slop or
any presence of AI is something

792
00:42:38,940 --> 00:42:42,780
we can engage with, question,
push back on, categorize,

793
00:42:42,940 --> 00:42:45,685
investigate in any meaningful
way. Like, I I don't know. I

794
00:42:45,685 --> 00:42:49,445
find the use of inevitability is
always to a specific end, which

795
00:42:49,445 --> 00:42:54,165
is to make you feel sort of
cynically placated Yeah. Anyway.

796
00:42:54,165 --> 00:42:56,885
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. So
that's basically how they

797
00:42:56,885 --> 00:43:00,325
stretch the concept of brain rot
and generative AI in this moment

798
00:43:00,325 --> 00:43:05,340
across the skein that Nye has so
graciously provided here, and

799
00:43:05,340 --> 00:43:08,380
they wrap it up with this
conclusion, or their penultimate

800
00:43:08,380 --> 00:43:11,500
paragraph. I'll save you the
final conclusions for yourself.

801
00:43:11,740 --> 00:43:15,340
Together, these three dimensions
detailed above, labor, value,

802
00:43:15,340 --> 00:43:18,725
and time, expose the inherent
contradictions of generative AI,

803
00:43:18,725 --> 00:43:21,845
and offer us a useful conceptual
vantage point for making sense

804
00:43:21,845 --> 00:43:25,365
of the overall mix of
captivation and dissatisfaction

805
00:43:25,365 --> 00:43:29,045
that seems to permeate the
assumed everyday encounter with

806
00:43:29,045 --> 00:43:33,180
these products. As gimmicky
aesthetic forms, slop and brain

807
00:43:33,180 --> 00:43:35,100
rot are marked by ambiguities.

808
00:43:35,260 --> 00:43:37,340
They depend on highly
sophisticated computational

809
00:43:37,340 --> 00:43:40,060
systems, and yet result in
deskilling, cognitive

810
00:43:40,060 --> 00:43:43,825
offloading, and creative
craftlessness. They rely upon

811
00:43:43,825 --> 00:43:46,865
endless injection of wealth from
venture capital, and yet result

812
00:43:46,865 --> 00:43:51,105
in perceived impoverished
creative outputs. They are, as

813
00:43:51,105 --> 00:43:55,345
the aesthetic category of the
gimmick theorized by Shian Nye,

814
00:43:55,505 --> 00:44:00,670
sad marvels. Always enchanting
and repulsive at once, and never

815
00:44:00,670 --> 00:44:06,750
simply one or the other. Gun
noises, sirens, Chiron.

816
00:44:07,710 --> 00:44:13,555
Absolutely rips. I think the
final point to put on this is,

817
00:44:13,955 --> 00:44:16,835
in as much as I'm understanding
the greater point that is Naya

818
00:44:16,835 --> 00:44:20,835
is making, I think she's also
making an argument that like,

819
00:44:21,315 --> 00:44:24,435
this has always been the the
gimmick as she says, is the

820
00:44:24,435 --> 00:44:28,810
hallmark of capitalism, and
perhaps has like a value we need

821
00:44:28,810 --> 00:44:32,250
to understand past the like slam
dunking of certain sentences

822
00:44:32,250 --> 00:44:35,690
like we just ended that paper
with. Mhmm. And that's what I'm

823
00:44:35,690 --> 00:44:37,370
interested to investigate more
from her work.

824
00:44:37,370 --> 00:44:39,370
Hans Buetow: Yeah. But Mike, you
read something too. Right?

825
00:44:39,495 --> 00:44:41,735
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And there's
a lot of it seems like there's a

826
00:44:41,735 --> 00:44:44,695
lot of sort of similarities or
synergies, like connecting

827
00:44:44,695 --> 00:44:47,815
points between what I read and
what Jason read. What I read was

828
00:44:48,055 --> 00:44:50,615
actually, I didn't realize it at
first. It's pretty short,

829
00:44:50,615 --> 00:44:53,415
relatively straightforward, and
kinda just tries to go ahead and

830
00:44:53,415 --> 00:44:58,800
make one one point and is sort
of like a charge or an

831
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:03,360
encouragement to think about the
things that you might call slop

832
00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:08,480
in a very specific way inspired
by the fact that you would call

833
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:10,935
them slop. So Hans, if you wanna
I'm sharing my screen.

834
00:45:10,935 --> 00:45:14,535
If you wanna pop up the paper,
we can take a look at it. So I

835
00:45:14,535 --> 00:45:19,095
read Computational Gallert,
Compressions of Culture.

836
00:45:19,335 --> 00:45:19,735
Hans Buetow: Wait. I'm sorry.

837
00:45:19,735 --> 00:45:20,295
Mike Rugnetta: What was that?

838
00:45:20,295 --> 00:45:20,935
Georgia Hampton: You read what?

839
00:45:21,700 --> 00:45:25,140
Mike Rugnetta: Computational
Gallert? Gallertie?

840
00:45:27,780 --> 00:45:28,500
Hans Buetow: Gallert. By

841
00:45:28,500 --> 00:45:31,620
Mike Rugnetta: Daniel de oh,
boy. Sorry, Daniel. Daniel de

842
00:45:31,780 --> 00:45:33,140
zoo? Zoo?

843
00:45:33,140 --> 00:45:34,100
Hans Buetow: Zoo? Yeah.

844
00:45:36,385 --> 00:45:41,025
Mike Rugnetta: And the the basic
charge here is, like, right, we

845
00:45:41,025 --> 00:45:46,385
call it slop because we perceive
it as not mass culture, but hog

846
00:45:46,385 --> 00:45:50,225
feed. Right. And I

847
00:45:50,225 --> 00:45:50,705
Georgia Hampton: think Slop.

848
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,360
Mike Rugnetta: This this
connects to the kind of

849
00:45:54,520 --> 00:46:00,520
gustatory not gustatory,
metabolic set of metaphors like

850
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,800
what Jason was talking about.
Right? These are this is all

851
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:14,175
about sort of gorging, binging
undifferentiated masses, just

852
00:46:14,175 --> 00:46:21,970
massive huge amounts of material
that when considered are just

853
00:46:21,970 --> 00:46:31,010
sort of disgusting in a way or
are massive in that they are a

854
00:46:31,010 --> 00:46:33,810
mass. It is a mass of things.
Yeah.

855
00:46:33,810 --> 00:46:36,130
Which is I I don't think a way
that you ever describe something

856
00:46:36,130 --> 00:46:37,745
that you like. No.

857
00:46:39,105 --> 00:46:41,905
Georgia Hampton: No. I I'm glad
you're mentioning kind of the

858
00:46:41,985 --> 00:46:46,225
grotesque quality. To go back
honestly to your piece that

859
00:46:46,305 --> 00:46:51,345
about horror and and, like,
disgust as a tool of engagement,

860
00:46:51,345 --> 00:46:56,940
I think I think the disgusting,
grotesque nature of this kind of

861
00:46:56,940 --> 00:47:00,060
content is very essential to
talking about it at all.

862
00:47:00,700 --> 00:47:03,340
Mike Rugnetta: So that's I mean,
really, that's what Daniel talks

863
00:47:03,340 --> 00:47:07,580
about in this. And he starts
with this idea from Marx, the,

864
00:47:07,740 --> 00:47:12,995
Gallert, which is there's a
point in here about how it is

865
00:47:12,995 --> 00:47:22,195
translated. The 2024 English
translation translation of

866
00:47:22,195 --> 00:47:26,490
Capital renders the German word
Galert as gelatinous blob rather

867
00:47:26,490 --> 00:47:30,650
than the more formal condulation
of earlier editions. This was

868
00:47:30,650 --> 00:47:33,290
thought to better convey its
association with food processing

869
00:47:33,290 --> 00:47:36,810
and industrial waste, the
troubling history of which Marx

870
00:47:36,975 --> 00:47:39,775
was well aware. And what the
Gullaher is is it's basically

871
00:47:39,775 --> 00:47:48,095
like the, what is made, the mass
of labor that is made when

872
00:47:48,415 --> 00:47:55,170
actual human beings exert force
and labor, in the application of

873
00:47:55,170 --> 00:47:57,970
their bodies, but then are just
removed.

874
00:47:58,130 --> 00:47:58,450
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.

875
00:47:58,690 --> 00:48:01,810
Mike Rugnetta: They are sort of
just separated. This is, I

876
00:48:01,810 --> 00:48:05,505
think, not quite alienation.
It's sort of a more almost

877
00:48:05,505 --> 00:48:10,065
primordial version of the idea.
And what is left behind is this,

878
00:48:10,065 --> 00:48:13,985
like, yeah, congelation. As the
distilled and compressed human

879
00:48:13,985 --> 00:48:17,825
labor objectified in commodities
and capital that possesses a

880
00:48:17,825 --> 00:48:21,640
phantom like objectivity,
Gallert simultaneously provides

881
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:25,560
an apt figure of labor's violent
conversion into capital.

882
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:30,760
Just as the gelatin produced in
large kettles or acid baths no

883
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,955
longer showed any identifiable
traces of the bones or other

884
00:48:34,955 --> 00:48:38,235
animal waste products fed into
it. This is what I was thinking.

885
00:48:38,555 --> 00:48:42,555
Yeah. So there is no longer
existed any sensuous trace of

886
00:48:42,555 --> 00:48:46,875
the concrete human labor
absorbed into capital via market

887
00:48:46,875 --> 00:48:49,890
commodity exchange. Shotgun
sound.

888
00:48:49,890 --> 00:48:50,770
Shotgun sound.

889
00:48:50,770 --> 00:48:54,850
Hans Buetow: Damn. Yeah. It's
it's extrusion. It's congealing.

890
00:48:54,850 --> 00:48:57,570
It's like the same sort of thing
where it's com you know, it's

891
00:48:57,570 --> 00:48:58,610
the chicken McNugget.

892
00:48:58,610 --> 00:49:01,330
It's the it's plastic. Right?
You don't see the dinosaur bones

893
00:49:01,330 --> 00:49:01,810
anymore.

894
00:49:01,810 --> 00:49:04,115
Mike Rugnetta: Those of you who
follow me on Instagram will know

895
00:49:04,115 --> 00:49:06,515
that I'm currently in my goo
period.

896
00:49:06,515 --> 00:49:08,675
Georgia Hampton: Oh, big time.
I've been meaning to talk to you

897
00:49:08,675 --> 00:49:13,075
about this. I've been very
invested.

898
00:49:13,075 --> 00:49:15,955
Mike Rugnetta: Gooing it up, you
know, getting served lots of

899
00:49:15,955 --> 00:49:22,640
Belzona videos. But I think that
there's there is something that

900
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:27,600
feels it's very visceral. This
is very, very visceral, I think,

901
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:30,560
for a number of reasons, and
then it is I think a lot of us

902
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:35,575
feel like we are being force fed
some things. We do not feel in

903
00:49:35,575 --> 00:49:40,215
control of many of the things
that enter into our our brains

904
00:49:40,215 --> 00:49:44,910
or our our bodies in a way. We
feel as though a lot of the

905
00:49:44,910 --> 00:49:49,230
things that we're being shown
are an undifferentiated mass.

906
00:49:49,550 --> 00:49:54,270
We have to do work to parcel
things out as they cross our

907
00:49:54,270 --> 00:49:56,990
feed, and that work is
exhausting. So we feel like we

908
00:49:56,990 --> 00:49:59,835
are we really are, like,
laboring in a way.

909
00:49:59,835 --> 00:50:00,155
Hans Buetow: Yeah.

910
00:50:00,155 --> 00:50:03,675
Mike Rugnetta: There is both a
sense and the actuality that,

911
00:50:03,675 --> 00:50:08,395
like, the things that we love in
culture that exist are being

912
00:50:09,035 --> 00:50:12,730
melted melted down
metaphorically in order to fuel

913
00:50:12,730 --> 00:50:17,930
these processes or ripped apart
literally in other senses for

914
00:50:17,930 --> 00:50:20,810
the people who have been
following the news about Amazon

915
00:50:20,810 --> 00:50:26,125
and Anthropic destroying book
collections. Like, much like the

916
00:50:26,125 --> 00:50:29,965
creation of gelatin, which
Daniel goes on to talk at length

917
00:50:29,965 --> 00:50:37,645
about. Right? Like, these these
this raw material is boiled, is

918
00:50:37,645 --> 00:50:42,790
dissolved in acid, is destroyed
to make this thing that we are

919
00:50:42,790 --> 00:50:48,870
told is good for us. In the
sense of gelatin, it was

920
00:50:48,870 --> 00:50:51,670
supposed to be a meal
replacement for poor people.

921
00:50:51,830 --> 00:50:55,975
Yep. They thought that boiling
collagen out of bones would mean

922
00:50:55,975 --> 00:51:01,575
that it would create a
nutritious, if, you know, not

923
00:51:01,575 --> 00:51:05,015
exactly flavorful meal meal
replacement for people who

924
00:51:05,015 --> 00:51:08,070
couldn't get nutrients or
sustenance otherwise, and that

925
00:51:08,070 --> 00:51:11,030
ended up not being the case.
That it ended up being that you

926
00:51:11,030 --> 00:51:16,230
can't, it turns out, subsist on
gelatin alone. And similarly,

927
00:51:16,230 --> 00:51:21,350
right, you're told, you know,
after books are ripped apart and

928
00:51:21,685 --> 00:51:25,285
all of preexisting culture is
ingested into these things, that

929
00:51:25,285 --> 00:51:28,805
it's like, here now is your new
productivity aid. This will make

930
00:51:28,805 --> 00:51:30,165
you a writer.

931
00:51:30,165 --> 00:51:33,845
This will make you an artist.
This will allow you access,

932
00:51:33,845 --> 00:51:36,760
right, pursuant to our
conversation we've just had,

933
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:41,480
right, this will democratize a
certain aspect of creative

934
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:45,400
creative action, creative
involvement, access to creative

935
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,120
communities, and it turns out,
you know I mean, I guess we'll

936
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:52,715
see, but one suspects it seems
like it is turning out that that

937
00:51:52,715 --> 00:51:56,635
is not the case. And that really
it's like, you've just you've

938
00:51:56,635 --> 00:51:59,995
just kind of done a bunch of
horrific things and made a bunch

939
00:51:59,995 --> 00:52:00,715
of goo.

940
00:52:01,195 --> 00:52:03,275
Georgia Hampton: You know how I
said before that I was glad we

941
00:52:03,275 --> 00:52:07,140
were talking about the grotesque
part of this? I changed my mind.

942
00:52:07,540 --> 00:52:09,300
Mike Rugnetta: It's actually
just kinda yucky.

943
00:52:09,300 --> 00:52:11,540
Georgia Hampton: It's actually
yucky and gross, and I don't

944
00:52:11,540 --> 00:52:14,260
like it, and I don't wanna do it
anymore.

945
00:52:15,380 --> 00:52:17,620
Mike Rugnetta: There's this
line, continuous with the

946
00:52:17,620 --> 00:52:21,295
industrial and or manual labor.
What Marx called our species

947
00:52:21,295 --> 00:52:26,895
being is rendered fluid before
being solidified for systematic

948
00:52:26,895 --> 00:52:29,695
extraction and regeneration as
capital.

949
00:52:29,695 --> 00:52:33,775
Hans Buetow: This is so good. I
don't like this. I love it. I'm

950
00:52:33,775 --> 00:52:34,415
the honor.

951
00:52:35,135 --> 00:52:37,830
Georgia Hampton: Hans, I thought
you would be with me on this.

952
00:52:39,510 --> 00:52:42,150
Mike Rugnetta: You know when you
have an itch and for like,

953
00:52:42,150 --> 00:52:42,630
you're carrying

954
00:52:42,630 --> 00:52:42,790
Hans Buetow: your

955
00:52:42,790 --> 00:52:46,710
Mike Rugnetta: groceries and
your nose itches Mhmm. And you

956
00:52:46,710 --> 00:52:50,025
have to go a certain amount of
time with an itchy nose before

957
00:52:50,025 --> 00:52:52,345
you can do it, and then you
finally put the groceries down,

958
00:52:52,425 --> 00:52:55,065
and you scratch your nose, but
you scratch it a little bit too

959
00:52:55,065 --> 00:52:59,545
hard because of how excited you
were to be finally be this feels

960
00:52:59,545 --> 00:52:59,945
like that

961
00:52:59,945 --> 00:53:02,750
Georgia Hampton: a little bit.
God, That's so true.

962
00:53:02,750 --> 00:53:04,670
Jason Oberholtzer: Also,
because, like, you have you have

963
00:53:04,670 --> 00:53:07,710
shimmied the grocery bags down
to your wrists to free your

964
00:53:07,710 --> 00:53:11,310
fingers, and the counterweight
of that pushes your scratch

965
00:53:11,310 --> 00:53:15,070
finger hard against your nose.
Yeah. So goes the baggage of

966
00:53:15,070 --> 00:53:17,995
this material around your wrists
when you try to satisfy

967
00:53:17,995 --> 00:53:19,355
yourself. Exactly.

968
00:53:20,315 --> 00:53:20,715
Georgia Hampton: Damn.

969
00:53:20,715 --> 00:53:22,795
Mike Rugnetta: But I think it's
all I think this is why it's

970
00:53:22,795 --> 00:53:28,635
like it's it's hard to separate
how you feel from all of these

971
00:53:28,635 --> 00:53:34,600
things because it involves
multiple lifetimes of media made

972
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:36,520
to make you feel things.

973
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:37,080
Hans Buetow: Yeah.

974
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:41,480
Mike Rugnetta: And there is a
way that that media is treated

975
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,920
that seems to kind of
fundamentally deny that that is

976
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:50,135
the case. It is as though, like,
the people who are engaging in

977
00:53:50,135 --> 00:53:54,375
this technological activity are
like, woah. Like, why such

978
00:53:54,375 --> 00:53:58,535
strong feelings about these
things about human feelings?

979
00:53:58,615 --> 00:53:59,095
Hans Buetow: Mhmm.

980
00:54:00,650 --> 00:54:03,530
Mike Rugnetta: And the sort of
this idea of, like, your species

981
00:54:03,530 --> 00:54:08,570
being both as labor and as an
emotional effective existence

982
00:54:08,570 --> 00:54:13,370
being rendered fluid so that it
can then be resolidified or

983
00:54:13,370 --> 00:54:17,125
extracted by another process is
just very evocative, and it

984
00:54:17,125 --> 00:54:24,085
feels right in a way that I
think is, you know yeah. Like,

985
00:54:24,165 --> 00:54:26,645
scratches scratches an itch in a
way.

986
00:54:27,285 --> 00:54:28,165
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. It really
does.

987
00:54:28,165 --> 00:54:29,045
Mike Rugnetta: But also kinda
hurts.

988
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:31,960
Georgia Hampton: Well, it's like
scratching an I mean, not to use

989
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:34,360
just another metaphor, but,
like, you know, scratching an

990
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:38,280
itch so much that it becomes a
worse problem. That is itchy

991
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:38,920
forever.

992
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:40,120
Mike Rugnetta: And now I'm
bleeding.

993
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:42,200
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Like,
that you just use it. I don't

994
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:45,695
know. And I think it also I'm
not sure if y'all's papers did

995
00:54:45,695 --> 00:54:50,495
this. I mine didn't really, but,
like, the, you know, the the

996
00:54:51,375 --> 00:54:56,735
slow creep of, like, addiction
that these tools encourage and,

997
00:54:56,735 --> 00:55:03,210
like, the the, you know, warm
bath of pleasantry of of lack of

998
00:55:03,210 --> 00:55:08,730
effort, of lack of pushback,
that encourages more use of

999
00:55:08,730 --> 00:55:11,530
these kinds of tools, like,
actual act of using them.

1000
00:55:12,555 --> 00:55:13,035
And

1001
00:55:13,515 --> 00:55:15,675
Mike Rugnetta: Sure. Like, the
in the I mean, this is kinda

1002
00:55:15,675 --> 00:55:16,795
what Hank Green talked about

1003
00:55:16,875 --> 00:55:17,035
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.

1004
00:55:17,035 --> 00:55:18,875
Mike Rugnetta: Right, when he
got called out. Like, the

1005
00:55:18,875 --> 00:55:19,835
intoxication

1006
00:55:20,155 --> 00:55:21,755
Georgia Hampton: Yes.
Intoxication is a better word.

1007
00:55:21,835 --> 00:55:25,195
Mike Rugnetta: Of being, like,
the power of all I have been

1008
00:55:25,195 --> 00:55:28,880
told for the last twenty five
years is that the most important

1009
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:32,640
thing is to produce as much as
possible. And now here I have

1010
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:34,800
the producing things genie.

1011
00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:35,760
Georgia Hampton: Mhmm.

1012
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:36,320
Hans Buetow: Oh, yeah.

1013
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:39,120
Mike Rugnetta: And that is just
an extremely intoxicating

1014
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:39,920
prospect.

1015
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:40,800
Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah.

1016
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:43,705
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. Or
the, the guy who got caught

1017
00:55:43,705 --> 00:55:49,705
generating his, exonerative
paper for three m for his report

1018
00:55:49,705 --> 00:55:50,905
on the yeah. Right?

1019
00:55:50,905 --> 00:55:54,980
Georgia Hampton: Yes. Even Like
I was shown some clip of that

1020
00:55:54,980 --> 00:56:00,420
podcast, Stavie's World with
Stavros Helicos, talking to some

1021
00:56:00,420 --> 00:56:03,780
actor that I don't really know,
but I think he was in New Girl,

1022
00:56:03,940 --> 00:56:07,780
where the actor was like, oh,
yeah. I ask AI all the time to,

1023
00:56:07,780 --> 00:56:10,545
like, interpret my dreams. And
I, like, just do it in the

1024
00:56:10,545 --> 00:56:11,825
morning. He's like, listen to
me.

1025
00:56:11,825 --> 00:56:14,465
I sound like someone who's
trying to convince you that my

1026
00:56:14,465 --> 00:56:17,425
problem isn't a problem of, like
Yeah. Well, I just do it in the

1027
00:56:17,425 --> 00:56:19,905
morning and sometimes at night
and sometimes in the middle of

1028
00:56:19,905 --> 00:56:23,010
the day of just being like, hey.
I had a dream where this crazy

1029
00:56:23,010 --> 00:56:26,450
thing happened to me. Like, what
does that mean? And he justified

1030
00:56:26,450 --> 00:56:29,250
it by being like, you know, I
don't wanna talk to my wife

1031
00:56:29,250 --> 00:56:29,650
about it.

1032
00:56:29,650 --> 00:56:33,330
We've been together for too
long. She doesn't care. Like,

1033
00:56:33,330 --> 00:56:38,335
you know, and all of that
justifying this Yeah. Use of

1034
00:56:38,335 --> 00:56:40,735
something that is happy to just
have you use it as much as

1035
00:56:40,735 --> 00:56:41,295
possible.

1036
00:56:41,455 --> 00:56:42,975
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And that's
the other thing. Right? It's

1037
00:56:42,975 --> 00:56:48,895
intoxicating, and, also, it is
designed to, it is I think it is

1038
00:56:48,895 --> 00:56:53,750
both designed for a certain
interlocutor, and it is designed

1039
00:56:53,750 --> 00:56:57,750
to turn you by steps into that
interlocutor. Yes.

1040
00:56:57,750 --> 00:57:00,870
Oh, yes. That's why, like, I
think a lot about Hank being

1041
00:57:00,870 --> 00:57:05,750
like, you know, I had my notes.
I wrote my notes. I I wasn't

1042
00:57:05,750 --> 00:57:09,365
reading something that was AI
generated. I promise, even

1043
00:57:09,365 --> 00:57:11,445
though he said I appreciate the
pushback, which, right, is the

1044
00:57:11,445 --> 00:57:14,005
like, sort of one of the
stereotypical phrases.

1045
00:57:14,005 --> 00:57:17,925
And I totally believe Hank
because I believe I believe him

1046
00:57:17,925 --> 00:57:21,045
when he says he came to rely on
it too much. He spent a lot of

1047
00:57:21,045 --> 00:57:24,040
time with it. And I think when
he spent when you spend a lot of

1048
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:28,440
time with it, it sort of it will
mold you in a way. Oh, yes.

1049
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:32,360
Like, it's in the same way that
you pick up the mannerisms and

1050
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:35,960
the speech patterns of all of
your friends and your spouse and

1051
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:36,280
stuff.

1052
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:38,575
Like, it's the same it's this
gonna gonna be the same thing

1053
00:57:38,575 --> 00:57:44,095
with a chatbot. Think that it's
it's like the phantasm of us of

1054
00:57:44,095 --> 00:57:47,295
social engagement, of us of a
social process.

1055
00:57:47,375 --> 00:57:49,055
Georgia Hampton: Oh, yes.
Because it's also it's not just

1056
00:57:49,055 --> 00:57:52,630
molding you. It's molding to
you. So it's like, oh, you want

1057
00:57:52,630 --> 00:57:54,550
it to be like this? Absolutely.

1058
00:57:54,550 --> 00:57:57,750
It can be like this. It can be
anything you want. I can do

1059
00:57:57,750 --> 00:57:58,390
anything.

1060
00:57:58,870 --> 00:58:01,910
Mike Rugnetta: So I these were
all great, and I'm very excited.

1061
00:58:01,910 --> 00:58:04,605
I wanna go read the rest of this
collection. Yeah. So this was

1062
00:58:04,605 --> 00:58:07,485
just to remind everyone. This
was a special issue of the

1063
00:58:07,485 --> 00:58:11,565
European Journal of Cultural
Studies, and it came out this

1064
00:58:11,565 --> 00:58:13,325
year, I think very recently.

1065
00:58:13,645 --> 00:58:19,100
And it is called the Cultural
Commons on Brain Rot, AI Slop,

1066
00:58:19,100 --> 00:58:24,140
and the Enshitification of the
Internet. Okay. That's the end.

1067
00:58:24,140 --> 00:58:26,540
Thanks, friends, for listening.
Thank you for being members.

1068
00:58:26,540 --> 00:58:29,420
Thank you for joining us. Thank
you, chat, for joining us in the

1069
00:58:29,420 --> 00:58:33,775
stream. If you wanna become a
member, can go to neverpoe.st

1070
00:58:33,775 --> 00:58:35,855
and click on a few of the
buttons we have around there for

1071
00:58:35,855 --> 00:58:37,855
becoming a member. It's a deal.
It's a steal.

1072
00:58:37,855 --> 00:58:41,375
It's $4 a month. Okay. Great.
Thank you, friends. We'll we'll

1073
00:58:41,375 --> 00:58:41,455
see

1074
00:58:41,455 --> 00:58:41,855
Hans Buetow: you soon.

1075
00:58:41,855 --> 00:58:55,760
Mike Rugnetta: Bye, everybody.
Bye. Bye, mate. That is the show

1076
00:58:55,760 --> 00:58:58,080
we have for you this week. We
are gonna be back here in the

1077
00:58:58,080 --> 00:59:02,165
main feed on or around Thursday,
September 17.

1078
00:59:02,165 --> 00:59:05,845
If you would like to become a
member for $4 a month and get

1079
00:59:05,845 --> 00:59:10,645
access to more things like paper
report, team chats, Wigos, and

1080
00:59:10,645 --> 00:59:14,340
more, go to neverpost.st and
click on buttons all willy nilly

1081
00:59:14,340 --> 00:59:17,620
until you're giving us money.
The rest will work itself out.

1082
00:59:18,180 --> 00:59:21,060
Never Post producers are Audrey
Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the

1083
00:59:21,060 --> 00:59:24,180
mysterious doctor first name,
last name. Our senior producer

1084
00:59:24,180 --> 00:59:27,860
is Hans Buto. Our executive
producer is Jason Oberholzer,

1085
00:59:27,860 --> 00:59:31,375
and the show's host, that's me,
is Mike Rugnetta.

1086
00:59:33,055 --> 00:59:36,815
Jesus Christ, my dusty
socialist. There's enough sun

1087
00:59:36,815 --> 00:59:40,735
for everyone, you state. Your
crown chipped like a front tooth

1088
00:59:40,735 --> 00:59:47,610
after a bar fight. Behind you, a
red curtain. Excerpt of by

1089
00:59:47,610 --> 00:59:48,810
Spencer Rees.

1090
00:59:49,530 --> 00:59:52,170
Never Post is a production of
Charts and Leisure, and it's

1091
00:59:52,170 --> 00:59:54,570
distributed by Radiotopia.