The author seems to have fallen for two tricks at once: The MPAA/RIAA playbook of seeing all engagement with content through the lens of licensing, and the AI hype machine telling everyone that someday they will love AI slop.
He mentions people complaining that stock photo sites, book portals, and music streaming services are all degrading in quality because of AI slop, but his conclusion is that people will start seeking out AI content because it’s not copyrighted.
Regardless… The position of those in power has not changed. They never believed in copyright as a guiding concept, only as a means to an end. That end being: We, the powerful, will control culture, and we will use it to benefit ourselves.
Before generative AI, the approach was to keep the cultural landscape well-groomed – something you’d wanna pay to experience. Mindfully grown and pruned, with clear walking paths, toll booths at each entrance, and harsh penalties for littering or stepping on the grass. You were allowed to have your own toll-free parks outside of the secure perimeter, that continue the walking paths in ways that are mutually beneficial, as long as visitors don’t track mud in as a result.
But now? The landscape is no longer about creating a well-manicured amusement park worth the price of admission. There’s oil under the surface. And it’s time to frack the hell out of it. It’s too bad about the toxic slurry that will accumulate up top, making the walled and unwalled parks alike into an intolerable biohazard. There are resources to extract. Externalities are an end-user problem.
Yeah, turning culture into an expensive amusement park was a horrible mistake. But I wouldn’t get too eager to gloat over seeing the tide of sludge pour over their walls. We’ll still be on the outside, drowning in it.
Perhaps not a luddite, but a Luddite.
The actual followers of Ned Ludd weren’t opposed to technology. They were, in many cases, experts in the machinery — sometimes having built the machines they would later destroy.
They opposed the new social order that seemed to inevitably arrive with the machinery. The capitalists would make more money than before, the workers less, and also endure more dangerous working conditions.
Btw, your note about absorbing and repackaging counter-culture reminded me of Rebel Sell by Andrew Potter. There’s a good episode of You Are Not So Smart about it: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2012/10/08/yanss-podcast-episode-five