December 13, 2022, 10:19am
What the hell are we doing? All the best things are shutting down and people are out here using computers to make children’s books? Not to get too Jeff Goldblum on you, but just because you build a tool to do something doesn’t make it interesting or worthy.
To wit, a product designer named Ammaar Reshi (previously employed by Peter Thiel at Palantir) has used AI to create a children’s book in praise of AI… and it is fatuous and ugly. Unsurprisingly, those of us who actually like the human touch in art aren’t thrilled.
Responses to Reshi’s original post were many, ranging from outraged to sad to bewildered (and yes, laudatory as well—this is Elon’s twitter, after all).
But this, perhaps, is my favorite one:
Most of the people defending this garbage claim that its intended audience (the children) won’t notice or care about the absolute mediocrity of the entire project… Which is kind of like feeding your kid a steady diet of 99 cent ramen and Kraft Dinner because they don’t care or notices it’s bad for them. Eventually they’ll feel like absolute shit and will hate you for not giving them fresh strawberries sooner.
Very bad timeline we’re in.