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AI sucks and we no longer swallow
Jul. 30th, 2024 09:27 amSo yesterday I got a pretty interesting shower thought. As many of you probably know, I use a digital camera, and have been since 2013. Recently, I thought about maybe getting another one, but then my mother told me that she had heard on the news that old digital cameras are suddenly very popular amongst the youth on social media. Now, I don't know why the national news is reporting on that exactly, but it did catch my attention. Naturally, I was mostly annoyed because, although old technology is making a comeback, I didn't expect the return of the digital camera in the coming few years, and so now it drove up market prices and scarcity on second-hand digital cameras. Also can't fully shake the feeling of "But I did it first!", but that's just silly. It's not like I own the concept of using digital cameras, for fuck's sake. And this statement the news made was further confirmed when I was thrift shopping and two girls asked an employee if they had digital cameras. I'm not on TikTok or Twitter or Instagram, so most trends just kind of float past me, but seeing this in real life kind of gave me some moment of realization that, yes, this is actually a thing.
And then yesterday I was thinking about what my mother told me. "They like the imperfectness of it, and the fact that it's pixely." I just said "Yeah, no shit, that's what I've been using a digital camera for for years." But yesterday I thought about it a bit more and looked past my what-about-me bitterness and saw that this might actually be a good thing for two reasons. First of all, AI tends to make very smooth-looking (read: melting into each other) pictures and they're flooding the internet. The fact that people are getting tired of things looking "perfect" suggests to me that they're not just tired of the lifelessness of modern (phone) cameras, but also especially of the AI slop they've been fed on all their socials. (I'd say I feel sorry for Facebook users, but if you use Facebook in 2024 then that's honestly a you problem.) Second of all, if "imperfect" old camera footage becomes preferred by a lot of the people online, then it'll become much easier to tell humans apart from AI in most cases. Of course, you can edit and pixelate AI images, but I don't think AI is very good at copying the imperfections and slight details of older cameras. After all, is it not trained to make things look as "good" and smooth as possible? I genuinely think AI will struggle to recreate the look of older footage, so I think that's really helpful. On top of that, I also just think it looks more fun. But what do you think? Are people tired of AI or is this just a month-long trend amongst TikTok girls that will soon fade again?
And then yesterday I was thinking about what my mother told me. "They like the imperfectness of it, and the fact that it's pixely." I just said "Yeah, no shit, that's what I've been using a digital camera for for years." But yesterday I thought about it a bit more and looked past my what-about-me bitterness and saw that this might actually be a good thing for two reasons. First of all, AI tends to make very smooth-looking (read: melting into each other) pictures and they're flooding the internet. The fact that people are getting tired of things looking "perfect" suggests to me that they're not just tired of the lifelessness of modern (phone) cameras, but also especially of the AI slop they've been fed on all their socials. (I'd say I feel sorry for Facebook users, but if you use Facebook in 2024 then that's honestly a you problem.) Second of all, if "imperfect" old camera footage becomes preferred by a lot of the people online, then it'll become much easier to tell humans apart from AI in most cases. Of course, you can edit and pixelate AI images, but I don't think AI is very good at copying the imperfections and slight details of older cameras. After all, is it not trained to make things look as "good" and smooth as possible? I genuinely think AI will struggle to recreate the look of older footage, so I think that's really helpful. On top of that, I also just think it looks more fun. But what do you think? Are people tired of AI or is this just a month-long trend amongst TikTok girls that will soon fade again?
