AI generated content flooded the internet with unmistakable consequences, not just for science. Warned long before Chatt. Already in 1993 Jean Baudrillard expressed his skepticism for AI.
Thomas Sommerer from the Johannes Kepler University Linz has now investigated this warning in a new article – and confirms Baudrillard’s fear.
In essence, the French philosopher and sociologist Baudrillard warned in 1993 in his essay “Xerox and Infinity” that communicative tools – albeit words or images – are inevitably disconnected by the context. “The result is that they will, allegedly, develop their own life. But the AI content no longer has a cultural background from which they emerged,” explains Thomas Sommerer from the Art X Science School for transformation.
Images without meaning and meaning
A famous example that Sommerer investigated more closely: “shrimp Jesus”. The image of Jesus created by a generative AI consists of a number of shrimps. This photo went viral – but shows a fundamental problem: “This photo is completely without context. It shows well -known patterns – Jesus and shrimp – that are completely random and without content in this composition.”
What seems strange here can be dangerous: “You have ever believed in democratization of knowledge via the internet. But this train of democratization of the internet and therefore also used of AI has been used. Because floods with AI content give creative leadership,” warns Somerer. Every meaning is lost in a mass of contextless images and sentences. And: any progress too.
“We think we created something here because we immediately come in. In reality, however, this is only an order for the AI to form new set pieces from existing cultural knowledge.” As a result, nothing new is added to the knowledge or culture of humanity-the internet develops into a dead space (dead internet theory), in which only old content is re-warmed up again and again. Baudrillard considered this development as inevitable – and Sommerer has found no idea that this fear would refute.
“Just as Jesus was supposed to be the messenger of God,” shrimp Jesus “is the messenger of a fatal system in which we have maneuvered ourselves. Disconnected, raised and in a state of exponential metastasis, which is creative and content of humanity,” fears. He does not see many opportunities to prevent this development of creative expropriation. “It would be best to confirm a mandatory warning, as well as in cigarette packages:” The use of AI can have unpredictable cultural consequences! “
Source: Krone
I am an experienced and passionate journalist with a strong track record in news website reporting. I specialize in technology coverage, breaking stories on the latest developments and trends from around the world. Working for Today Times Live has given me the opportunity to write thought-provoking pieces that have caught the attention of many readers.
