The Stillborn God: the Age of AI is (Un)Dead

The problem, though, is that these tools will remain cheap, and will continue to be so even deep into their derangement. The people generating cognitive poison for children up above spend almost no money and almost as little time on their work. They can repeat this process hundreds of times in the space it takes a legitimate children’s book to be made. It produces garbage, but the margins are incredibly friendly. Why do six months of work that involves thought and skilled labor if you can just spend the same period of time churning out digital slop for the same payout?

Against “Solving” Media

The root of this, I believe, lies in the privileging of “realism” over other modes of expression in aesthetics. By this, I mean the idea that art is supposed to be a mimetic reproduction of things that would “really happen”. Leaving aside, of course, the number of really-occurring events that get you treated as insane if you acknowledge.

The Principle of Minimal Contradiction: Memorability and Storytelling

There is a trait shared by all of the stories that I mentioned, and it contributes to their success – they all achieve memorability by including what I call a “minimally contradictory element” (or, “MCE”.) A minimally contradictory element is something that diverges from what is expected but which seems obvious after you see it.

Edgar's Book Round-Up, April-June 2019

First of all, I realize June is not yet over. But I have read fifteen of the thirty books on my Goodreads goal, so it seemed like a good time to do another book round-up. It’s been a bit of an odd go, for reasons that will hopefully become clear, but we’ll see. Also worth noting is that most of the links do go to Goodreads pages; they are not subsidizing me, but it seemed more useful than anything else. (Image is The Magician King by Lev Grossman, which is mentioned but not pictured in the piece.)