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AI and the Great Authenticity Crisis
How generative AI triggered the fastest cultural rejection in tech history, and what it reveals about our deepest human needs.
The other day, hanging out with a friend’s son, who is eight, was shown a picture of a dinosaur on his dad’s phone. The boy looked at it and said “that’s not real, it’s AI. It’s boring.” Quite a statement from an eight year old. Especially considering Generative AI (GenAI) has been in our world just a few years.
It took about 15 years for social media to create such a high degree of mistrust in society and to where society has reacted with an increasing amount of lawsuits against the platforms around teen use and in education systems. With GAI this has happened in just three years. OpenAI (ChatGPT’s parent) is being sued by parents who’s teens were egged on or shown how to commit suicide by ChaGPT. And of course, all the content creators from writers to musicians to sue Anthropoic, OpenAI and others for copyright infringement.
I think what we are witnessing is a form of cultural immune response to AI overall, and it’s little to do with a fear of job losses and some nightmare dystopian world. So why did this reaction happen so fast and what is it that society actually doesn’t like?
