AI is melting people’s brains and it makes the world a sadder place. I found an artist, Quinn, documenting his alternative photography processes who was also writing heartfelt and honest blog posts about his life. His recent work would be more of the same, right? He wouldn’t be publishing AI written slop, right?

It enacts the gravitational pull of the drive, the suffocation of the holding pattern, the way ideology fragments bodies even as it organizes them. The counterclockwise inward spiral isn’t a metaphor I chose to represent an idea, it’s a formal discovery that emerged through material engagement, and it carries meaning that exceeds paraphrase.

- Holding Pattern

This sounds like an overly verbose and pretentiously well-read undergrad read Quinn’s artist statement and rewrote it for us. We’d understand the art better if we got to read the prompts used to generate this text. If I was a better writer I could describe what’s distasteful about the writing style. But what I do know is that it puts distance between us and the author.

Every AI written post could’ve instead been genuine writing by the author. His older blog posts (see here) are well written. We get a peek inside, to learn about his art and the mind behind the work. I hope that anybody reading this doesn’t think I’m picking on Quinn (though I doubt he’d care very much what I think). I’m writing about this ¹ because it makes me sad to see good writers/artists depriving the world of the chance to engage with them.