Every year in April, I used to check whether someone had uploaded a new video of a giant squid. I was always so excited! When I was growing up, these things were mythologized nearly to the same degree as unicorns or dragons, so seeing them, even in tatters and bobbing across the surface of the water like a mess of smelly pool noodles, was a nearly religious experience.
I quit this year because AI videos are all that I can find. I don’t need chopped up videos of giant squids stating that they’re “colossal squids” in uncanny AI cadence written by an AI and edited by an AI. I don’t need AI-produced replications of giant squids swimming or melting. I just want to find out whether any more scientific expeditions have filmed a creature I used to consider a legend.
We live in an era beyond objective, filmable truth, and that pisses me off.
It’s so sad. I feel like we need to be hoarding all sorts of random media that was put out pre-AI, because it’s flooding everything. Videos, music, gaming, historical photos/videos…
Random example: I have a folder of desktop wallpapers that I’ve been casually adding to for the last decade or so. Literally thousands of them by this point, but I haven’t added anything recently because every source is inundated with AI generations now.
None, really. Started devouring every morsel of information I could a bit over a decade ago, until it turned into less than a trickle in April, and then I quit. Then April sprang back the year after, I remembered my compulsion, and I checked for more information again until there was nothing left. And then it turned into a tradition for me the year after
Every year in April, I used to check whether someone had uploaded a new video of a giant squid. I was always so excited! When I was growing up, these things were mythologized nearly to the same degree as unicorns or dragons, so seeing them, even in tatters and bobbing across the surface of the water like a mess of smelly pool noodles, was a nearly religious experience.
I quit this year because AI videos are all that I can find. I don’t need chopped up videos of giant squids stating that they’re “colossal squids” in uncanny AI cadence written by an AI and edited by an AI. I don’t need AI-produced replications of giant squids swimming or melting. I just want to find out whether any more scientific expeditions have filmed a creature I used to consider a legend.
We live in an era beyond objective, filmable truth, and that pisses me off.
It’s so sad. I feel like we need to be hoarding all sorts of random media that was put out pre-AI, because it’s flooding everything. Videos, music, gaming, historical photos/videos…
Random example: I have a folder of desktop wallpapers that I’ve been casually adding to for the last decade or so. Literally thousands of them by this point, but I haven’t added anything recently because every source is inundated with AI generations now.
This is as good a time as any to recommend downloading a copy of Wikipedia! And if you already have your copy, please seed afterward!
I love seeding Wikipedia but it seems like nobody ever needs me to, there’s always like 800 seeders and only 2-3 clients at most, who never connect.
Shrug
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dump_torrents#English_Wikipedia
Links that may be helpful
Out of curiosity, any particular reason you checked in April every year?
None, really. Started devouring every morsel of information I could a bit over a decade ago, until it turned into less than a trickle in April, and then I quit. Then April sprang back the year after, I remembered my compulsion, and I checked for more information again until there was nothing left. And then it turned into a tradition for me the year after