The risk of losing our dopiness – returning to AI

I wrote recently how AI is being used by people to create videos falsely depicting lovely moments of life that cannot and shouldn’t be planned.

You know the kind I mean. Those little dopamine hit videos, like:

• dogs falling off couches and landing on it’s owners testicles,
• frisbees bouncing off someone’s head and going into the ‘goal’,
• and road incidents in which everyone comes close to dying but fortunately doesn’t.

Those types of videos.

The ‘Isn’t Life Lovely?’ videos you sneaked peeks at whilst on computer lessons at school in the old days, which are now the videos you stay up watching on your phone in bed.

They make you feel dopey from the dopamine.

Sadly, these are the ones people are trying to replicate using AI. I was concerned they were increasing. And now they’ve increased.

Watching compilations of ‘Isn’t life lovely?’ videos, the AI-produced fakery is now held amongst the compilations of real videos. And that means they’re being held amongst real life.

And it is ultimately depressing – the opposite of their point (aside from the attention gained for the person who directed AI to do it).

Of course, as a writer – there’s a chance my craft will be lost to AI (should anyone decide to task AI with writing something as inane as my work). But the risk of these fake videos replacing the real ones of cats pooing on the wedding cake, the ice pond breaking at the funniest moment, or simply a wonderful coincidence captured on CCTV – that’s worse.

Worse still, was when I was laying next to my wife in bed one morning and she was scrolling through social media videos. Sure enough, her algorithm brought her to a run of ‘Isn’t life lovely?’ videos – the exact kind we’re talking about here: the ones that are hilarious, unbelievable, relatable and representations of lovely real life – that’s what she thought they all were.

She couldn’t tell that a lot of them had been prompted by someone using AI to fake what is amongst the best of real life.

And that’s when I realised that I was now going to be watching similar videos, concerned that I wouldn’t be able to tell if they’re real.

And that’s hardly the point of them.

These videos are meant to be one of the best things the internet can do – demonstrations of lovely moments that remind you everything’s going to be ok: the parrot is dancing, the baby pulled a funny face at lunch, the granny said a swear word.

They shouldn’t fill you with depression whilst laying in bed early on a Saturday morning as a reminder that the future isn’t yours: it’s AI’s.

Actually, it’s not AI – it’s just going to be a future filled with erroneously bullshit content of talentless artists trying to capitalise on what is currently popular and increasingly easy.

Real life is only so easy if you let it happen. Trying to create those moments in reality is near-impossible (you can always ask Granny to swear – but the serendipitous spontaneity of the moment is lost).

And watching these moments, and laughing in wonderous joy at the crow landing on someone’s chair and saying “fuck off”, or the child flying high into the air when Dad’s jumped on the trampoline, or good old sneezing panda: they’re a part of our humanity.

Humanity isn’t just our empathy in times of tragedy or in helping others in need. It’s also our inherent dopiness as a species which partly explains why life is worth living and also why Alien Life hasn’t bothered sending us an email yet.

People say: “AI isn’t coming. It’s here.” and they’re right.

But it wasn’t always there – and there are things that were always here that we should cling on to with all our remaining and considerable might.

I’d include in that: going for a walk.

AI can’t seem to replicate that yet.

Sam