I’m deeply concerned about the rush to so-called “AI” and the use of synthetic text in all aspects of life, particularly when it substitutes for productive labor in policy generation and implementation.

Meme generation is not the same. Stock images are already trash, designed for bulk distribution as filler. If a machine can output an image that’s equally functional, no artist is deprived of the opportunity to create something meaningful, no onlooker is deceived into believing that a human mind orchestrated this camera angle or that brush stroke.

Because it’s inherently low art, by which I mean the ideas communicated are barely above a snip of text. That’s not a bad thing, but it means a machine processing prompts can, with adequate discernment, produce an adequate output. It’s not short circuiting a creative human process, it’s helping you make slightly better stick figure drawings.

Memes seems like an appropriate use case for AI image generation.

Shit we do that already and we ain’t even got the healthcare.