Art, and why you should still do it yourself.

I just finished working on another post whinging about A.I. and you might well be wondering why I care so much about this specific issue, I don't enjoy whining about things that are pissing me off as much as others seem to. Bizarrely motivating though a good rant often is, it's not something I particularly enjoy doing or want to be known for. 

 

Instead then, with this post I'm going to try and approach it from the other side, talking about the positives of human endeavour rather than the negatives of A.I. As Sir Terry Pratchett once wrote, "Real stupidity beats Artificial Intelligence every time." (Incidentally, he came up with Hex, something extremely similar to modern A.I chatbots, in a book released in 1994.) 

 

When I say "Art" I don't mean just pictures, I mean the umbrella term that means any form of artistic expression. Anything at all, whatever medium speaks to you. Incidentally, I suppose performance art is the one I got two degrees in, but in terms of practice (due largely to opportunity to practice) writing is my main one lately, but I've dabbled in others too. 

 

This speaks less to my being in any way multi-talented than it does to me being indecisive and easily distracted by shiny new ideas. This is the main reason I've never managed to finish a novel despite having at least six works in progress at any given time.

Well, I used a word there I don't like to throw around, "talented." In my experience, when people use that word, they treat the concept of talent as a god-given gift that one either has, or doesn't. You know where I'm going with the next part, this is not the case. Talent, or skill, or whatever you want to call it, is not a gift. It is a reward.

 

Sure, some things come easier to some people, we're all wired towards different things, and where on any given aptitude scale we start out does seem pretty random, But anything you practice, you'll get good at, mobility on that scale is not just possible, it's inevitable. Any given artistic skill you may be honing needs practice like your body needs exercise, 

 

I think people in general are pretty bad at understanding the concept of granular progression, or how quickly improvement can build. It's not exactly an artistic endeavour in itself, but in aid of one day being able to write faster, I am practicing touch-typing as I write this, trying to use all ten fingers on the correct keys. Muscle memory still isn't quite there, but trouble with numbers and using the pinkies aside, I flatter myself I've got to be decent at it. Until last year I was a habitual "claw" typer. index, middle, and thumb for spaces was all I used. my then-max speed of roughly 40 words a minute, is now something I can comfortably match and exceed without really trying. (But good lord was the early going frustrating.) 

 

Thing about that is, I was of the age where this was taught in school, which apparently it no longer is, but I slacked off, fell behind, and while I was still looking down at the keyboard and hunting and pecking with my index fingers, I'd look to my left, and one of my school friends (visually impaired I might add) had a black cardboard covering over his hands to prevent looking down and  words were materialising on his screen at speeds incomprehensible to a tween who hadn't got his head around the concept of practice yet. 

Some people, I think, have trouble getting their heads around learning a skill as opposed to having one, and those that don't universally underestimate how much there is to anything. Separate even from that is the challenge of being mindful of your own progress when surrounded by people to whom you compare inferior. I never cared enough about touch-typing to want to get good at it back at school, and it's only a year or so ago it occurred to me to try. But do you know what taught me the value of putting in the time as well as the creeping nature of gradual improvement? It was Kingdom Hearts.

 I am being 100% sincere. The Disney/Final Fantasy crossover PS2 game about using the power of friendship and a massive key to twat the concept of darkness over the head while Donald Duck refuses to heal you. That Kingdom Hearts. I did write the story under this, but it ended up being really long, so I think I'm just gonna make that its own post. The point of it being though, being denied the ability to cheat my way to beating Ansem, and subsequently, Sephiroth, and having nothing else I felt like doing, I discovered the simple joy of actually putting in the time to make things happen, which, bizarrely for a fan of JRPGs, I had not yet internalised. 

Beating a video game might seem trivial, and it is. But that was the first time I accomplished a goal that took any amount of commitment and continuous effort. (no, I didn't do particularly well in school to that point.) 

 

But this is the point. If all you're interested in, is the result, the product, then I understand why things like generative AI appeal to you, and, with all due respect, I don't think you'd even comprehend how people would see the difference, but the difference is there, and people do see it. 

 If you look at things in, what I've come to refer to as a mechanical way, then the difference between a hand-drawn image and an AI generated one may be very little at first glance, (assuming the AI didn't warp it, which I've seen happen a lot, you can't really get away from this stuff on social media these days.)  But, I've come to realise something about people and specialisation. There's always more to it. I'll repeat that for emphasis. There is always more to it. 

I'm not just talking about art anymore, I could be talking about any area of expertise you could think of. Anything anyone could specialise in. I've also observed that people tend to think anything except their specific specialisation can be automated by AI, and I've come to believe, that they are all wrong. 

 During the 2020 lockdown, I saw this anecdote about Chess floating about that also made me think about this, and I'm gonna paraphrase it for brevity. 

Basically, all else being equal, an adult will beat a 5 year-old at chess, 100% of the time, that same adult will lose 100% of games to an experienced amateur, who will lose 100% of games to a Chess grandmaster. To that Chess grandmaster, that experienced amateur stands the same chance of winning as the 5 year-old: 0. To them, they are the same.

Those layers of expertise can exist in any field. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a real thing, it is entirely possible to not even know enough about a thing, to know how little you know. Would you listen to a five year-old who barged into your office, telling you how to do your job? No? What if that same five year-old told you your job could be done with AI? 

 How the hell would they know, right? 

If you need a different example, former professional basketballer Brian "White Mamba" Scalabrine who, as I understand it (I don't follow basketball, I just heard a story, so forgive me if any of this is wrong.) was one of the lower-tier players in the NBA. He famously did a show called "The Scallenge" where he would go one-on-one with volunteers, who were fairly confident due to his relatively low performance (I stress, for the NBA, which is the point here.) he won all four times, letting only 3 baskets past, and scoring 22 throughout the challenge, coining the immortal line "I'm closer to LeBron than you are to me."

So if you wouldn't listen to the five year-old, what about the adult? The one who doesn't play chess, but would still beat them every time? I'm betting, if they're not in your field, the answer is still no. Because even if you're the experienced amateur in this story, you're closer to that grandmaster than they are to you. 

So the next time you think something is doable by AI (which, famously, is wrong about everything anyway.) Remember that, like ogres, areas of expertise, have layers. 

 Even apart from that though, if I have a wider point to make, it is that the process is the point. No Chess grandmaster thought they'd be one from day one, no expert in any field had it fall into their lap, and it's not a bad thing if you don't understand something,  none of us, know what we don't know. All of us are the 5 year-old in most fields, and the only functional difference between the 5 year-old and the inexperienced adult is knowing that those layers exist. 

 The difference between AI Generated artwork and human-made, may be very little to those who don't care, But to anyone who does, even a little, it's obvious when something was made with care and commitment to craft. Machine learning is impressive, but humans are still undefeated in intuition. Let's not give that up. 

Author Brandon Sanderson (Who I will get around to reading one of these days) gave a talk that he titled "We are the art." He made the point better than I can, or indeed, am currently, that the point of becoming an artist is not to sell art, the point of art, is to turn you into the artist you want to be. 

 The product is incidental, the process is the point. You will be amazed how far you go with practice, and what kind of artist you can become. It's worth the effort. 

How Kingdom Hearts taught me work ethic

So, at time of writing, I'm also writing a separate post called "Art, and why you should do it yourself." and I got into the anecdote you're about to see to make a point about the value of putting in the time. The tale grew in the telling and an aside became a tangent, became the vast majority of the post. I do still think there's value in the story but it was quite a grievous diatribe to be an aside in aid of making a wider point, so I'm giving it its own post, for anyone who doesn't want to read a lengthy anecdote in the last one, as well as anyone who would like to read how I came to appreciate incremental progress.  

 So, without further ado, here's how Kingdom Hearts taught me the value of putting in the time. 

See, when I was but a lad, of the tender age of...I don't remember...not important I guess, I was stuck on the last boss in the story of the original Kingdom Hearts. It was frustrating me, so I went to the Olympus Coliseum to do the last tournament in the hope of getting a level-up or a new weapon to make this a little easier.  

I did indeed acquire both of those things, but what I also gained was access to the gold and platinum matches. (I think, I may have had them before, it's been a while.) I did the gold one without much trouble, so when I hit that last row of question marks in the fight menu, I did so with reasonable confidence, and anyone who has played this game knows exactly what happened next.  

 

The match in question is against Sephiroth, who you may remember from Super Smash Bros Ultimate (and I think he's a Glup Shitto in a Final Fantasy or something, I don't know I don't really follow Sega games)

Poe's law being a thing I feel compelled to clarify that that was of course, a joke. I know Sephiroth is the iconic villain of Final Fantasy VII and I was as awestruck by that fight's intro cutscene as anybody, and when his equally iconic theme music hit, I felt my adrenaline spike. "All right! Let's fuckin' do this!" I said aloud as he slowly approached. 

Then I blinked, and my health was at one. I hadn't expected my newly acquired "Second Chance" ability (that lets you keep a hit point if an attack would otherwise kill you) to come into play so soon after getting it. As soon as I realise what's happened, he's hit me again and I'm out.

 After recovering from the short-circuit that immediate loss had shocked my brain into, I tried again, I lasted exactly as long, even without the element of surprise against me. I don't remember what level Sora was at this point, but I seem to remember it being below 50. I never bothered grinding because new weapons and equipment had always given much more noticeable increases. Following that logic, I went to the internet to seek out the best equipment.

 'Twas there I learned, that the best equipment was only available via item synthesis, a mechanic I had all-but ignored, unless I happened to have the materials on-hand at the time. I then found, that the "ultimate weapons" only become available once you have synthesised at least one of every other thing in the shop. I immediately discounted that as an option, because it would've taken forever.

Two days later at school I borrowed a cheat disc from a friend (remember those?) to cheat my way there on his recommendation after I told him of my humiliation, only to find, that it was one of those PS2 discs that was blue at the back instead of a clear reflective surface. This wouldn't be a problem, but my PS2 of the time was on its way out and no longer read those particular discs for some reason, so that was out. 

 By then it was the weekend and I'd been looking forward to beating Sephiroth and finishing the game, and didn't feel like doing anything else. So I went to the internet, found a guide for where to find the raw materials for each synthesis item, and made use of my PC's DVD drive for background noise. 

By the end of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'd gained some useful new equipment, but the list was still far from complete. I had, however, started to become invested in the task, there was something oddly calming about the repetitive gameplay with movies in the background. 

After Dodgeball and both Kill Bill movies had run their course, I realised something. Hunting down all of these raw materials, some of which were rare drops, meant going through a lot of heartless, which meant gaining a lot of EXP, I had gone from under level 50, to somewhere approaching 80, and I'd barely noticed. I think I also had better accessories synthesised as well, but can't quite recall. The point being I'd become a good deal stronger.

 I decided to take a break from the synthesis quest in order to see how I did against Ansem, the final boss, who, as mentioned above, I originally went to the arena in frustration after failing to defeat, I once again sat through the now tediously familiar cutscene preceeding the fight, and, to my surprise, swept the beach with his face with relative ease. 

There was another phase or two after that I hadn't seen before, but the following too, was almost anticlimactically easy. I watched the ending cutscenes with a sense of pride and accomplishment the likes of which I was not used to feeling. I thought perhaps I'd call that done, but no, I couldn't just let it end here, I owed someone a rematch.

So, armed with my new appreciation for the value of putting in the time, tempered in good honest grinding and decked out in better gear with a good 30 extra levels, I went back to the arena and...yeah, no, he still dogwalked me, trying to fight him was like trying to wrestle a tornado made of knives.  BUT! I lasted a lot longer that time, it now took him 4 hits to get my health down, 5 to kill me with Second Chance. (I think) Nevertheless though, I was bewildered, at a loss at what precisely I was expected to do.

What followed was several days of headbutting a brick wall. I happened across some strategies to hang in there, and I even managed to damage him enough that it started to show on his health bar, but once he started running instead of walking I just couldn't keep out of reach of his sword. YouTube wasn't something I spent time on at this point, if it existed at all, I'm not sure, if it did it was very new. In any case I wouldn't have thought to look up the fight to see how somebody else did it. GameFAQs was my oracle of choice, but, at least for now, but at this point, looking up a guide felt like admitting defeat. Happily, I never did end up resorting to that, but for now, this fight was beyond me. I returned to the synthesis list, even then I knew that I wasn't closing the stat gap in another 20 levels even if I got there, but perhaps the extra attack power and MP the Ultima Weapon keyblade would give me would allow me a little more versatility in battle. 

 Another Saturday and three Karate Kid movies later, I hit level 100, there was officially no more that EXP could do for me. But there was also another hard limit I'd noticed. I hadn't been doing noticeably more damage for several level-ups now, so just for the sake of comparison, I switched back from the Lionheart Keyblade, to the starting weapon, the Kingdom Key. It seemed to be doing the same physical damage.

 It appeared that there was a hard cap for how much damage one can do in one hit, and I had reached it. How strong the weapon I was using happened to be was no longer relevant. I switched to the Spellbinder Keyblade, which gave me the same 2 extra MP the Ultima weapon would have, and knowing that I was as physically strong as I could be no matter the weapon, I functionally had the same power I would have had I bothered to make the final weapon anyway. 

 

This was it, I was as strong as I was getting with or without the weapon, if I couldn't beat him now, I couldn't beat him. That in mind, I returned to the arena. What followed, was a few more hours of brick-wall headbutting before I developed muscle memory and habits that worked. Even then, he has this attack where he teleports to the other side of the ring, and if you don't get to him and smack him in time, he'll just cast a spell on you that automatically reduces your HP to 1 (rendering second chance pointless) and your MP to 0 so you can't cast magic to heal. Items have a longer use window, and by the time you get hit by it, it's too late to effectively use them because he'll kill you before they take effect. This was often the thing that was undoing me, but then I had an idea.

I'd observed that when one used a recovery item, there would be a short animation where Sora would throw the item up into the air a split second before it takes effect. I had been hit by this spell (which he signals by saying "descend, heartless angel") enough times that I had an idea of the sequence, he teleports, casts the spell, and if you don't hit him before an aura surrounds you, there's no getting out of it, but there is a window of time between that point, and taking the hit. 

 I had just been giving up if that aura got me, because I figured there was nothing I could do about it, but then, once when I tried to use an item to regain health, Sora threw the item up into the air, but he killed me before it took effect. I wondered if I could time an item-use, just right, so that the spell would hit me in that split-second window between use and effect, allowing me to recover. (I would later learn that guides recommend you do exactly this.)

As this was the hardest fight in the game, and the last thing I wanted to do, I saved outside, so as to reload to avoid wasting them, and loaded sora up with every Elixir (very rare healing item that restores you completely) we'd gathered throughout the game, it wasn't many, but it was enough to fill his item slots. It was quite motivating to know that there was a potential way back even if that bullshit spell hit me.

 Over the next several attempts I failed to pre-empt the spell and subsequently failed to get the timing right for the Elixir and died. I was starting to doubt it would work, but then it did. On that attempt, for the first time, I got to phase...3 I think? When he says "I'll lead you to the promised land." (Side note, I don't know who thought that voice suited the character, but Lance Bass from NSYNC gave Sephiroth a very different voice to the one he would have from then on.) and then he proceeded to rock my shit and kill me, everything happened so fast that to this day, I'm not sure what the everything that happened was.

 Attempts during which I lasted long enough to get to that point were rare, but it didn't take me by surprise again. I'd taken to the "Strike Raid" cheese, locking myself into a long animation of repeated throwing attacks during which I could not take damage, this, coupled with Aeroga, allowed me to survive things like Octoslash, and also damage him from a distance. (though as the fight went on, hitting him for damage became less reliable.)  

I don't even know how many attempts it took, over how long a time, that particular context has faded from memory, it was 20+ years ago (Jesus Christ, time is terrifying,) But eventually, after many, many failed attempts, by a sliver of health and a lucky 4-hit combo, I got him.  (the memory of which, as well as the adrenaline I was feeling, seems permanently seared into my brain.) The next few days I experienced another new phenomenon that anyone who's ever finished a really good book will be intimately familiar with. After the comedown, I felt bereft, and didn't know what to do with my free time. I occasionally feel this when I finish a really good book, or any other media that pulls me in.

From that day forward, I've been much less hesitant to put one foot in front of the other, so to speak. It was too late to salvage my schoolwork, but, I did go on to get a BTEC and two degrees, (rawdogging unmedicated ADHD made that a challenge, but I made it) due largely to understanding the one lesson this taught me;

 

There are no shortcuts, if there were, they wouldn't be shortcuts, they'd be the taught method, and there is value in the journey, the process is the point. I've never again shied away from a good grind in a game, in fact, I relish the opportunity to throw on an audiobook, or a podcast, and grind some levels. 

Make time for your art, or hobbies, whatever your medium of choice, and enjoy the process, and the result will be all the sweeter. Don't let life take that joy from you.

5 Ways of Spotting GenAI slop in the wild.

 Regular readers of this page, (if there are, or ever come to be any) will know that I recently became slightly re-obsessed with the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games. that particular hyperfixation is still present, though I feel I might be on the receding end of it. So how is this relevant to the title? I am so glad I imagined you asking that as I type this. 

 

So one night, I was having trouble falling asleep, so I reached to the shelf above my bed and pulled down the Kindle Mum bought me for my upcoming birthday (Bookshelf real-estate is an ongoing problem.) my eyes drifted to the copy of The Legend of Final Fantasy 7 my brother bought me one year which I really should get around to reading, and I then wonder if there's a book anywhere about Mortal Kombat. I see on Kindle Unlimited, there is a beginners user guide, and I think "Ooh, there's probably some tips here I can use to maybe get a bit better in online matches." I'm not a beginner by any means but the fundamentals are, well, fundamental.

 

So right off the bat, this book is obviously written by an A.I, not just that, it pretends to be written by a ten-year fan of MK that doesn't know which is the block button, and proceeds on a foundation of incorrect information that I was not keen to follow the developments of. Aside from being A.I generated, it wasn't even proofread. There were tells and signs that I'll get to, but this was making me actually angry, so I stopped reading and returned the ebook. Then I saw the option to buy it, for actual money. I looked at the author, and they (if they are an actual person) had not disclosed that A.I was used in the creation of these materials, so I suppose I cannot prove it, for that reason, and also not wanting to give this slop farm the oxygen of attention, I'm leaving the name out. 

 

That said, I looked on Amazon and this "author" has 38 books to their name, the first published in late August of 2025 and the latest published on the 25th of November 2025. A little over a month apart, Basically around one book per day. So, either this "author" is the nom de plume of The Flash, or they don't actually author these books. (I'm fairly certain they weren't proof-read either.) And again, the use of AI to write this, incorrect-on-the-basics book, was not disclosed, and these books are available for purchase, for real money.

 

In any other line of work, that would be called fraud. In fact, given how A.I works, in That line of work it's called "plagiarism." I was aware that this was happening, and this particular story is definitely on the more harmless end of A.I Slop horror stories. I heard once of an A.I-generated outdoor survival guide that resulted in someone eating poisonous mushrooms. But it's one thing to know something is happening, it's quite another to see it with your own eyes. 

 

 As someone who wants, and has always wanted, to be a writer. As someone who has in one way or another made effort to hone the skill of the written word since I was old enough to spell, seeing this with my own eyes made me apocalyptically angry. I actually don't think I've ever been this angry while reading a book and I've scoured entire university textbooks that seemed like they'd be helpful to an assignment for hours at a time only to find nothing of practical use. 

 It isn't even just the undisclosed A.I generation itself, though that is bad enough, it's the disrespect for the very act of writing a book. An insult to anyone who read, and especially bought it. You prompt a generator, 

 and have the nerve to call yourself an author? You have the unmitigated gall to charge money for it?! 

 

I have no idea how well this works as a grift but that doesn't change that A.I is everywhere, so I think it's time more people started talking about ways to spot it. So here's a handy beginners guide to recognising A.I-generated writing on the internet, just a few things to look out for that don't necessarily mean something is written by an AI, but taken together can add up to, at the very least, a bad look. 

 Disclaimer, I'm talking specifically about writing here, I assume visual AI-generation is still obvious enough if you know what to look for, extra fingers, that telltale sheen over everything, etc. Also, I acknowledge that a lot of these tells are things many human writers do, the fact that they are kind of ubiquitous is how they end up in A.I writing patterns in the first place. 

 

1. "That isn't (just) X, it's Y." 

 

This is the big one for me. A version of this sentence popped up every paragraph or two in that AI-generated book, I also saw an animated short on Facebook that was a minute long and used it three different times, two of them back to back. (The short also had one  character refer to the other as "manager." Which may or may not have been an A.I decision but it speaks to a similar laziness either way.) 

 

 2. Talking in circles

 The "That isn't X it's Y" thing alone isn't enough to confirm something was written by an A.I, and as something of a writer myself, I hate how knee-jerky I myself have become at that particular sentence. Some things become cliché for a reason, and sometimes that reason is because they're useful shorthand for comparisons. I've probably used it myself a time or two, though I can't call a specific example to memory.

If however, it comes up once every paragraph or two, you might have AI-slop on your hands. A.I is repetitive, it works on patterns, and it doesn't have a sense of style unless specifically instructed to ape the style of another, and even then it will be a surface-level imitation, and won't be free of clichés. A.I doesn't do length well, and it won't be long before you start seeing the same wording repeated to match the subject.

 

3. Corporate Yes-manese

Whenever someone has showed me anything an A.I has said to them, it reads to me like one of those mealy-mouthed corporate social media posts. The kind that tries to soften the blow of anything bad and verbally fellate anything good. Put simply, it's a sycophant by design when you talk to it, so everything it writes follows a similar bent to whatever you happen to be talking about more than not, at least from what I've seen. A.I writes like it's angling for a promotion. 

I suspect, and this is just my conjecture, that being trained on social media as you know it must be on some level, and geared towards engagement as we know that stuff is, that A.I has inherited a tendency to fish for positive reactions. I've said before and I'll say again, there is no intelligence there, artificial or otherwise. Think of it like a parrot that can say "Hello" but a tad more advanced. 

 

4. Inconsistency

 Pretty self-explanatory on this one, the talking in circles I mentioned earlier speaks to...well, I don't want to say "a short attention span" but something that looks like one, and with each iteration things can get lost, or just outright fabricated like a game of telephone that isn't being taken seriously by every player. A short memory and habit for what they call "hallucinations" doesn't bode well for a written piece any longer than your average social media post. Which leads me, finally, to...

 

5. Being wrong about basic things

 

You've all seen those Google A.I overviews, right? The ones that say things like Willem DeFoe was in Star Wars or that it's safe to use gasoline in cooking, or glue cheese to pizza? Those happen for a few reasons but I think the two main ones are that, firstly, A.I is built, not to provide answers, but to predict the next part of a conversation, and to that end, the accuracy of anything it's saying is not a priority, and secondly. A.I has trouble rejecting premises. Sometimes it can, but it's not designed to, it's a predictive text engine meant to "Yes and" anyone using it, and crucially, can't verify information, and can only assume a rough facsimile of the next part of a conversation based largely on algorithmic probability. 

The most concisely I ever heard it put, and I'm sorry I don't know the name of the poster who said this, and I am paraphrasing, but the gist of it was that the only question A.I can answer is "what would an answer to this question look like?" If you were to ask it to write an essay for you (frankly, if you ever did this, you deserved to fail the assignment) it will show you a pretty good example of essay formatting, but the sources will be made up quotes from books that don't exist. But it doesn't matter to the A.I because that's what an essay basically looks like, so job done. 

I need people to understand that, and to also understand, that it is literally, not an A.I's job, to care whether or not anything it says is true, or accurate. It's job is to keep the conversation going. They call these errors "hallucinations." I'm sure on some level they're trying to iron them out to a point, but I have to wonder if the powers that be consider it in their best interests to do so. 

 I'm reminded of some advice I was once given for Reddit. I was told that if I ever wanted to get a question answered there, I shouldn't ask a question, but make an incorrect claim about whatever I wanted to know, because statistically, people were far more likely to jump in to correct someone than they were to help them. 

I don't know and cannot prove, that A.I errors are not a priority to fix by this same logic, but I do believe it. Algorithms have been ruining everything good about the internet for years, why should this be different? 

Yeah, basically, google something you already know the answer to sometime, watch the A.I overview be confidently wrong and cite, as it's source, someone on Reddit 5 years ago who was clearly joking. 

 

 Y'know, when I started writing this, I was angry. But now, I'm just sad. I long for the days of the pre-A.I internet. Not because I think the internet not being flooded with that shit would make a material difference to me. I'm a complete failure as an internet creator, I came to terms with that long ago, I've been putting out whatever I write or make without being willing to do what it takes to get eyes on it for over a decade, and I have, like, maybe a 100 people who know my name for it, if that. But I don't mind, because I'm doing something I want to do, and that's the point. 

 

I was content with obscurity when the competiton was human creativity. There is honour in, to paraphrase Hello Future Me, "drowning in the dreams of others." But not this makerless sludge that clogs up the airways in 2026. I hate that whenever I see something on the internet, I now feel the need to look for telltale signs of A.I like I'm trying to spot an evil spirit. I hate that that's now just something we all must learn to do, and that it's getting worse. It's so invasive. my laptop has copilot on it, y'know. I didn't ask, or make any move to install copilot on it, but it's there. Update put it there...I don't seem to be able to get rid of it either. 

 if A.I is so good, why can't it do anything good? For that matter, why do A.I companies work so hard to force their shit on you?

But yeah, back onto the original point, I hope you found something in this post helpful, thanks for reading, and keep using your brains!

Mortal Kombat and commitment to the bit.

 So, I was scrolling YouTube for way too long for no clear reason, as one often does, and my recommendations delivered to me a video called The Insane Lore of Mortal Kombat by a channel called 'ClementJ64,'. The video is three hours long.

I'm pretty fond of and familiar with that particular franchise, so I figure I'll throw it on for some comforting background noise while I try and write something. Long story short, guy goes deep into this veritable mountain of backstory for a series of fighting games on a level I didn't know about. Three hours later I haven't written a word because I've been watching too intently, which I can almost never manage to do for something that long anymore. 

Thanks to that, I currently have Mortal Kombat on the brain and I've replayed the tenth one (not touched since pretty much release) and thrown on the 1995 movie (R.IP Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa) while I'm writing this to  try and unpack what it is I find so compelling about this, when examined objectively, extremely silly franchise. 

If you're not familiar, Mortal Kombat is a series of fighting videogames that began in 1992 (almost as old as me) It has since spawned twelve mainline entries, a bunch of side-games and spinoffs, three movies, one a reboot with a sequel this year, and two TV series' one animated, one a live-action serial in the vein of something like Xena back in the day. There was also a short web series in the early 2010s. 

If you're a fossil like me, you might remember the series being a figure of some controversy in the early days because of the cartoonish levels of blood and gore in the games, which, I believe was what caused the Videogame industry to form the Entertainment Software Rating Board and give games age ratings like other visual media (that books are still not subject to age-ratings to this day is wild to me, by the way.) 

That controversy didn't stop Mortal Kombat from becoming a popular multimedia franchise, in fact it probably helped. I believe that's called 'The Streisand Effect.' The controversy only piqued people's curiosity, and the developers, I assume probably felt they had a reputation to uphold, because they did not change a thing in respose. 

 The games have done a bit of growing up in their presentation for recent entries. In some ways at least, the gore remains comically excessive, but character designs are more realistic, and outfits less...obviously geared towards teenage boys. (Quick aside, this has become a pattern observable across the entire medium, and, I have to say, whatever else one might say about videogames today, I would no longer be embarrassed to show them to somebody, at the very least.) 

 More realistic outfits aside, which I think is a good change anyway, Mortal Kombat has, to a tee, maintained everything about the series that brought it to the dance, so to speak. The over-the-top violence is visceral and intentionally disgusting, yes, but it can also be comical and downright goofy in places. Whatever the series may do, the one thing it has never once even entertained doing, is apologizing for any of it. 

Thinking about it, I think that might be what keeps me coming back to the series, and what has kept it interesting through the years. Maybe not of a consistent quality all the time but each entry oozes with palpable enthusiasm. Co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias started something in 1992, and Ed Boon serves as creative director and team leader to this day. 

That consistency in direction, coupled with obvious earnestness, and commitment to the premise does a lot to carry the more ridiculous aspects of the series. I'm reminded of my early days studying Performing Arts at BTEC level, I had a small voice and confidence issues, my director at the time would always tell me the same thing. He'd say "Don't apologise for your performance." Better advice, I have never heard, and I think it bears out here.  

 Confidence is important sure, but I'd argue that sincerity is just as important. People can absolutely tell when someone isn't behind something they make, and sincerity can save the life of a bad piece of art. Conversely, a lack of such can hamper even technically better things. I'll happily sit through Mortal Kombat: Anihilation a thousand times before I ever watch Batman v. Superman again. 

I guess I do gravitate to the unabashed as a rule. I've touched on how much I like sincerity in my media a whole bunch of times, so I won't retread here, but basically, if you don't care, why should I? This, I think is the essence of what I'm talking about here. Silly, gory, and goofy as Mortal Kombat often is, everything it does, it does with its whole damn chest, and I can't help but be drawn in by that. 

 The games have technically rebooted twice now, but even the reboots are not only soft, they're straight-up diegetic. The continuity has reset twice in the last four games, but those resets are part of the same ongoing story.  I don't like every decision the last reboot (which incidentally is the latest game) made, but the same focus on fun and love for the characters is still very much there. 

Not everything out of that franchise has been good, in fact some parts of it have been pretty damn terrible, but you can never accuse them of going through the motions, and enthusiasm is contageous. I can never be too mad about any story decision this series makes, because I'm never in-doubt that the creators are loving what they do. 

 Mortal Kombat endures, not because of a consistent quality, but unfaltering commitment to the bit. If there is a lesson to be learned there, it's that no one will ever care about your own art more than you, so show them why, and lean into it hard Irony is a crutch that punishes your audience for caring, don't fear the cringe, detachment is for the weak! 

Which is to say, if you care, and you show it, others will too. 

There does not need to be a tenth generation of consoles.

 Title says it all really, but as I tend to do, just in case you do not enter the videogaming space (in which case I envy you the peace of your existence.) a "console generation" refers to each time the major console manufacturers release the next in their line of hardware. the 7th generation came in the mid-to-late 2000s with Sony's Playstation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. 

 We're now in the 9th, with the PS5 and PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X and Series S, I don't even fucking know which one of those is supposed to be which, or what the difference is, and the Nintendo Switch 2.  which is the only one I thought needed to exist. Reason being, basically, in terms of raw hardware, Nintendo has been lagging behind since the Wii, but fortunately, the others hit the point of diminishing returns around the same time.

You've already guessed what I'm getting at with this post. 

I have a Switch, no Switch 2 yet, and a lifelong fondness for Nintendo IP, but I've mainly been on Playstation since the...well the Playstation. Everyone had a PS2, it's the best-selling console of all time to this day, I believe. Growing up with siblings, we usually ended up with all 3 of the major consoles in the house eventually. But after my second 360 Red-Ringed and died on me, as my dad had bought be a PS3 for my birthday that year, I didn't bother to replace it. (I wanted one for Metal Gear Solid 4 and God of War 3, and later discovered the Yakuza series, and never went back.) 

Fairly sure that only one of the aforementioned is still Sony exclusive, and that's only until volume 2 of the Metal Gear Master Collection comes out, but the death of that particular reason to buy things is not what I'm here to talk about today. 

 

I still have my old PS3, it sits ready and waiting in the cabinet atop which sits the monolithic slab that is the PS5, and...well, I wanna talk to you all for just a second about a very particular phenomenon that I'm not sure there's a name for. In fact, fuck it, let's name it. How about...the "Retro Beer Goggles" or, RBG effect?

in previous console generations, it was not uncommon to load up an old game on old hardware, and be taken aback by how...bad it looks. I have many old favourites that I'd be prepared to swear looked better than they did. My memory had applied Retro Beer Goggles, and given the visuals an upscale in my mind. I could usually adjust once I got into the game and immersion took hold, but that initial shock would be there no matter how many times I revisited the same game if enough time had passed since I last did.

I say in previous generations because, as I mentioned above, consoles hit the point of diminishing returns on visuals at least fifteen years ago. I regularly fire up my old PS3, and not only is the RBG effect not really present, things still look, at worst fine, and at best, pretty damn good. 

 In fact, if anything, pushing higher and higher resolution has come at a cost that I question was worth it. 

 So, my PS3 is the slim model that has 300-odd gigabytes of storage. Never needed more, honestly, the only time I needed to make space was redownloding God of War: Ascension and that was only because the way the PS3 downloads and installs things is ass-backwards in a way that requires you to have double the free space you actually need. The biggest game on my hard drive on the PS3 takes up 35GB. 

A much smaller, but more substantial one that I had on there, is Batman: Arkham City. which occupied less than 8GB on that hard drive. For comparison's sake, I checked the PS4 version of that same game, which requires 49GB to install. That's six times the hard drive space, six. 

But surely the amount of space in the new consoles is bigger to compensate right? No, no it's not, the standard is 1TB now. I believe there was a PS3 model that could hold 500GB unless I'm mistaken, so, double the storage size, but roughly six times the file size. 

 This wouldn't be so much of a problem if games were still contained on disc, like they were back then, but they're not. With the exception of Yakuza 0 on the PS4, which takes up maybe 23GB and goes from uninstalled to playable in seconds, (it's also a really good game, just by the way)  the discs basically serve as something to keep on your shelf and let your console know it's allowed to download and install the game without you needing to buy it on the digital storefront. 

 So if you want to keep your library of games at the ready, you have no option, but to keep bloated files on your system, limiting your available options to about...maybe 10 games depending on scale, because you don't get the full terrabyte for installs, the system software takes a fair chunk of it. Unless of course you spend half again the price of the console to buy extended storage, or subscribe to cloud gaming services and hope that A) your internet connection can handle streaming the game to you, and B) the game you want to play is even on there in the first place, neither of which are guaranteed. Cloud Gaming is nice, but it's not a solution to those who can't get good internet like say, anyone who lives in an even remotely rural area. Point being, depending on online elements simply isn't an option for a lot of people.

The last game I finished, Death Stranding 2, admittedly one of the most ambitious games in terms of scale I've seen of late, took up 93GB of storage space. Red Dead Redemption 2 infamously took up over 100. There are smaller ones, sure, indie games especially can be tiny on the ol' hard drive, Balatro takes up about 150mb, I've got more hours than that logged on that one. But those are very much the exception and indie games are not what people buy consoles for. 

 Which, of course, prompts the question. What Do people buy consoles for in 2025? 

 This is a question the manufacturers have struggled to answer, with the exception of the Switch 2 because Nintendo finally has a console on the market that can handle third-party games without much compromise to the port, which, frankly, they could've done with making happen a couple of years sooner.

 Since the days of the NES, console manufacturers have pushed visuals to the forefront as a way to sell the capabilities of their new console. The reason for this is pretty simple, it's the easiest kind of upgrade to communicate, and understand, you only have to look at it. But with the 7th, and especially 8th generations we reached the point where graphics weren't going to get much better. In fact, I have yet to see a PS5 game that I couldn't imagine running just fine on the 4...Maybe Death Stranding 2 but even that's a maybe, and I'm conscious of the fact that I am a layman here, and there may be a whole host of things I'm not considering or even aware of, but as a customer, none of that is my problem. 

So what then? The PS5 pushed it's advanced processing power and something called Ray Tracing, which, to be honest with you, I know the name of, and nothing else, it's been five years and I still couldn't tell you what that does, or the difference it's supposed to make. I basically never have it turned on and can't tell much of a difference when it is. 

I do notice one improvement between the 4 and 5, and it's loading times, or more specifically, the lack thereof. Loading times are all but gone, everything happens seemlessly. In Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 the fast travel system (which I seldom used anyway because traversal in that game is fun on it's own) simply zooms out from where you are, and back in on where you want to be, and there you are, no loading time at all, or sufficiently short loading time that it can be disguised by a quick zoom-out, either way, for a game of that scale with near-photorealistic visuals that is impressive speed. 

 So, okay, we've found one thing the PS5 brings to the table to justify it's existence. But of course that promts another question.

 

Now what? 

The PS5 Pro, is a thing that exists, a sort of, allegedly upgraded version of the PS5. I don't have one, nor do I want one really. The only sales pitch I've heard about it is that you no longer have to choose between "quality" and "performance" mode for your games. There doesn't appear to be much of a visual difference between the two to me and performance mode's higher framerate feels better nigh-universally. I've also heard some things actively look worse on the Pro, add to that the fact that there is no version of it that comes with a disc-drive, forcing you to go digital only unless you buy and expensive (and not to mention, fucking massive, if the one I saw in CeX is anyhting to go by) external disc drive to play any physical games you might own, or if you use yours as a blu-ray or DVD player. So to me it just seems like a worse, and also more expensive version of a thing I already own. 

But let's look past the halfway point of this gen, and ask, what even could a tenth generation of consoles bring to the table? In terms of raw graphical horsepower, we're there. I'm not convinced we needed this generation for that milestone, let alone another. Processing power was a boon but we have that now, loading times are all but gone, the in-game worlds are already too big to effectively explore in many cases. hell, No Man's Sky, a game that came out nine years ago sold itself on being so vast you'd never experience all of it. (That turned out to be a lie, but Hello Games did eventually give truth to it after launch following fan backlash, the game is procedurally-generated and literally infinite in scope) So potential for scale isn't really a selling-point anymore. 

What else is there? The way games are played and developed is standardised enough at this point that any console relying on a gimmick would inevitably lock itself out of the vast majority of the market. That's only really an option for Nintendo and they're finally opting not to do that with the Switch 2. 

 I genuinely don't have an answer for this question. Graphics? We're there, Scale? We're there. Loading times? Gone. What more could consoles possibly need to do that they don't already? One of the selling points was the plug-and-play simplicity of consoles as opposed to PCs, but one could argue that even that's not true of them anymore. I'd still say it is, but less so than I'd like. 

So yeah, in leiu of such an answer I am forced to conclude, that there simply does not need to be a tenth generation of consoles, feel free to tell me I'm wrong, I'd love a reason to get excited for new ones as opposed to just dreading the expense of continued access to new releases, but that's where I'm at with them.  

More ADHD musings born from compulsive experimentation.

 So, a formal diagnosis I may not have, but ADHD, I definitely do, and I can tell you how I know, I discovered the dopamine cycle. 

For those unfamiliar, one of the effects of ADHD is low dopamine production in the brain. Dopamine is, to put it as simply as I can, the "happy" chemical. It also gives motivation and focus. Point being, ADHD brains don't get enough of it. 

The results of this can vary wildly. ADHD has other symptoms too, more or less consistent with failing online dementia tests, (I took six different ones in one day and failed every single fucking one, which is slightly worrying.) But it does explain, among many other things, my always having been disorganised, unfocused, and having no working sense of direction at all. So, fuck it, I'm claiming it, because I've been asking doctors to look into a diagnosis for years, and what generally happens is they say they'll put you on a six year long waiting list and then don't even do that. If the end result is "fucking nothing" anyway, I don't feel like waiting forever on the off chance of being told something that as far as I'm concerned, I already know.

 Anyway, getting back to the dopamine thing, Your brain and body know when something is wrong, and they tell you, unfortunately we humans aren't always the best at interpreting what our bodies tell us.

A brain that doesn't get enough dopamine will have you seek more, and this can manifest in a variety of ways. Many ADHDers develop eating disorders, have addictive personalities, or have trouble regulating sleep, screen-time, or other such things that require, well, a level of control over your brain that you're not going to have when it's screaming at you to address an imbalance. 

 I didn't really understand this, until I started trying to spike my own dopamine levels. More on that later. 

 side-note, another common symptom of ADHD is that caffeine has a diminished effect on the person in question, pushing them, not to the usual "wired" state but something slightly closer to approximating regular functionality, at least temporarily, which, honestly, when I found that out, expalined so much.  

 the most frustrating symptom of ADHD is "Executive Disfunction." Executive Function is the process that happens in the brain where you transition from thinking about doing something, to actually doing it. If you imagine that process as crossing a bridge between intention and action...basically, my bridge is fucking broken. 

 It is really hard for me to make myself do things, especially important things, because they are important things, and I really don't know how to explain that to someone who doesn't already know what I mean.

To illustrate the struggle some, quick story, it was a while ago now, but it's still my best example. My penultimate assignment for my MA was a 4,000 word essay, that's not huge, but here's the thing. I had never managed to get anything down on a written assignment unless it was the night before it's due. Executive Dysfunction tends to outwardly manifest as procrastination. Not for lack of trying mind you, the amount of time I've spent sat in front of a screen determined not to move until something is done only to be completely unable to get my head around doing anything doesn't bear thinking about, not to mention the amount of energy wasted by stressing over it. This is one such situation.

 It was the night before the night before my assignment was due, I sat at my computer, determined that at least once I'd have something done ahead of time. I closed all social media tabs and left my phone on the other side of the room on purpose. 

Long story short, by the time the sun rose the following day I'd managed to write maybe 400 words. The stress of Master's in general affected me mentally in ways I'm only recently starting to feel like I've maybe recovered from, but this was the one actual breakdown I'd had in my five years of academia. Sobbing hysterically, I banged my head against the wall repeatedly, and slumped onto my bed, defeated. Shortly thereafter, my mum entered the room, didn't say anything, but implied from the attempt to comfort me that she understood the gist of what went down. Later, after sleeping, since I hadn't that night, I relayed the experience to a friend, remarking that the worst part of it was that I could've slept that night, and my position would not have appreciably worsened for doing so. 

I've been called "lazy" my entire life for my general lack of focus and organisation. I never really argued with it. frankly, I couldn't have disputed it if I wanted to, the evidence, or in terms of my schoolwork as a kid, lack thereof, spoke for itself, and perhaps I am still, to a point. But that breakdown in 2018 confirmed for me that, lazy or not, something else was wrong. Laziness doesn't keep you from getting to things you want to do, laziness doesn't stop you from doing things you actually care about. I wasn't simply unmotivated, (though that was also a frequent problem) I was unable. 

 Months later I was saying as much to a friend of mine, who said "It sounds like you have ADHD." They then proceeded to recount their own experiences of it to me, which essentially was them telling me my own school experience without my ever having gone into it with them, that was my first clue. 

Previously I had gone to my GP about my trouble getting myself to do things (the mess around, and left by, that GP is a story in itself, but that's not for this post.) I was told to "just stop it." and given the (in)famous "Eat That Frog" book. The productivity advice book that is just a fair few ways of saying "get it out of the way and you'll feel better." Well shit! I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT!

 Anyway, I bring that up because, well, getting back to dopamine, and the underproduction thereof in ADHD brains. That's just not good advice for someone with that type of brain. the low levels of dopamine make tackling tasks next to impossible, especially if they're larger, more daunting tasks. Which brings me to what I hope is the helpful part of this post. 

 

What is "The Dopamine Cycle?" 

 To put it simply, the dopamine cycle, is acknowledging 2 things, and putting them into practice, firstly, that those with ADHD or just executive dysfunction are at a disadvantage with their dopamine levels, and secondly, completing tasks, boosts dopamine. Unfortunately, tasks are exactly the thing we struggle to initiate. 

 The closest we have to a solution then, is to turn the "Eat that Frog" philosophy, on it's head. Don't try to do the hardest thing first. You'll only run up against a wall, instead, focus on crossing things off your to-do list for the day, start with the easiest thing, you'll build momentum, and dopamine with it. 

 A thing you have to acknowledge is that any given person only has so much energy per day. You also have the most you're going to have early on. The key then, is to start early, start small, keep momentum going. It doesn't matter what you do, or in what order, you'll be surprised how much of it you can get to. 

 Another helpful hint is, if you can, take cold showers, I read somewhere that they can boost dopamine production by up to 40% that is going to be crucial if you've got a lot to do that day. 

The first time I heard this advice, I decided to try it. Now, here's where I admit to something a little embarrassing. I'm a very untidy person. My room can sometimes look like the trash compactor from Star Wars and...well, I don't know if this is an ADHD thing, or a "me" thing, but I don't see it happening.

My room can go from tidy to bombsite over a period of time, and I could honestly not tell you when anything significant happened to aid this transition. When I enter a room, I see what has my immediate attention, and everything else is just part of the background. I don't see mess happening until it reaches critical mass, at which point, I don't even know where the hell to start. 

 So my first try at this dopamine cycle thing was to see how far I could get cleaning my living space. 

Over the next two days, one for my bedroom, one for my bathroom, I successfully cleaned for the first time in my life, using this dopamine cycle as a way to keep momentum going. Mum had to do a tip run, that's how bad it was, but I managed it, which is sometihng I've never been able to get my head around before. All it took was starting small, doing one thing at a time, and a thing I did that I found helped, was making a list of things as I did them, to cross them off, it's weird but there's a real catharsis to that. 

  It's also worth mentioning, the tasks can be tiny, the first items on my list every day are 

-Duolingo (as I can do that in bed)

-make bed

-take meds

-brush teeth

-shower

 and like that, you're already rolling, bonus points if it was a cold shower for that extra dopamine boost. It is important to note, however that, even if you do all this, you're still gonna have bad days. One of the biggest motivators for ADHD brains is novelty, which will quickly wear off. So you're gonna have to find a way to keep things fresh. As much as I hate the advice "find what works for you" because it tells you fucking nothing. You really do have to find what works for you. These are a few things that worked for me, at least for a while, I'm back to having a bit of a bad time recently, but hopefully, they'll work for you too. 

 A recent development, and one I don't recommend without reservation unless you're sure you want to try it. I read that caffiene tablets work similarly to ADHD medication, so I took one, now, at the time I was dubious about doing this because for several reasons I was in the middle of a bout of severe anxiety, but you know what? It helped even me out for a bit. HOW THE HELL DOES THAT MAKE SENSE!? HOW DOES MY FUCKING BRAIN TAKE "MORE CAFFEINE" AND MAKE IT A MODERATING INFLUENCE FOR ANXIETY!? 

That quickly lost it's effectiveness though, and caused a few stomach issues, so I wouldn't really recommend it, especially often, but...maybe for emergencies. 

 

 So yeah, if you have bad working memory, sense of direction, or can down a can of monster and still fall asleep soon after, you might have ADHD. You might also have real trouble making yourself do things, and that's okay. It's not your fault, you're not "just lazy" (even if you are, it's not necessarily the problem.) And even if you can't get medical help for this, there are things you can do, there are ways you can fight this, and hopefully I've let you know about a few.

I'll tell you this for free, I have Cerebral Palsy, and am a full-time wheelchair user. As much as that gets in my way (largely due to inaccessibility on the part of public spaces) if I could ditch one thing and keep the other, I'd keep the chair. ADHD gets in my way so much more. I can use a wheelchair, I can't use a brain that won't work with me. So yeah, if you're struggling...I get it. 

Thanks for reading.

Let's Not Lose Our Heads.

This post is just for me, really, but on the off-chance anyone finds it helpful, I'll publish it anyway. 

 

So, this Summer I've been thinking a lot, not been able to do much else amid the heatwaves, (which, I generally don't mind except for when I can't sleep at night) but I have got back into reading in a big way, which is always nice, I haven't been this able to read since before uni a decade ago. 

 

I started making a concerted effort to do that beforehand, because, as I get older (I'm still in my early 30s, which is not old, but it bloody well feels like it is sometimes) my attention-span, which, frankly, was never good, has only got worse. I started trying to read more again to remedy that, as I've developed something of a fear of mental atrophy, and what the logical conclusions of that might be. The mind is a muscle, and like any muscle, if you don't use it, you will lose it. 

Also, I feel like in this era of anti-intellectualism, A.I summaries, and regurgitation of misinformation, the act of doing the reading yourself, whatever that may be, is in itself, an act of defiance. I won't go too deep into that here, because...well, where the fuck to start? But all of this does contribute to the overall landscape I want to talk about in this post. This isn't all about A.I, but I am gonna rant about A.I for a bit.

Fact is, there's a mental decline happening on a societal level, and I hate it, but what I hate even more is that I can't really blame people for it. It's all very well for me to say "ChatGPT is not a replacement for research" but that doesn't change that it looks like one, and unless you've been taught how to properly research, which I've never even seen mentioned outside of university, how the hell are you supposed to know the difference? The only way you would is if you already know the answers you're looking for, in which case you're likely only using ChatGPT to demonstrate to someone else how wrong it is, and how often. To anyone else it just looks like if google was a chatbot, which sounds great, honestly.

Of course the problem with generative A.I is that the name is a misnomer, it's not A.I. There's no intelligence in there, artificial or otherwise. It's a word-cloud with an algorithm designed to use maths to spit out whatever response that algorithm deems the user most likely to want to hear. Companies have fed it the entire internet and a every piece of art under the sun, (copyright law, and the rights of artists be damned, apparently) just to turn it into the facsimile it currently is. This isn't even mentioning the impact on arts industries or the environment, but that's A, a whole other post that I haven't done enough research to make, and B, not what I'm here to talk about now, but I'm pretty sure we're all agreed that both impacts are bad. 

 And for what? An algorithmic simulation of the confident-sounding idiot at a party, without the personality that occasionally makes that experience bearable.  

I think the thing that fucks me off most about Generative A.I and what it is, and does, and I might lose a few of you here, is how much I love the idea of a potential good version. Frankly, I love the idea of what currently available A.I is being pitched as, the thing that pisses me off is that it isn't that and never can be. At least not without changing it on a fundamental level until it's something else entirely. 

A chatbot that can cut out the legwork of research for you and work as a sounding board for your ideas? Fuck yeah! sounds great! Unfortunately that's not what "A.I" is, and for it to become that, in it's current state would either require everyone on the internet to always be honest and correct, or a level of human oversight that would defeat the purpose of having an A.I in the first place. 

Well, I suppose there is a third option, you could narrow the data pool to only include reputable sources. But even if you were to do that, it would still hallucinate all the time because, again, it's a big word cloud with pattern-recognition designed to spit out whatever its algorithm says you're most likely to want to hear. There is no comprehension happening on the part of the "AI." 

 

 I'm gonna sound a lot like an old man yelling at a cloud here, but social media has a lot to answer for in all this. That whole thing has been one gigantic monkey's paw.  Social Media sites are designed to keep you on them for as long as possible. To this end, certain types of content get prioritised, those being devisive, or easily digestible posts, bonus points for both, I guess. 

 there's nothing that drives engagement quite like an argument, and nothing that keeps one scrolling quite like almost giving a person what they want. Which of course, ruins people's attention-spans as the latter thing engenders frustration, and therefore impatience, there's a reason TikTok is a bugger to use any kind of search function with.

 I heard once that Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, doesn't allow his kids to use it, or any other form of social media for that matter. Reason being he knows what it does to a person and their attention-span. The following is a screenshot I took from the Times of India from June 2024 (it was the first page I found, to be honest.)

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-tips/bill-gates-mark-zuckerberg-and-other-tech-leaders-advice-on-limiting-kids-screen-time/articleshow/111321403.cms

 It makes sense that he, of all people, would restrict his kids' access to social media. He knows exactly what it does to your brain, because he's built his entire business on monopolising your attention.  

I noticed a while ago, I found myself wanting to "multitask" a lot, even during recreational activities. I listen to audiobooks or podcasts if I happen to be playing a repetitive videogame that doesn't require my full attention. Sometimes it's the other way around and I get up a match-3 puzzle game on my phone to give my hands something to do while I listen to things. It feels good to do things like that, honestly, it leads to feelings of productivity that I rarely approach. But I think doing things like that has come at a cost. 

 I can't sit through a film anymore, unless I'm at the cinema. (Luckily, I really like going to see movies on the big screen, so I do still see a fair few.) Not just that, one of my longest-standing obsessions, professional wrestling, no longer holds my attention like it used to. In fact, I typed up half of this post with it on in the background. So I assume then, that dividing my attention like this, while gratifying in the short term, is having some troubling long-term effects. (Incidentally, I've just discovered Brain.fm, for focus sounds and I haven't stopped typing for the last 20 minutes, so that's exciting.)

 I haven't done the research to say this concretely, and I'm not about to, because if I stop typing this to do that now, then my chances of ever finishing this post drop quite drastically, but my personal experience leads me to believe that multitasking like I've been doing has been killing my focus, which, again, was never exactly good to begin with. 

This is why I say social media has a lot to answer for, don't lie, you've probably checked at least one since you started reading this, haven't you? I've certainly looked at one or two since I sat down to finish writing it (I think this is about my fourth sitting, and it's not that long a post.)

 I'm not sure what it is I actually want to say with this post beyond that I'm actually quite worried about the prospect of mental decline, and I think it's being exacerbated in the worst of ways by things like Generative A.I, which gives the illusion of easy solutions and therefore allows people to avoid thinking, and social media, which has our brains chasing dopamine, along with every other kind of digital media which has our brains task-switching all over the place, and going a mile any given minute of the day. 

 I don't think things are gonna get better either, I think things are only likely to get worse as social media adjusts it's delivery method and algorithms for shorter attention-spans and "A.I" gets shoved into everything whether we want it or not. I'm not a neurologist, and I have no scientifc data to hand to base this on, but going off the assumption I made earlier, that the mind is a muscle, and you use it or lose it, I have to think we're gonna be looking at some pretty nasty mental health consequences in the next decade or so. 

Just...keep yourself sharp as best you can, yeah? That's what I intend to do. Whether that's trying to read books more or just doing a crossword or playing Sudoku every now and then, whatever works for you. Just don't fall into the trap of letting yourself not have to think, because the longer you stay in that rabbit hole, the harder it is to get out.

Let's not lose our heads, yeah?