This cast is about supporting the individual and interesting creator in the face of crappy, generic Ai produced slop. Because individuality, human mistakes, and human weirdness are so much more interesting than averaged out, smoothed down, generic pablum that's produced by "generative" Ai. I must apologise though because I slept through the usual Quackcast time (I was sick), and it took my brave, loyal and helpful cat almost 2 hours to finally wake me up and get me ready for the cast! So my brain wasn't fully awake and I was a dopey ditz for most of the cast.

Gunwallace joined our crew for this cast. He's always a welcome member to the team.

These big Ai models work by stealing text and images from all over the place and giving us averaged out versions of them. The text and images they churn out are typically bland and often wrong because they are an average of both bad and good information that are delivered in an entirely overconfident manner. AI is a great real-time example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. The blandness is key though- this is why as a creator you shouldn't feel disheartened, the novelty and creativity of you work is still wake makes it interesting in the face of all this generic glurge.

As Ai use increases, genuine creatives will adapt to it and make it their own as just another of their tools. The people who think they can replace creatives will be disabused of that fantasy just like they were with things like photography and synthesisers: Photography didn't replace the artist like people feared, good photos still take a lot of skill, experience, talent, and training to produce. Synthesisers didn't replace musicians, you still needed to know what you're doing to make music with them. Ai is much the same in that the generic images and text produced by inane "prompts" are generic garbage based on stolen content and the more they're produced the more generic people will see them to be, unless true creatives come along who know how to manipulate them to produce interesting things instead of simply simulacra of interesting things.

It is already starting with people who forgo Ai trained with stolen IP and instead use their own work for the training models. And to a much lessor extent for people who use prompted Ai creations as the basis for further creative work of their own. In the mean time though fully creator produced work will always have value.

This week we have a best-off Gunwallace - Awfully decent fellows - JAMES FREAKIN' BOND. That's all I originally wrote. This is one of my faves that I often listen to.
Originally from Quackcast 195 14th of December 2014.

Topics and shownotes

Links

How people become dumber through the use of Ai - https://bsky.app/profile/cozmicsoulfire.bsky.social/post/3lzkwart27k2z

Featured comic:
Trip And Tessa - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/nov/12/featured-comic-trip-and-tessa/

Featured music:
Awfully decent fellows - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Awfully_Decent_Fellows/ - by Ironscraf, rated E.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

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