AI is boring!
One of my favourite articles from 2023 was written by Alex Murrell, called “the Age of Average” (link below).
The main thrust of the article is how technology is making the world bland. The insta’ global access to the latest in technology, trends and styles has inadvertently sent us down the path of sameness. From coffee houses, to AirBnB accommodation to car design… there are too many examples to touch on. We are heading towards product and cultural conformity.
In 2004 an English think tank, The “New Economics Foundation” (NEF) released research, since updated, called “Clone Town Britain”. The argument being that cities the UK are losing their local identity, and most city centres are indistinguishable from one another. Whilst driven by scale and economics, it could be argued that those economics are being driven by the trends pointed out by Murrell. In Scandinavia we are much further advanced than the UK.
The AI of today is based on existing data. It is creativity looking backwards. The LLM’s driving the AI recommendations we are getting run the risk of flattening out the outliers, and generating outputs that are essentially average. Think Spotify recommendations… once you have subscribed for a while it is very hard for you to escape what Spotify has decided you want to hear!
The importance of art, diversity and creativity have never been greater.