by James Wallace Harris, 11/7/25
I watched two YouTube videos yesterday that disturbed me. Both were about the impact of AI. The first was “How What I Do Is Threatened by AI” by Leo Notenboom. Leo has a website where he answers technical questions. He also makes videos about each problem. His traffic is down because many people are turning to AI to answer their technical questions. Leo eloquently discusses what this means to his business in this video. Asking AIs for help will impact many online companies, including Google. I already prefer to ask CoPilot to look something up for me rather than Googling it.
The next video was even more depressing. Julia McCoy reports “AI Just Killed Video Production: The 60-Second Revolution Nobody Saw Coming.” New tools allow anyone to produce videos featuring computer-generated people or cartoon characters who talk with computer-generated lip-synced voices. I’m already seeing tons of these, and I hate them. McCoy points out that old methods of video production required the skills of many different people, taking days, weeks, or months to produce. Those jobs are lost.
I love seeing little short videos on the web. I’ve always admired how ordinary people can be so creative. I saw YouTube and other sites giving millions of people opportunities to create a money-making business.
I’m often dazzled by computer-generated content. It is creative. But I don’t care about giving computers jobs. I admire people for their creative efforts.
Technology allowed millions of people to produce creative content. That was already overwhelming. I’m not sure if the world needs hundreds of millions of people with minimal ability producing zillions of creative works.
For example, I admire a handful of guys who review audiophile equipment. That handful does high-quality work. Then dozens of audiophiles produce so-so videos. I sometimes watch them, but usually not. Now, YouTube is flooded with videos reviewing audiophile equipment by computer-generated hosts with computer-generated voices, scraping information off the web, and using stock video for visuals. It sucks. It’s a perfect example of enshitafication and AI slop.
I’m not completely against AI. I ask AIs for help. I’m glad when AI does significant work. For example, just watch this video for 15 mind-blowing examples of AI successes:
However, we need to set limits. I love funny cat videos. But I don’t want to see funny cat videos generated by AI. I want to see real cats. If I watch a video of a pretty woman or a beautiful nature scene, I want to believe I’m seeing something that exists in reality. If I’m watching a funny cartoon, I want to know a human thought up the words and drew the pictures. Prompt engineering is creative, maybe even an emerging art form, but computers can generate infinities. Real art is often defined by limitations.
I admire people. I admire nature. Sure, I also admire stuff computers create, but when I do, I want to know that it was a work of a computer. Don’t fool with my sense of reality.
Sometimes, I do love doomscrolling. And I love watching YouTube videos for hours at a time. And I love wasting time on Facebook before going to bed. But all the AI sloop is spoiling it for me. What I really loved about all that content was admiring human creativity and natural beauty. I want to see the best, even if it’s produced by a computer. What spoils it is all the AI slop, poorly produced human-created content, and too much computer-produced content.
That’s why I’m returning to magazines. A magazine is limited in scope. Editors must curate what is put into the limited number of pages. Facebook, YouTube, etc., would be much better if they had editors.
I enjoyed TV the most in my life when there were only three channels. The best time in my life for music was when there were only two Top 40 AM channels. I liked reading science fiction far better when I just subscribed to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Analog.
I’m not against AI. I’m just against too much of it.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 