I was listening to Jeff Beck on YouTube as he discussed and analysed the world’s best guitarists.
asserted
he → listen → guitarists
His reaction on first hearing Hendrix, his thoughts on the thickness of Stevie Ray’s strings and the strength of his hands and the unique blue language they begot.
asserted
they → hear → hands
The sad thing was Stevie Ray didn’t want to get on the helicopter, his friends urged him to fly that night, Beck said.
asserted
Beck → want → him
I was so absorbed in the great man’s take on the various virtuosos of the rock revolution it wasn’t until the video ended and I began to read the comment trail that I realised the whole thing was AI.
asserted
thing → absorb → trail
Jeff Beck died in 2023.
asserted
Beck → die → 2023
This video was recorded last year.
asserted
video → record → ?
Cannier cats than I had picked up the fakery, but if they hadn’t, I’d still believe these were the thoughts and words of Jeff Beck.
asserted
these → pick → Beck
No big deal, I guess.
asserted
I → guess → deal
They’re all as replicable and malleable now as Wile E. Coyote and might be dragooned into any caustic cause.
uncertain
They → ’re → cause
It occurred to me that we’re becoming completely defenceless against the construction of lies as real as reality and vision and voice that was never filmed or spoken.
asserted
that → occur → reality
Fresh ghosts are abroad, and we’ll soon be totally unable to tell who’s real and who was got up by this new tool that easily usurps reality for marketable or political ends.
asserted
that → tell → ends
I’ve lived long enough to believe a politician is always lying.
asserted
politician → live → ?
But from now on I won’t know if the politician is telling their own, self-serving lies, which I can generally interpret, or someone else is telling theirs, to further their own cause, using an AI simulacrum of the politician.
asserted
someone → know → politician
Imagine a world where there are legion Trumps on every platform, all masquerading as the real Trump and all telling different lies.
asserted
all → imagine → lies
I guess if one accidentally misspoke, briefly telling the truth, you could discount him as the 47th president, but barring that how would you know?
uncertain
you → guess → that
It won’t be long before we see grainy footage of a deathbed Charles Darwin denouncing natural selection and endorsing God.
asserted
we → see → God
This will be repudiated by a subsequent recording where, long-whiskered, gaunt-faced, he condemns God and evolution and beseeches you to follow Allah.
asserted
he → repudiate → Allah
OK, you might be able to defend yourself from these bespoke mirages with a little research, but the storm of AI-conjured irreality that blows into your dumbfounded face will soon be too numerous, too ostensibly valid, too all-encompassing to investigate.
uncertain
that → defend → face
Time doesn’t stand still, so you can’t fact-check life to make sure it’s real.
asserted
it → stand → life
I expect any day now to see a grinning Albanese whipping palsied orphans with fencing wire; Jacinta Nampijinpa Price luring ponies off cliffs with sugar cubes; St Paul sooling stoats onto Noah’s doves – it’s all doable.
asserted
it → expect → doves
And unnatural not to believe what you see ... also, too wearying to be wary of every online experience.
asserted
you → believe → experience
Alternately, if it becomes necessary, and easy, to disbelieve things you see with your own eyes, then you will disbelieve truth as readily as fakery ...
asserted
you → become → fakery
Pauline Hanson will be captured in an outrage for the ages, and we will scroll past it as banal clickbait, news as fake as yesterday’s, when we saw Buddha happily playing chess with Hitler.
asserted
Buddha → capture → Hitler
Worse, AI will know you better than your mother does, pandering deftly to your appetites and beliefs to get you to pander to its own.
asserted
you → know → own
It will tell you and show you things you want to hear and see so you will stay switched on and behave as its masters want you to.
asserted
you → tell → things
Thus, our various realities will become so bespoke, so singular, each of us will appear mad to the other.
asserted
each → become → other
For what is this wanderer we call “madman” if not some person unable to see the world with the approximate consistency most of us do, someone who knows existence in an entirely different light – purple and loud and neighboured with zombies speaking in rhyming couplets while cops wear lizard faces and hags ride brooms through the malls?
asserted
hags → call → malls
We will all soon be monarchs of similarly unique kingdoms if AI is curating our input of “reality”.
asserted
AI → curate → reality
All of this is alarmism, of course, dystopian hyperbole, Hanrahanism in accents most forlorn ... but I have recently heard guitar gods speak from beyond the grave, and no future seems improbable now.
asserted
future → hear → grave
- Pretty lies for an audience of one: life as a biographer for hire
- Confessions of a Tim Tam hostage
- I signed up for the outback’s Squid Game.
asserted
I → sign → Game
Now I look like a gaudy octopus
- There can only be one Taylor Swift.
asserted
I → look → octopus
For the rest of us, there’s life
- I no longer tell people I’m from Victoria.
asserted
I → ’ → Victoria
They can get their laughs elsewhere
- It was our only family heirloom.
asserted
It → get → laughs
How was I to know it was touched by The Don?
asserted
it → know → Don
- Tracey had to admit that her life had been happy.
asserted
life → have → ?
The Aporia
