Hi All!

Here is your weekly round up of what I’m pondering and exploring. Feel free to forward along to a friend if you think they might enjoy.

Preorders now open

Last week on my Instagram I announced that I’d opened preorders for my book, Off the Rails.

Many of you have already reserved your copy, and I’d like to take a moment to to thank you for your support. It means so much, and I apologise if I missed anyones messages or comments, I’m trying my best to get back to everyone.

If anyone else is interested, you can place an order here for $35 AUD.

The price also includes worldwide free shipping for anyone worried about getting the booked shipped outside of Australia.

I’m slightly worried about slop

You’ve all seen the AI slop thats filled our feeds over the past week.

Generative video has become so close to reality that even I have began second guessing what’s real online. And although I remain optimistic I have no idea where this goes.

I thought the video below painted the reality of our current situation very well.

Sora 2

I spent the evening scrolling through my phone watching AI videos of Stephen Hawking doing backflips at the skatepark, Muslim Jake Paul praying, and robot Charlie Kirk being resurrected from the dead.

I wandered around the house with my eyes glued to my phone, only stopping to grab a handful of lollies from the fridge and stuff them into my mouth.

I continued mindlessly absorbing absurd video after another, curious to what my algorithm was going to serve me next.

Is this real? Or is this AI? It’s all starting to blur.

There was a strange comfort to how stupid and meaningless everything was. It felt like it helped me turn off my brain. So much so that hours flew by without me even noticing.

Eventually though, after gigabytes of sensory input, I felt a spur of inspiration, and decided I wanted to try making my own slop.

Cause why not? Look how easy it is.

I opened my laptop, typed in an address that took me to an AI video generator, and got to work.

I typed in stupid prompts like “Dancing Indian leprechaun with wheelchair at skatepark,” and “Evil wizard siting on toilet on top of mountain.”

I turned fleeting thoughts into jpegs and jpegs into animated videos that were saved in my downloads folder.

There was zero intention behind what I was creating and was literally throwing shit at the wall.

And while some of the things I generated looked interesting with their liminal styling and eerie settings, it was all meaningless slop.

A sludge of pixelated vomit that only clogged up disk space on my laptop.

I tried posting a couple videos under an anonymous AI account but it didn’t take long for me to wake up to myself and ask, “What the fuck am I doing?”

I closed my AI generator, went downstairs, and heated up my dinner.

As I sat there cutting into the chicken I’d just microwaved, I found myself unknowingly sucked right back into those same videos. They were everywhere.

When I finished eating dinner, I looked back in the fridge for something sweet. I could see the bowl of lollies I’d been feasting on earlier, but instead of grabbing more junk, I reached for the packet of blueberries, and popped a couple in my mouth.

They were nothing like the lollies, but I felt less guilty afterwards.

Eventually, I headed back to my room, and laid down on my bed. I thought about reaching for my phone but hesitated. I didn’t want to get sucked in again. So, I reached for the book I’d been meaning to read all day, and finally opened it up to the first page.

Hmmmm.

That’s better.

Intention and grounding

Alright, enough AI talk.

On Sunday I went to Church for the first time since I was at high school.

This time though, I wasn’t being forced to go, I wanted to.

When I entered I took a seat in the last row and kept to myself. I think I was by far the youngest person in the building with the median age sitting at what looked like 60.

I don’t want to say too much on this since it’s a personal experiance. However, I would like to share the that doing things more intentionally is helping me find grounding in a chaotic, and seemingly meaningless world.

Some hope

I found this tweet the other day and wanted to share it with you.

Hope everyone enjoys their week.

Love,

Jet Williams

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