Thanks for reading, everyone! I am very curious to hear if the argument resonates - and if you feel that context is greater than content, especially in the age of AI.
Context and content are inextricably intertwined like everything else in the universe. An artist takes years to develop a style - as some jazz great once said - you learn the basics and classics and forget them on purpose - in order to find your own voice - unique style or fingerprint that may allow you be one of the fortunate 1% of artists that actually make a living from making art/music etc. I am of the 99% both socially and artistically in that I have yet to make my total living from my art but I have had some luck in making at least some supplemental income which is still more than 90% of artists accomplish. Meaning my art created through years of blood, sweat and many tears of hard work - more than 10,000 hours - allowed me to develop my own style which is still a work in progress. So yes it really pisses me off that Big Tech - Meta. Google etc just took the liberty of stealling all of our art off the internet for AI data purposes without permission or monetary compensation. It's really f'ing disrespectful, pathetic and sickness level greedy. These greedy Big Tech AI execs should be banned from all museums, concerts. films etc. Great Art just does not happen in a vacuum - it's a hyper complex interactive human phenomena (minus the birds of paradise and a few fish at mating time) with many elements at work - of the inner and outer realms of our shared existence. The cosmic dance that is reality. AI sucks so far.
Definitely resonates, especially with AI. I'm part of a few circles that are always talking about what the newest models are able to achieve. But you absolutely nail it: everyone's focus and value in these conversations are primarily attributed to the model. They aren't asking questions like, "Is the thing this model did something we actually want AI to do for us?" or "Is the model hurting humans, or enabling humans to hurt other humans?"
I think it’s a reasonable argument, and also kind of concerning that this is the path that we ended up on - that what matters is less about the outcome and more about the perception of the outcome. I think the finance regulation is a good parallel, but idk how you could regulate something on these platforms without them becoming the arbiter of truth or context. On the finance side, its a limited scope of information that is pushed out by a finite group of entities regulated by 1-2 bodies, vs the internet platforms aggregate information from everybody and social economy formulates and perpetuates the ideas that get a lot of attention. Great essay as always!
The idea of context literacy is totally spot on; I didn’t even realize I was conflating the two (context v content) - can we start a thread for reliable sources/places to go to learn more about context literacy? Is anyone teaching this? I want to learn more…
Same! I’ve actually started re-exploring critical thinking frameworks to ground myself when consuming content. It was a helpful refresher on something I thought I was already decent at. Would love to do the same with context literacy!
The paragraph on “when military planning and cat pictures flow through the same interface…” is great analysis, and I think it also implies something profound about the users who, in this case, happen to be senior US government officials. If this is their interface of choice and there is no apparent question as to whether or not it’s appropriate, perhaps they don’t or can’t sufficiently differentiate between the seriousness of military planning and the silliness of cat pictures. The context reduces them to users playing war and rewarding one another with emoji flair.
I get the disgust by artists. But nobody wailed for the accountants and actuaries when Excel came out. Just because graphic design is a creative work of a certain flavor doesn’t mean other work destroyed by automation wasn’t meaningful to someone.
Awhile back I saw a video about a guy who made chairs with his feet. He’d lost his arms. The chairs were not showy. A machine could have done it better. But the context mattered, and context, as you say, is everything.
This is one of the few substacks I read that actually puts out thoughtful commentary. Keep it up.
I think there is added insult to artists with AI copying styles, as it most likely was trained on artists' work without their knowledge or consent. While I might hate an AI agent stealing my job of excel analysis, I think I would have a larger personal vendetta against it if it also wouldn't exist without stealing my hard work and personal brand.
That's fair! As someone whose books were pirated and gobbled up to train Facebook's AI, I vacillate between being flattered that my work was important enough in the corpus of literature to steal, and being angry that the celebrated immortality-via-writing is probably going to be the Matrix of an AI's memory.
Regarding Signal, almost no one seems concerned with what else it is being used for and that the chat would disappear. I believe that is against a USA law? All in the chat seemed familiar with its being used.
Please reconsider this: “We already have models for this in financial regulation, where there are strict rules about how investment opportunities can be presented to consumers. Similar principles need be applied to information more broadly.”
Even regulators of very specific areas of communication (e.g., investments, health) are capable of serious error and dangerous groupthink. If you generalize such regulatory power to broad areas of culture, politics, etc - the errors and dangers compound. This was a key message of JS Mill (On Liberty), who probably anticipated every possible critique of the idea of free speech.
We live in a “printing press” moment (AI, the new ‘platforms’, etc). As many others have pointed out - this was an extremely disruptive and even dangerous piece of technology. But few of us would survive, or even want to survive, a return to the year 1439.
I think people should worry less about how ‘those people’ are using the new technologies and how to improve what information those others receive. Instead, take an active role in managing the info you receive- by both curating and experimenting. Get accustomed to and curious about uncomfortable ideas (keeping outrage under control). This is how you double check your thinking with your brain rather than with your emotions or tribal affiliations. A society with more than a tiny number of such people is our best hope.
I think this is essentially spot on. The only thing I am skeptical about is the point on regulation toward the end. What gives us reason to believe that politicians would regulate the way media is presented when they have such entrenched interests in "context" being king? MAGA and Dems alike want to be able to lean on their bases, who will believe anything as long as it comes from their home team's megaphone. It's a little depressing to think about, but we are stuck in a negative feedback loop. You can see this playout on X, where MAGA keeps smacking its rural/poor/uneducated base in the face (Howard Lutnick All-In interview "grandma's social security check...") and they soak it up--they will literally come to their defense under any vaguely critical comment section. Dems have the same partisan streak, which I think something like the Jasmine Crockett's "hot-wheels" incident is emblematic of (Dems would be seething if MTG said something like that about a Dem governor). I think it's because neither has an inspiring solution to the nation's problems and the context phenomenon allows them to kick that can down the road (instead allowing them to focus on outrage/vengeance and a perpetual battle for political points on the margin).
I read Tribe by Sebastian Junger before the 2024 elections. While I didn’t agree with everything in it, there’s one quote that really stuck with me—and it feels more accurate with each passing day:
"The United States is so powerful that the only country capable of destroying her might be the United States herself, which means that the ultimate terrorist strategy would be to just leave the country alone. That way, America’s ugliest partisan tendencies could emerge unimpeded by the unifying effects of war. The ultimate betrayal of tribe isn’t acting competitively—that should be encouraged—but predicating your power on the excommunication of others from the group."
Wow this was really good...I think a lot of us, myself included, consider ourselves to be "context blind" and just interpret everything we read on its own merits. But of course we're all heavily influenced by our priors, both for the deliverers of the message and the venue itself. I read this on substack so I'm a lot more receptive to it! But if it had been a series of tweets, forgetaboutit.
I'm really curious how context-literacy could be developed since the internet and social media have already hardwired us into our own preferred context bubbles.
Absolutely resonates. As so many others have pointed out — I’m rather unconvinced by current AI. In the past, tech trends usually have been mass adopted by people within a few years of their arrival because they’re clearly providing some kind of life changing value. The current level of AI is mostly used by software engineers and the rest of it is basically reconfiguring the hard work and information currently available. Is that really valuable in the same way Google Maps is valuable? More than that, I’m rather concerned that AI hype entirely confuses intelligence with information. We have lots of information online but the map is NOT the territory by any means. It’s why self driving cars weren’t a shoe in either and don’t dominate our streets and are instead relegated to a few cities and a few taxis on very well known routes. Complexity is papered over in favor of these AI eating up more information — but will it ever be enough? Until the models can generate meaningful NOVEL information that does not yet exist and is useful to us instead of watered down remixes of current info I am personally deeply uninterested and see it as a potential bubble if they cannot achieve real breakthroughs. Where is the AI that tells us how to optimize solar panel efficiency? Or the one that suggests a new molecule structure to solve a disease? We need more of that and less of “look my dog in the style of a Disney princess” like who cares haha.
Really spot on. Many have called for media literacy as a whole to be emphasized more in intermediate education for well over a decade now. I guess my question is whether or not we have to accept that most people will continue to judge ideas based on the context rather than the content. In middle and high school, multiple civics teachers had us do exercises designed to teach what reliable sources were, how to fact check, and determine whether or not the content we were reading was true or false. It really feels like increasing political polarization is responsible for this shift from supporting the “context” rather than the “content” of an idea in the US, and i suppose the world as well.
For instance, the increasing amount of comments on your posts in the last few months complaining about you being “biased” or “too political”, when, truly, you’re just calling it like you and the majority of the world sees it. This seems to be the way many are responding to creators’ content now, particularly from the MAGA crowd, but it certainly goes both ways. Even from my own, mostly liberal, subscribers.
If polarization begins to decrease, which seems likely if the economy suffers for too long under Trump, I truly believe that we can reverse this “context over content” trend
This is a fascinating read! The impact of AI on Studio Ghibli’s work raises important questions about the future of creativity and authenticity. As AI becomes more involved in animation, it’s intriguing to consider its potential, but also the consequences of blending human and machine creativity. Great insights!
Your perspective is refreshing each and every week. I agree about context versus content. I wonder what the future is for any of this though? Will Trump continue to hold the narratives affecting everyone's lives? Will he create so much havoc that it creates another larger underground economy? I am just watching the melt down and what is now an obvious crisis in not prioritizing people or their needs.
Thanks for reading, everyone! I am very curious to hear if the argument resonates - and if you feel that context is greater than content, especially in the age of AI.
Context and content are inextricably intertwined like everything else in the universe. An artist takes years to develop a style - as some jazz great once said - you learn the basics and classics and forget them on purpose - in order to find your own voice - unique style or fingerprint that may allow you be one of the fortunate 1% of artists that actually make a living from making art/music etc. I am of the 99% both socially and artistically in that I have yet to make my total living from my art but I have had some luck in making at least some supplemental income which is still more than 90% of artists accomplish. Meaning my art created through years of blood, sweat and many tears of hard work - more than 10,000 hours - allowed me to develop my own style which is still a work in progress. So yes it really pisses me off that Big Tech - Meta. Google etc just took the liberty of stealling all of our art off the internet for AI data purposes without permission or monetary compensation. It's really f'ing disrespectful, pathetic and sickness level greedy. These greedy Big Tech AI execs should be banned from all museums, concerts. films etc. Great Art just does not happen in a vacuum - it's a hyper complex interactive human phenomena (minus the birds of paradise and a few fish at mating time) with many elements at work - of the inner and outer realms of our shared existence. The cosmic dance that is reality. AI sucks so far.
Definitely resonates, especially with AI. I'm part of a few circles that are always talking about what the newest models are able to achieve. But you absolutely nail it: everyone's focus and value in these conversations are primarily attributed to the model. They aren't asking questions like, "Is the thing this model did something we actually want AI to do for us?" or "Is the model hurting humans, or enabling humans to hurt other humans?"
It's really, really scary.
I think it’s a reasonable argument, and also kind of concerning that this is the path that we ended up on - that what matters is less about the outcome and more about the perception of the outcome. I think the finance regulation is a good parallel, but idk how you could regulate something on these platforms without them becoming the arbiter of truth or context. On the finance side, its a limited scope of information that is pushed out by a finite group of entities regulated by 1-2 bodies, vs the internet platforms aggregate information from everybody and social economy formulates and perpetuates the ideas that get a lot of attention. Great essay as always!
It’s a consequence of unlimited content distribution meeting unlimited content generation.
The idea of context literacy is totally spot on; I didn’t even realize I was conflating the two (context v content) - can we start a thread for reliable sources/places to go to learn more about context literacy? Is anyone teaching this? I want to learn more…
Same! I’ve actually started re-exploring critical thinking frameworks to ground myself when consuming content. It was a helpful refresher on something I thought I was already decent at. Would love to do the same with context literacy!
Funny enough, next on my reading list is Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
The paragraph on “when military planning and cat pictures flow through the same interface…” is great analysis, and I think it also implies something profound about the users who, in this case, happen to be senior US government officials. If this is their interface of choice and there is no apparent question as to whether or not it’s appropriate, perhaps they don’t or can’t sufficiently differentiate between the seriousness of military planning and the silliness of cat pictures. The context reduces them to users playing war and rewarding one another with emoji flair.
I get the disgust by artists. But nobody wailed for the accountants and actuaries when Excel came out. Just because graphic design is a creative work of a certain flavor doesn’t mean other work destroyed by automation wasn’t meaningful to someone.
Awhile back I saw a video about a guy who made chairs with his feet. He’d lost his arms. The chairs were not showy. A machine could have done it better. But the context mattered, and context, as you say, is everything.
This is one of the few substacks I read that actually puts out thoughtful commentary. Keep it up.
I think there is added insult to artists with AI copying styles, as it most likely was trained on artists' work without their knowledge or consent. While I might hate an AI agent stealing my job of excel analysis, I think I would have a larger personal vendetta against it if it also wouldn't exist without stealing my hard work and personal brand.
That's fair! As someone whose books were pirated and gobbled up to train Facebook's AI, I vacillate between being flattered that my work was important enough in the corpus of literature to steal, and being angry that the celebrated immortality-via-writing is probably going to be the Matrix of an AI's memory.
Regarding Signal, almost no one seems concerned with what else it is being used for and that the chat would disappear. I believe that is against a USA law? All in the chat seemed familiar with its being used.
Please reconsider this: “We already have models for this in financial regulation, where there are strict rules about how investment opportunities can be presented to consumers. Similar principles need be applied to information more broadly.”
Even regulators of very specific areas of communication (e.g., investments, health) are capable of serious error and dangerous groupthink. If you generalize such regulatory power to broad areas of culture, politics, etc - the errors and dangers compound. This was a key message of JS Mill (On Liberty), who probably anticipated every possible critique of the idea of free speech.
We live in a “printing press” moment (AI, the new ‘platforms’, etc). As many others have pointed out - this was an extremely disruptive and even dangerous piece of technology. But few of us would survive, or even want to survive, a return to the year 1439.
I think people should worry less about how ‘those people’ are using the new technologies and how to improve what information those others receive. Instead, take an active role in managing the info you receive- by both curating and experimenting. Get accustomed to and curious about uncomfortable ideas (keeping outrage under control). This is how you double check your thinking with your brain rather than with your emotions or tribal affiliations. A society with more than a tiny number of such people is our best hope.
Spot-on!
I think this is essentially spot on. The only thing I am skeptical about is the point on regulation toward the end. What gives us reason to believe that politicians would regulate the way media is presented when they have such entrenched interests in "context" being king? MAGA and Dems alike want to be able to lean on their bases, who will believe anything as long as it comes from their home team's megaphone. It's a little depressing to think about, but we are stuck in a negative feedback loop. You can see this playout on X, where MAGA keeps smacking its rural/poor/uneducated base in the face (Howard Lutnick All-In interview "grandma's social security check...") and they soak it up--they will literally come to their defense under any vaguely critical comment section. Dems have the same partisan streak, which I think something like the Jasmine Crockett's "hot-wheels" incident is emblematic of (Dems would be seething if MTG said something like that about a Dem governor). I think it's because neither has an inspiring solution to the nation's problems and the context phenomenon allows them to kick that can down the road (instead allowing them to focus on outrage/vengeance and a perpetual battle for political points on the margin).
all I can say is fuck generative ai
I read Tribe by Sebastian Junger before the 2024 elections. While I didn’t agree with everything in it, there’s one quote that really stuck with me—and it feels more accurate with each passing day:
"The United States is so powerful that the only country capable of destroying her might be the United States herself, which means that the ultimate terrorist strategy would be to just leave the country alone. That way, America’s ugliest partisan tendencies could emerge unimpeded by the unifying effects of war. The ultimate betrayal of tribe isn’t acting competitively—that should be encouraged—but predicating your power on the excommunication of others from the group."
I think you're really onto something here, Kyla. And it kinda relates to that whole "vibesession" thing that put you on the map in the first place. :)
Always grateful for your connections and insights. Also, the groundnews link doesn't work, right now at least.
Wow this was really good...I think a lot of us, myself included, consider ourselves to be "context blind" and just interpret everything we read on its own merits. But of course we're all heavily influenced by our priors, both for the deliverers of the message and the venue itself. I read this on substack so I'm a lot more receptive to it! But if it had been a series of tweets, forgetaboutit.
I'm really curious how context-literacy could be developed since the internet and social media have already hardwired us into our own preferred context bubbles.
Absolutely resonates. As so many others have pointed out — I’m rather unconvinced by current AI. In the past, tech trends usually have been mass adopted by people within a few years of their arrival because they’re clearly providing some kind of life changing value. The current level of AI is mostly used by software engineers and the rest of it is basically reconfiguring the hard work and information currently available. Is that really valuable in the same way Google Maps is valuable? More than that, I’m rather concerned that AI hype entirely confuses intelligence with information. We have lots of information online but the map is NOT the territory by any means. It’s why self driving cars weren’t a shoe in either and don’t dominate our streets and are instead relegated to a few cities and a few taxis on very well known routes. Complexity is papered over in favor of these AI eating up more information — but will it ever be enough? Until the models can generate meaningful NOVEL information that does not yet exist and is useful to us instead of watered down remixes of current info I am personally deeply uninterested and see it as a potential bubble if they cannot achieve real breakthroughs. Where is the AI that tells us how to optimize solar panel efficiency? Or the one that suggests a new molecule structure to solve a disease? We need more of that and less of “look my dog in the style of a Disney princess” like who cares haha.
Really spot on. Many have called for media literacy as a whole to be emphasized more in intermediate education for well over a decade now. I guess my question is whether or not we have to accept that most people will continue to judge ideas based on the context rather than the content. In middle and high school, multiple civics teachers had us do exercises designed to teach what reliable sources were, how to fact check, and determine whether or not the content we were reading was true or false. It really feels like increasing political polarization is responsible for this shift from supporting the “context” rather than the “content” of an idea in the US, and i suppose the world as well.
For instance, the increasing amount of comments on your posts in the last few months complaining about you being “biased” or “too political”, when, truly, you’re just calling it like you and the majority of the world sees it. This seems to be the way many are responding to creators’ content now, particularly from the MAGA crowd, but it certainly goes both ways. Even from my own, mostly liberal, subscribers.
If polarization begins to decrease, which seems likely if the economy suffers for too long under Trump, I truly believe that we can reverse this “context over content” trend
This is a fascinating read! The impact of AI on Studio Ghibli’s work raises important questions about the future of creativity and authenticity. As AI becomes more involved in animation, it’s intriguing to consider its potential, but also the consequences of blending human and machine creativity. Great insights!
did AI write this comment?
Your perspective is refreshing each and every week. I agree about context versus content. I wonder what the future is for any of this though? Will Trump continue to hold the narratives affecting everyone's lives? Will he create so much havoc that it creates another larger underground economy? I am just watching the melt down and what is now an obvious crisis in not prioritizing people or their needs.