I Made a Bunch of AI Garbage, and I'm Glad It's Over

I made a bunch of shitty Sora art. That era has passed.

From what the machine is telling me, this is one of the fastest turnarounds in digital media. AI video generation has grown so rapidly that comparable fields, such as the birth of filmmaking or the history of computer graphics, seem comparable but hardly competitive. 

One of the downstream effects of this rapid growth is that the tools for artists are rapidly changing. You might find a platform which gives you free generations to make garbage art, and then generate two hours of video, and then chop that up to create little weird videos.

And then the megacorporation ends its seemingly fantastically generous promotion.

The feeling at that point for me was not one of disappointment, but rather of relief. I think that happened because I could stop managing all the video files, delete the failed experiments, and just publish my half-finished projects and move on to something else.

I had a good time making a series of AI music videos which reveled in grotesquery: fat versions of myself, lasers shooting out of my eyes, dancing, (a lot of dancing), and then AI-generated music behind it.

The AI-generated music stayed terrible the entire time because it was my desire to match the grotesque energy of the generations. Because I have a natural desire to bring out the truth of the materials that I use, because I'm an experienced artist.

One of the most interesting features of Sora was the face morphing: features of characters in this generation slowly evolve. Several times this seemed to me to create images of my friends in the clips. At those times, it was as if I had commanded the machine to create a non-consensual replica. That, at least, was a recurring paranoia.

I could recreate this kind of generation, but that would require a different kind of engagement with video generation than the one that I could so easily and freely access during that Sora era.

I heard Alan Resnick said in Save It To Your Desktop that the previous AI era for image generation was better because it was more hallucinogenic. My counterargument has always been that, well, you can just use older models on your computer.

But I do concede that the ease and corporate access of this current AI generation just sucks everything in. 

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It turns out there actually is good AI poetry. The AI Poetry Review has a bunch of poetry which manages to be good, and Sam Riviere's *Conflicted Copy* showed up at my door today.

Sam Riviere's AI poems are also really good, I'm glad to report, after opening the book just now.

AI LITERACY

 AI is not television, nor is it simply a game. It is a new technology of literacy. It pulls reading, writing, speaking, and conversation into one continuous practice, composition through dialogue. And that genuinely expands capacity.

It feels like thinking out loud, and that’s intoxicating at first. A sense that everything got easier and more profound. That’s AI euphoria, and it isn’t fake. Something real has shifted. But expanded capacity also expands the surface area for illusion. Ease starts to masquerade as achievement. Fluency passes for thought. The work seems finished before it has even begun. That’s the hangover.

And layered on top of that is a wider cultural aura. AI arrives bound up with industrial scale and controversy and risk, and all of that tints the work in advance.

Earlier leaps like print, public schools, and even the early internet came wrapped in optimism: mass access to knowledge and empowerment. Yet each had its darker side—propaganda, regimentation, attention capture. What feels new is not the darkness itself, but how fast and intimately it showed up this time. Unlike earlier literacy booms that took generations to metabolize, AI landed in a few years, in the same window where we draft our thoughts.

The point then is pretty simple. AI expands literacy, and literacy has always been an expansion of human capacity. That expansion brings real creative possibility and real danger: fantasy, delusion, overreach. The task is not to choose between euphoria and suspicion, but to become literate in the new capacity itself, to learn how to exercise it without mistaking its powers for magic.

DUNG EATER

Dung Eater’s resemblance to a troll becomes clearest after the fight is over.

Consider “teabagging”. The kill is settled, but the defeated player is still watching. Their corpse supplies a temporary means of reaching them. A few crouches are enough to make the body humiliating to inhabit retrospectively: that was you down there. The winner has found something to do with the loser beyond winning.

Dung Eater’s desecrations have this same surplus of intention. Death doesn’t satisfy him; something must be done to the dead that they cannot leave behind. His curse follows its victims beyond death and into their descendants. The joke practically writes itself: what if teabagging affected the respawn system?

The uglier possibility is that an insult could become part of how a world reproduces itself. A Halo player respawns, but the sting of the humiliation can outlast the gameplay death. Dung Eater gives that persistence a literal form: the gesture is waiting for you in the next life.

DIGGER 2026

Digger is skippable. The writing is bad. Nearly everything else is good to excellent: the cinematography, the sets, the performances, the sheer density of invention. It is tedious, reflexive, frequently obvious. But it is also easy, at times, to be swept along by. It has high poetic value even when it has very little left to say.

The problem may be that Digger is composed on themes it can no longer develop. Climate catastrophe, AI, political spectacle, billionaire stupidity: the film is current, but current in a moment when these subjects have already been talked nearly to death. Digger says AI is supposed to solve the problems it is helping to fuel. This isn't untrue. It just arrives already digested. The fruit isn't false; it's spoiled.

So the movie keeps redirecting its thematic energy into texture. Dialogue becomes less important. The politicians behold a catastrophe somewhere offscreen. The pale horse is barely beheld at all. A daughter in trouble becomes a deepfake. Left, right, left. A butt joke can suddenly take center stage. The film seems increasingly distracted from the responsibility of making its themes cohere, as though Iñárritu has lost control of the project.

But the loss of control may be where Digger becomes interesting. Instead of producing an argument, it produces a texture: gummy, dying, expensive, ridiculous, beautiful. The dying cat becomes an accidental model for the movie itself. Does it hate you or love you? It is repulsive and endearing at once, something the film insists on lavishing affection upon despite its obvious deterioration.

By the end, Digger does conjure something. Digger's apotheosis is mostly signaled rather than explained, but perhaps explanation would ruin it. “Avian Elegy,” that zany little melody, bookends a mutant earnest positivity emerging from all the irony and cultural rot. Digger's affection turns out to be real. The movie has spent so long behaving as though sincerity itself must arrive damaged that damaged sincerity becomes its emotional language.

Maybe that's the achievement. Digger (original title: Blah Blah Blah) cannot discover much that is new about its themes, so eventually the themes stop governing the movie. Surface becomes texture; argument dissolves into affect. What remains is spoiled fruit—overripe, gummy, already rotten—but strangely sweet enough that the movie's affection for it becomes contagious. 

d100 police responses

god gotta shake these winter blues and throw up a blog-post.

d100 ways that the police respond to something

1. the street rumbles. and collapses. the police were trapped in the sewers beneath and they're now free.
2. cops are taking shits in nearby bathroom
3. cops immediately decide they need to consult a psychic
4. d
5. cops set up an astrolabe and begin consulting it. crime scene slowly becomes more and more about astronomy/ology as night progresses
6. evil cop demands everyone's shoes, steals them
7. cop breaks down door like kramer
8. cops very sneaky show up slowly poking their noses around corners
9. very scary not funny thing where the cops make you go through simon says or shoot you
10. cops slowly start deconstructing the house
11. cut to: police tape on the ground, serious detectives having a police procedural conversation, the interim elided over
12. cops start gossiping about you in front of you, picking apart your appearance and being snotty
13. cops more concerned about the serial killer who is said to be probably "close by"
14. cops eating lunch, try to get you to buy hoagies for the police hoagie sale
15. cops trying to sell raffle tickets and will only do what you want if you buy more and more tickets
16. one cop has his shoes untied and will fall over at comic time, gets really angry and will get violent 
17. cops were just playing paintball and file in with all their gear still on, with paint splotches, have grudges etc
18. frantic yelling and giant gorilla-like cop bursts into scene named Mongo, other cops have to calm it down 
19. cops are late to motocross, rival team shows up revving their bikes really loud outside crime scene
20. competitive putting using a glass and a putter to kill time
21. drinking tea out of big mugs using both hands
22. flash photography, blue latex gloves, gas tanks, heart rate monitor... sick people start showing up, seems like the flu's in season. travelling witch doctor-show sets up outside. purpose of the scene seems to have changed somewhat.
23. humiliating body searches of all present (good luck -ed)
24. police mislabel all evidence and cart it all off and are never seen from or heard ever again
25. everyone gets arrested, evidence is manufactured to pin it on random PC present
26. a great evil is afoot... police invite hooded figures to the scene and keep discussing "the warden"
27. redneck sherrif + barefoot deputies with shotguns
28. add'l evidence is uncovered which completely changes the case
1. murder weapon added/subtracted from scene (if one was present, subtracted, etc)
2. secret room with blood messages on the walls (or similar)
3. mutated half-alive fetus, parentage apparent, squirreled away at scene
4. evidence literally falls from sky
29. small meteorite lands near scene
30. fastfood delivery & subsequent argument
31. police horse freaks out and gets destructive, police refuse to euthanize it
32. supervillain is involved (see: http://rememberdismove.blogspot.com/2019/01/d50-villains.html)
33. police accidentally break something vital and profusely apologize
34. detective taking over the case is covered in tattoos and seductive
35. cops are aliens
36. cops refuse to leave car, will not for any reason, talk through window etc
37. random object magnetized by lightning exactly like in The Court Jester (1955)
38. one cop is also a serial killer trying to deal with the conflicting parts of his identity and audibly goes through the motions.
39. cops blare really loud music from the car the whole time they're there
40. cop has native roots and uses a bow and arrow, facepaint, stereotypical native clue-gathering methods, listening to ground, voodoo etc
41. cops are ghost hunters
42. cops deeply hate each other 
43. small fire starts and will escalate if players dont do something
44. fantastically obese cop(s)
45. cops kinda gossipy and drinking appletinis 
46. scene is haunted and manifests blood on the walls / time loop / hallucinogenic ghost presence / items rearrange / curse distribution / demonic chanting
47. cops are satanists! 
48. K9 dog has foaming horrible rabies
49. cops are using messenger pigeons
50. Cop is one day away from retirement! 
51. serial killer/ other horrible person(s) is in disguise as a cop(s), (supervillain may be involved see #32)
52. SNAFU involving undercover police already at scene
53. cop is compulsive masturbator(s)
54. cops trying to sell drugs to PCs... a sting?
55. cops doin
1. coke
2. ketamine
3. ecstasy
4. methamphetamines
5. opiods
6. LSD
56. cops have regressed to a pre-modern state, alike cavemen
57. cop has massive weeping wound(s) no one acknowledges
58. cops are very nerdy and wheedly, pocket protectors, cokebottle glasses 
59. preggo ladycop goes into labor
60. cop is one of those mechs from Robocop (1987)
61. cop is Robocop
62. cops are babushka-wearing grandma cops
63. cops are forever on their phones 
64. cops are drunk gettin drunker
65. cops don't know how to use a computer! they need to though, could you help?
66. cops are totally competent in this case.
67. copgun goes off aciddentally at worst time
68. cops all have a seriously flu
69. none of the cops can read
70. dispatcher promises cops will show up but none ever, ever will
71. cops skin slowly changing colors
72. cops "smell" crime
73. cops are all terribly beautiful
74. dinosaurs show up
75. cops are compulsive gamblers
76. cops are greatly speculative about chess
77. cop mentions he has a single day until retirement
78. bomb squad robot shows up first, alone, due to scheduling error
79. cops are all terribly hungover
80. cops are in a band together and are kinda like Mystery Incorporated
81. bishonen detective
82. cop has chronic pain flareup and requires paramedic attention
83. cops are all actually ghosts
84. seemingly quite intelligent detective determined to fake evidence for own goals
85. cops arrive at wrong location and are unable to travel to correct one although dispatch will unceasingly attempt to coordinate this
86. cop has a phobia about flying bugs which arrive periodically, he freaks out, other cops have to calm him down, keeps happening
87. cops seem like they're really good genuinely kind friends to each other but commit terrible cruelties to each other as well
88. -100 : reroll

TRPG lessons from Dragon Quest: An INSTADEATH Listicle

Simple design tips... What is "enough?"

1. A dungeon that is simple, proceeds in stages, and has a simple puzzle (and random encounters) can be effective.

2. Extremely simple spacial positioning.

Having two groups, enemies and player characters, standing in lines opposite each other, and taking turns inflicting attacks or casting spells, can be enough. This is especially effective as a default positioning for battles. 

3. Spells can be extremely simple. 

Knock, Fireball, and Speak With Dead are great. 

4. Means of transportation tiers exploration.

It's a JRPG staple. Walk across the continent, then get a ship and go visit other continents and explore the sea. Maybe find portals between various places. Eventually you get an airship, which lets you visit floating islands or other planets or whatever.

It's a simple principle to apply. Less transportation, less settings. More transportation, more settings. 

5. Arbitrary Monsters

Monsters can, and should, be whatever. Meaningless details or additions can be handwaved or explained. A monster is an open-ended template which players KNOW how to deal with.

5a. corollary: can NPCs be anything??

6. Chasing after a big bad vs. simulating colonialism.

Instead of raiding indigenous peoples, pursuing an antagonist around the globe allows the players to be problem-solving-tourists aka traveling heroes. They need not pursue, but then bad things will happen. 

7. Nonspecific NPC Monotheism.

Having all or most of the NPCs worship a single, semi-mysterious deity has its advantages. There's a simple and uniting cultural touchstone everywhere the players look. The Goddess is good and the people who worship her (most people) are basically good. This contributes to Simple Ethics.

8. Simple ethics can be fine.

 An overtly evil antagonist will likely speed gameplay along.

9. Cooperating with monsters is easy as shit

You probably already knew.

10. What if there are already lit torches underground?

If you don't want to track light, why not have torches line the way? No one's going to complain.

The Counselor

Gauche in The Counselor: Bardem’s hair, the advertising interiors, Cameron Diaz styled into a black hole of charm, Brad Pitt looking back and forth while the music insists on petty melodrama. There’s a cocaine enthusiasm to the collection of talents, who are all metatextual failures. After enough viewings, the awkwardness starts to belong to the taste.

The Counselor is buying a diamond and entering a drug deal, his prospective gain a definite amount while his exposure extends through his fiancée. A white American participating in cartel wealth. Eventually the drugs return to cartel hands, and this repairs little.

Around the sewage truck, weapons, distances and vehicles produce short actions with permanent consequences. INSTADEATH: oh, this thing behaves according to rules, and I just fucked that up. There is no undo, and the understanding keeps coming as if it wasn't deserved. 

Melodramatic comedy fuzzes the metaphysics's nobility. The "car fucking" is the triumph of the film.  A mother wakes clutching her heart because the son has died; people live overt cliché. 

It reads as bad filmmaking. Humans approach irreversible consequence through embarrassing material culture and awkward behavior, without acquiring the dignity of the philosophical system they inhabit. Folly is gauche.