art becomes salt

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YOU CANT SPELL SALT WITHOUT SPELLING HALF OF AI

alt used to literally be worth its weight in gold. It allowed for long term food storage and, of course, was tasty. It also allowed for the transportation of food over long distances. This was great for merchants and, perhaps more importantly, armies. Throughout history it seems that the power of a nation is dependent upon its military might. The Roman tortoise, Napoleon’s canons, British fleets, and now: sheer American quantity. The US spends more on military (or as they like to call it “defense”) than the next nine countries combined. Casual stuff. Anyway, salt made it easier to feed armies both at home and abroad, and it was hard to mine, therefore it was highly valuable.

So what happened? Why are we fighting wars over oil instead of salt now? Well, we’ve mechanized the production of salt. It’s cheap. It’s easy. It’s all over. It’s true of nearly all herbs as well. The Industrial Revolution just kinda...solved that problem of scarcity (for first world countries at least). That isn’t to say that people aren’t eating more salt than ever, because they certainly are, but you get the point. With the introduction of generative AI, art is metaphorically, hypothetically, theoretically, philosophically, figuratively, etc, set on the same trajectory as salt. I’ve been taking some art classes and there’s a part of me that feels like I’m learning to be a weaver at the dawn of the textile revolution. Or perhaps learning to write books by hand right before Gutenberg popped off. They say that all great inventions disrupt industries.

Listen, I’m a software engineer. I totally get the engineers desire to automate and abstract away as much of a process as possible for the sake of optimization/efficiency. But I’m also an artist. And I love salt. And I’m happy that I have super easy access to tasty salt thanks, in part, to engineers. And I love art. And I’m happy that I have super easy access to great art thanks, in part, to engineers. But you are what you eat, and art is simply food for thought. The content you consume is the diet of your mind. The diet of your mind is the fuel of your thoughts. The thoughts you think are the threads that weave the tapestry of your life. And AI generated “art” is empty calories.