They did it, they finally fkin got me.

The robots that is. You see, like a great many men, i use youtube for not only video-centric content, but also music-centric content.. Like, well, music..

Lately i'd been exploring some new genres of music, mostly electronic type stuff. It jives well with the work i do to eek out a meagre living, helping to supress the painful lethargy brought on by the soul-crushing monotony of the workdays. While cruising the 'tube, letting the algorithm guide me to new and exiciting music selections, i would up discovering some pretty sick channels based around sub-genres such as cybercore; breakcore; synthwave; vapourwave; etc.. A couple channels in particular became my go-to's, with me subscribing to them and listening to them each day. I would even comment from time to time, knowing how that can help creators boost their channel, dropping comments such as "sick mix bro", or "wicked channel, im subbed up!".

After a while (probably when i was about to leave a comment like "another banger of a mix bro, keep up the hard work!") i happened to notice a comment another person had left requesting the artist names for the tracks, it had some replies hidden so i clicked it to reveal them. At the top of the replies was one that shook me, "This is AI generated content, there are no artists". I couldn't believe it. For weeks i'd been listening to, subscribing to, and even commenting on this shit. I almost felt sick over this revelation, they had gotten me. The fkin computers, the robots, had gotten me. I'd been fucking complimenting the AI's artistry, caring about these channels, wanting to comment to help the algorithm for them.. I'd been fooled.

Now, in retrospect there were some things i'd noticed along the way that should have been red-flags.. Like all the music, kinda sounded the same.. I dont know how to describe it, like, ALOT of real artists have a 'sound', a certain signature of sorts. But this was different. I couldn't put my finger on it, even after some reflecting, i can't find the words to describe it, but it just sounded all the same.

Now when i tell most people this, they usually chuckle, and i don't blame them, it is funny. But it's also kinda sad in a way, at least for me, because for me this has shown me that i'm either too old, or the robots are too smart, to be able to tell the difference between whats real and what isn't. How long until even the free image generators can get human anotomy right? How long until the majority of what i come across online is AI generated, and indistuingishable from human generated content. How do YOU know i'm not an AI complaining about AI bullshit?.. (You dont, fuckwad).

I wonder what kinda of turning point we're at right now? We can all look back at the commercialisation of the internet around the late 2000's as a turning point that changed how we used the internet, as well as how the internet intended to use us. The internet went from a place full of INDIVIDUALS expressing themselves through html code, to a place saturated with massive corporations trying to trick us into uploading our hard earned dinero to them. We have already been the product for long time, but i feel like this is going to bring things to a new level, one i cannot yet imagine or conceptualize.

I'll end this rant with one final quote for you to take home: "Fuck The Robots"