Better Offline - LLMs Will Never Make Art With Caleb Wilson and Arif Hasan

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by Arif Hasan of Wide Left and Caleb Wilson of Kill The Computer to talk about an academic paper on AI slop, and the many reasons why LLMS can never truly make art.Why Slop Matters: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.06060Arif Hasanwideleft.footballx.com/ArifHasanNFLarif.bsky.socialCaleb Wilsonhttps://bsky.app/profile/birdrespecter.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/killthecomputer.com Please support me by subscribing to my premium newsletter - here’s $10 off your first year of annual: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/84rt762qen YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. In today's volatile market, having an investment strategy you can trust is essential. When it comes to your money, knowledge is power. Get the advice you need from Alan Cameron on the Sunday Money Show. Alan Cameron has the experience and expertise to help you navigate the growing spectrum of investment options.

What's best for you, stocks or RSP, gold, real estate, or Bitcoin. Visit Alan Cameron.com and hear Alan at his new time, 12 p.m. Sunday on News Talk 1010. On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first.

I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport.

And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are. without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Alzo Media. Bonjour. I am Ed Zittron and welcome to this week's Better Offline. Better Offline.

I'm back at it. Download the newsletter. Subscribe to the premium. God damn I need the money. After all, I need to make a big gold anvil to drop on my head at the end of the AI bubble.

And of course, if you're not on YouTube, please subscribe on the YouTube. please I need you to do that immediately. Give me some emotium because I have the diarrhea of a CEO. And today I am joined by Kill the Computers, Caleb. How are you doing, Caleb? Doing fantastic. Thanks for having me.

My pleasure. And how you doing? Aref Hassan of White Left? Doing terribly, as always. Wonderful. Today we have two illustrious subjects, because Caleb delivered us a paper. I was going to say, I'd call it that. It's literally an academic paper called

why slop matters. And these are some of the names. Cody Combers, Yeamundu, Julia Gordon, Normal, Ari Haltzman, Normal, Tess McNulty, Spencer Stewart, Lindsay Thomas, Richard Jean Soane. Sohn, Hoik Long. A bunch of people who work at university. Hight Long, we love Hoyt. And it's this, it's a fascinating paper that I'll link to in the notes, because it's very academic, but it's also the single most accommodating piece I've ever read about Slop. It loves Slop. It, like, genuine, It's like an in-defense of Slop. It does seem like that.

I read it pretty briefly, and I... We'll talk about it more in-depth, but it definitely just takes some things as a given in order to mount its defense of AI Slop. Yeah. AI Slop has aesthetic value, cultural critics of history of initially dismissing low culture, only to later admit its significance.

This is very fucking stupid. I think it's like trying to use like the, example like Kitch in the paper is like an aesthetic form that eventually did have value. For example, like the famous dogs playing poker painting that people, you know, famously love and don't make fun of. Right. So, and I get what they're saying. They're saying it has like a social function.

It's fulfilling a need for more content. And it makes the argument that human beings want to make more and consume more, but also assumes that slop is the actual thing filling that, rather than just spraying so much slop out there that it eventually does so. Right. I think for me, the paper is engaging in a couple of, like, rhetorical tricks. One, I think, is to try and accuse people who disagree with it

subtly of, like, being elitist when anybody who does any social analysis of pop culture will, take pop culture seriously in its analysis but that doesn't mean they'll argue that it matters right so the title works but they'll try to extract what it is

telling us about the people who produce and consume this content the culture that allows or encourages this content to exist and that could be a critical eye could be a supportive eye but it tells us a lot about the culture that we're in which is what sociologists do and the idea

that the paper is presenting that that, like, sure, like, in culture broadly, we dismiss it. I don't think there are many academics where, quote, dismissing AI slop. I think it is an object of, quote, unquote, serious study, because it says a lot about where we are, you know, for whatever reason, however it says it. And it's mainly just making the argument that, like, if it's so bad, why does it exist? Which is the stupidest fucking argument you could make. I love that as well, because there is actually a valid, discussion to be had here, which is, and this is going to sound mean, and this is dismissive.

I don't think most people using slop and making slop actually should be allowed to create stuff. Like, they don't want to make the effort to make something good, so they're like, oh, every idea I have must be brought to life. I don't think that that should be the case. I don't think everyone should be able to have every idea. Legitimized. Because it goes to like painstaking efforts to sort of like, uh, define what slop is in that way, right? It's asymmetrical by their own admission because of how easy it is to make and how fast you can kind of crank it out. Yeah, the examples that they use was kind of strange.

I can remember if it was in this one of the responses, but it was like, well, slop only matters to the person who makes it in the sense that it's like hyper-personalized or whatever. Right. So like it kind of discredits itself in that sense because like, you know, being able to do. hyper-personalize your content doesn't necessarily matter. The amount that you can crank out doesn't matter if the whole point is to hyper-personalize it, I guess. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's also probably worth noting, if you haven't heard of this paper, I don't know why you would, if you're listening to this. These are not computer scientists. These are humanities people. So they're having a humanities door conversation about this, you know, this subject.

Well, it's also, it's customized for the user based on the AI slop. And I must repeat, I don't get AI slop on Facebook. It's either that I have someone in Facebook who is like, we can't let him see this, we can't let him see it. We must master slop. Or there's someone in Facebook who's like, my man, I'm going to make sure you have Facebook premium

where you don't have to be subjected. It's like in CS Lewis, the demon screw tape. You have your own screw tape demon that's hand sorting your algorithm for you to torment you. But the slop I see is bad. Like it's just, it's slop, slop. Like, it's not like someone who's lovingly put together something using these tools, not to even say that that would be super valid, but it's not the things I see are not

the creation of someone thinking. It's a Grammy who's like, I'm going to make King Kong fight my husband. I think in order for this kind of personalization argument to really have any sway in terms of like the way we should primarily understand slops aesthetic or cultural value is they would have to make the argument that most of the AI slop people consume is curated or created by them with that personalization in mind

instead of fed to them through an algorithm like through social media like Facebook or TikTok right like if more people are consuming fruit love island then people are consuming like fan fiction where they get to insert themselves into the hunger games or whatever. Like if that's,

if it's more fruit love island consumption than self-insert fanfic, then the personalization argument doesn't really matter. And it's really a conversation about like you said earlier, the sheer volume of content that it's being blasted onto these platforms

and the algorithmic biases that put this type of content in front of people unless, hey, we get to create this thing. I don't know if anybody follows the YouTuber Sean, but at one point he says, this is the only human created endeavor that I would deny the title art. Yeah. And I think we're at that point here. But for the purposes of like talking about this content as content,

we would have to separate out kind of our ability to personalize it versus what ends up getting fed to us through these systems. And that changes the conversation about the cultural or aesthetic value. Because I think in this part is not unique to AI slop, the thing that AI has turned down the quality. It has turned up the volume that's being produced. But what it effectively does is it recreates the scenario where people mistake aesthetics for message, right? or they consume the aesthetic of the thing that they want. Right.

And so they're very enamored with the aesthetic of, you know, and by aesthetic, I don't just mean like the exact picture. Otherwise, you know, advertising with like gross looking food wouldn't work. But it looks like what a graphic, what you think a graphic designer will put together for an advertisement of food. This reality show has the trappings of what we would call a reality show, which is like a very funny reflection on the fact that reality shows are scripted, right? Yes.

That they're not really reality shows in the sense that we think of them anymore. Very kind of like a Somalicrome has consumed itself sort of thing. I'm probably mixing academic terms here. But like it feels like a reality show. And so I'm consuming it because I enjoy the feeling or the genre of reality in the same way that if you were like really into, I don't know, like 10 years ago, if you're really into like YA dystopic fiction, you'd start consuming a bunch of really shitty books because you like the hunger games and you like the feeling that you got reading it, a genuinely good series of books.

And then you start reading like Divergent or whatever. And it has the trappings of it. And you remove yourself further and further from like what we think of as what art transmits to us and what kind of effect it has. and closer to the comfort of the familiarity of the form that we enjoy. Yeah. And I think the thing is, the vacuous argument of like, can AI make art? The only way I think I could ever consider AIR is if someone was just doing it to build,

like they were doing a very, very, very specific thing on device with a real understanding of like the underlying weights of the model. Like it was, there's something, I think that that's where it really lies. Like, if they actually have a hand over the technology, because if you think of it as like a thing with a billion brushes, if you're not the ones tweaking the brushes, then who gives a shit? And the paper even does make this kind of point that this has the aesthetics of art, of what you expect art to be, but is not art itself. And I think that I still get back to my point that there are lots of people that believe that they are denied access to making art. because they're incapable of it, when what they actually mean is they don't want to learn.

Yeah. And it may be more difficult for them to learn. Because, like, Caleb, you can play music. I can't play music. I'm not sitting here being like, I'm not allowed to play guitar. Yeah. I'm not allowed to be in the secondary of the Seattle Seahawks.

It's not fair because I'm a fight thin. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, I'm not allowed to play quarterback for the Raiders because somehow I'm not good enough. Yeah. I mean, look at, look at the country. fucking guys. It's not a good time for this. It's just, it's interesting watching, and also

kind of exhausting, watching an academic look at this stuff, because it suggests there's so much more thought behind all of it, as in like the literal creation of the models and the image models themselves, rather than just making things that can resemble other things. Yeah, I think that one of the problems in this often happens. in my understanding of academia. Mind you, I'm a college dropout, so take what I say with a crane assault. But one thing that seems to hang up a lot of people in academia

is when they take a bunch of arguments like at face value, which is like kind of the whole point of academia is to be a critical thinker and to take a look at underlying systems and what might be motivating things that are not on the surface. But you often get caught up. And I think this exactly speaks to what you were saying earlier about people talking. talking about like what they use the phrase democratizing access to art or whatever um and it's like look

i have um acquired somehow a bunch of west anderson films and uh the really early stuff is low budget um what and it there was not a ton of barrier to access for west anderson to start putting together some truly remarkable art and through that he ended up getting access to more resources and all that. And certainly we're not in a meritocratic system when it comes to rewarding, you know, art. But in the same way that, you know, I strongly believe that there should be democratic access to the tools, the materials that we use to make, you know, some of our greatest works of art. I also think that the people making the argument, they're not actually honestly making the argument. We have to understand that they're not making good faith because when you take a look at the people who are like tweeting out. or putting together videos about, like, hey, we're going to replace film studios with AI or whatever. And you see this, like, shitty movie that, like, there's, like, three heads and whatever. You, they never answer the question of what they're attempting to communicate. Like, what message value their film has, right?

A lot of times it's just meme slop, right? where they paste together a bunch of memes and want everyone to jump on like reference humor. Like we're all living in a family guy episode or something. Yeah. And there's nothing that they're trying to say. And so it's very, by virtue of the fact that we know that there's nothing they're trying to say,

we also know that their arguments about democratizing art are bullshit. They don't care about that because they don't actually care about art. They care about monetizing content. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, cleanup, and half your Sunday gone. Factors solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dieticians, delivered to your door, and ready in just minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no excuses. And it's not just about convenience. You're getting real food, balanced nutrition, and zero artificial stuff. Meals that up you stay on track for all of your goals without the grind of doing it all yourself.

Grilled chicken, roasted veggies, steak plates, postables. They taste like something you get in a restaurant, but they come out of your microwave in two minutes flat. If time, cost, or effort have been holding you back from eating better, Factor just took those off the table. Right now, get up to $90 off and free shipping. Hurry, this offer won't last long. Go to FactorMeals.C.A and use code FIT.

That's up to $90 off and free shipping, but only with the code FIT at FactorMeals.C. Factor, Canada's number one meal delivery service. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pastos survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers?

Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.za for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsesives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop. having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is the Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, they want to make a job making content. That's actually a really good way of putting anyone who says democratizing art is just saying, I want to be able to become a need for us. I want to get paid for pressing buttons on the computer. Yeah. I will say this. I think that there's an almost neo-dataist quality to some of the Italian brain rot stuff specifically.

And if you don't know what that is, God bless you. There's sort of like... It's like tun-tun-tung-tung-sac-kir and all that. When you have just like some horror, some broccoli-haired kids showing it to a man clearly who's homeless and experiencing mental distress. Truly awful videos. Yeah.

Anyway, they are, but the thing is, is like, they... So those came where they're born out of like the Shrip Jesus era of like early, you know, stuff that was like, okay, this is just really stupid. And so a lot of what happens is, these kids kind of take this and they're making fun of, sort of just like the tech industry in general by making these characters.

But to your point, Arif, like the second that they do that, like someone else will just take it and monetize it. Like you'll see, you know, we went into a sort of genealogy of this with the fine folks of internet today, Ricky and Elliott on my show. It was a lot of fun.

But the second that, you know, you get some of this stuff that's like, okay, this is something that people are kind of sort of claiming through memes. then in like farmers markets pop-ups there's like trading cards of Italian brain around it's like okay well you know clearly there's the grift is just nonstop yeah and it's the whole and a lot of that as well as like the Italian brain rock memes are mostly just playing on

the oldest form of humor which is funny words the actual art itself is not really the funny part and it's it's frustrating as well because I'm sure there is someone making us with LLMs, but that is not the same as AIR, and they are being drowned out by these freaks, I guess I'd call them, just because I don't, like, I'm not even sure I'm comfortable saying that LLMs can make art. Like, actually, I'm taking a step back now, because it's so hard for you to have enough, because it gets back to the artist thing. It's, for you to be able to do that, you would actually have to be able to train and understand the LLM on a technical level, so you're basically a mathematician,

software engineer, what have you, which at this point you could have just learned to paint or something or draw. Yeah. It's just basically the same as that now. And it's just the fact that this debate exists pisses me off as well, because it, even through like cutting it up in the way this paper does, it legitimizes it. It treats it on the level of kitsch because even the shittiest looking reality TV show you've ever seen, even the worst Hallmark movie, still has probably a first and second AD. Definitely as a director of photography, it definitely has a producer or two, definitely has runners, the bunch of people on set. Even if they're doing it in a way where they don't allow the people to sleep or whatever, like how all reality TV shows work, there is actual real

intention going on. Yeah. Yeah. And I think to kind of dig at the existence of what we would call AI generated art, I think that there are ways for artists to, um, especially like you mentioned, like someone who's deeply invested in CS and machine learning and modifying the weights and stuff like that, to produce like resistive art or art that like in the same way that pop art used materials that were not often thought of as like artistic materials or depicted subjects that were not, you know, traditional subjects of art and stuff like that. Like there are ways that you can. And I'm thinking of like one of the examples of people like to go all the way back to when conservatives used to complain about modern art a bunch.

All right. One of the things that they would make fun of is the urinal that was genuinely a very impactful piece of art, specifically because it had opened itself up to the kind of ridicule. That's what it was attempting to do about like the nature of art and what we consider art. And you could do something somewhat similar with AI art so long as you do it with like a bunch of intentionality. And there was in attempt to kind of interrogate the way. way our obsession is maybe the wrong word, but the proliferation of AI art and AI content

throughout our day-to-day life. Like there's something you can do about that that would probably be an interesting art piece, but you have to do it with a lot of intention, and it's always really difficult to do something like that without it being interpreted in a different way. And so it would take a really strong artist to be able to do that effectively. But it is possible, but I just think that the parameters for something like that are fairly narrow. Have you guys, either of you seen, there is a creator on Instagram whose name escapes me, but it started out kind of as these things go, one person makes it and then a million

other copycats are like versions of it pop up. But it's like the, it's like this kid teams up with Tung Tung to like destroy the AI bubble. And then, like, yeah. Yeah. And then Tung Tung turns into dust like Thanos and he starts crying. It's actually like, you know, it's literally based on a Jojo's bizarre adventure bit when Avdol dies. I just realized I spoiled Jojo. I'm sorry anyone. But it's like that's literally based on a very specific Jojo's bit. Anyway, yes, I know the thing. But keep going. I thought that was just my point. It's like that was actually kind of funny. And you know, that's a reference to something made by a human being where the art is a reference rather than well, and that part that creator specifically also made that. You know what I mean? Tong Tong,

it wasn't his creation, but he made a video with Tong Tongue in it. You know, know what I mean? There was like hand-drawn animation in his own voice acting that made it good, right? Yeah. And that's the thing. He always comes back to, oh, human being did something. And people will argue, oh, what are you talking about? Well, it's human being should just be able to type a prompt in and it's just as valid to do that. No, no, it's not. Shut the fuck up. We do not consider the people who commissioned artists during the Renaissance to be the artists who produced those paintings, right? Like, I think that that's, a ridiculous argument.

To argue that the patron is the artist. Yeah. Like if someone painted my house, I don't think that I wouldn't be like I painted my house. I might say I have my house painted. I don't know. Yeah. And like sometimes people will like use that language in ways that are generally understood. Like, hey, I renovated my house.

I think most people would understand that if I'm not a contractor, they know me to be con. I probably hired contractors to do that. But that's like within the confines of how that language is used. But when people say I made this and they point to a piece of art or a piece of content, the understanding is that you are responsible for its creation by having a hand and how it was made as opposed to commissioning it. And I think that we should keep that divide. I think we should very much make sure that we don't make this mistake of confusing the patron for the artist.

Well, I think that this is, it gets back to the other things. Like, oh, we should tolerate AI writing. oh, we should tolerate AI coding at scale. We should do all of these things because it ultimately comes down to these people want to crush the meaning out of creation of anything. They wanted to be about the output,

only the output, and you must lower your standards for outputs so that they can shoulder barge themselves in with whatever form of crap they swill. I have... Also, I mean, if you ever need to really just believe that all of this stuff should burn. I recommend go to R slash grok,

which is the worst community of people alive, I would say. It is people using R slash grok. These members just use grok to generate porno. Yeah.

And I'm just picking a random headline. I'm just going to read it in the tone. I think is, tell me exactly what I'm paying 30 bucks a month for. Every damn thing I try. It's moderate. Every damn thing.

And I'm not even doing SF. new clips selling the, so tell me exactly what I'm paying $30 for. What am I getting? Tell me X-A-I-I-I- What am I getting for $30? That is just one sentence. And it's just guys trying to- It's literally an entire community of people helping each other trick the computer into seeing a nipple. I mean, that is the whole subject. It really, or making the single worst like space art you've ever seen. It will be like a Roman soldier flying through space, throwing a spear at a space station. Another great one I'm just going to read is

How's moderation compared to yesterday? I saw some complain today. It's just like people who can barely speak English having conversations about why they can't generate insanely horrifying images. I was about to say I wonder if some of the value is, or some of the joy, I guess is one word, is it comes from getting around the moderation

and tricking it to do it, you want. And probably that's still the case because it's not, it's trivially fairly easy to get, to find your way to like a jail broken, um, text generation for sure and then probably image generation as well. But then as you're reading out the headlines, I realized, no, actually this, that would be quite the task for these people. They are, they are stuck in grok. They don't, they don't know how to find the jail broken LLM. And that's fine. I'm, I'm glad that they're having this trouble. Also just another, this is a fairly obvious one, is most artists I've met are very open to new ideas. Like, they're very open to new concepts. They're like, oh, that could be interesting.

It's why, by the way, I have some affordance for the weird Natasha Leone thing that she said about, is ripping off Casey Kogawa, friend of the show, where she said that David Lynch liked AI. It's like, yeah, she probably was like, what do you think of anyone? It sounds interesting. And they didn't hadn't actually used it. And I think most artists are curing. He saw him, Jesus someone's like, okay. I've dreamed of this guy. And the thing is,

but past the immediate point of hearing about it, I've never met an artist who's used AI and then gone, oh, wow, I've met a lot of artists who have said, I am horrified. Like, just like, I find this genuinely, The things it creates are horrible to look at. Because there's this weird kind of like, I realize Tini doesn't sound right for something you're looking at,

but it really just has this weird, Oh, that's good. Echoing feeling to it. I've just never been able to get my head around. But it's like my mate Jeremy Willis out in Greenpoint. He's great artist. The idea of AI seems to offend him. Just like every artist I talk to, it offends.

Like Arthur Adams is a great comic book artist. Never seen him pick up AI. In fact, I've yet to meet an artist. who's picked it up. Like just, just straight up. No working artist I've ever met has been like, I'm going to adopt AI into my workflows, let alone into my artwork. And it's just, it's stuck. There's Darren Aronovsky who made that. I don't know if you guys saw that. Yeah, I'm saying artists. Yeah. But it's also one knowing, however, that like, he did that, but then you look back at his career and like shot for shot, so much of it is stolen from like perfect blue and other Japanese.

animations and stuff like that's like okay like guys like like iranowski who i used to unfortunately there's a couple of movies that are like and it's like oh this actually makes sense this guy just steals stuff that he would like this kind of thing well also have you seen the clips of the darren arinovsky george washington stuff yes it's it is oh my god i am going to link to this in the youtube at the youtube link it's so fucking funny just watching like when they're handing out i didn't learn american history sorry, the thing that started the American Revolution, there's a name of a document, I don't know.

But anyway, if you're looking at the document when they're handing it out to people, the text changes as they hand it, the shape of George Washington. It's great. And it's just, you watch it and you're like, what I don't get is how they publish this. Like how they looked at this and went,

fucking banger, ship it. Somebody was like, what if we did the American Revolution? But it gave you the same feeling as having a dream when you're punching underwater for 30 minutes. What if you watch something that made you feel like you were telling a lie? Just this really horrible, and it looked, you'll notice that no shot stays for more than a few seconds. There was that, I mentioned this in the previous episode, there was a film that was made with AI that they said showed at Cannes. And people like, oh, it was at the Cannes Film Festival.

It was like, no, it wasn't. It was aired outside of the film festival. They heard it in the city during the film festival. Which is great because all the media fell for it. They fell for it because that's the AI bubble at this point. It's just like misreading headlines and hoping no one notices. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, cleanup, and half your Sunday gone.

Factors solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dieticians delivered to your door and ready in just minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no excuses. And it's not just about convenience. You're getting real food, balanced nutrition, and zero artificial stuff. Meals that help you stay on track for all of your goals without the grind of doing it all yourself. Grilled chicken, roasted veggies, steak plates, postables. They taste like something you get in a restaurant, but they come out of your microwave in two minutes flat. If time, cost, or effort have been holding you back from eating better, Factor just took those off the table. Right now, get up to

$90 off and free shipping. Hurry this offer won't last long. Go to factormeals.ca and use code fit. That's up to $90 off and free shipping, but only with the code fit at factormeals.ca. Factor, Canada's number one meal delivery service. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense.

Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pastos survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability.

Bell, connection is everything. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real

messages inside compelling characters, then that is the Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners.

Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip the script? What is the surprise woman?

Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott This entire time You've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show I would never expect I have I would never set expectations for something like that to happen

If the universe allows for something like that to happen I'm open to it I'm always going to accept You know Danny McBride Fine Yeah it's all this fragile masculinity Exuding I could smell it walking on the hallway To be honest with you

I was like, is that weed? Nope. It's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, it's so stupid. Everyone's so dumb.

And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally, he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Back to the paper. This isn't even an elitist thing. I actually have respect for people

who can put out shit that sucks again and again and they get iteratively better and I'm talking about myself. If you go and read my 2019 stuff, it was rough. It was not great. I thought this is about Tommy Wissot. Tommy Wissot has only got better. with time. But it's also watching directors get better. Watching someone find the way to articulate their ideas is kind of the beauty of up. There was someone who, I'm sure it was ripped off of TikTok, but there was someone who posted on Twitter this video of a guy who just kept drawing every year. And it started out with his art looking like shit. Like it just, it didn't. But over the years, you saw it tightening up, tightening up, tightening up, tighten up. And the problem is I think that,

to be clear, no one enjoys that. No one enjoys getting better at anything. Perhaps you do when you get your head into it, when you get a bit of the momentum onto you. But yeah, getting better at stuff sucks, especially when you don't take to it naturally. And I mean, human beings will take any friction they can reduce,

but this is, the friction that's being reduced here is the art, like just the actual thing. Like, yeah. The accomplishment that you get from art is like, overcoming the fact that you suck at it, right? We're talking about music earlier. It's like when I make something, you know, what I always really love is like,

because I do all the music for my show and I'll throw up outro music and stuff like that when I've written something. And I love when people ask me like, oh, how did you do this thing? And it's like, well, that gives me a sense of accomplishment because it was the process of learning how to do something I previously didn't know how to do in the strike that it took to get there to learn a new skill or a new subset of skills or whatever, right? That's the whole point. If you take that out of it, what's left?

You know what I mean? Say whatever you will to bring this back to a football thing. Sorry, everybody. But Russell Wilson had that quote where is you got to love the process. And say what you will about him, but he was cooking with that. No, that's true. Yeah. One of the, so, Ed, when you were talking about how, like, there were no artists that you know that have, like,

embraced AI. I was thinking of exactly a perfect example of this that separates someone who's a content creator from an artist. Caleb, you probably know this name. You know Shadderversity, the YouTuber. Yeah. So he, there was like, don't worry about it. Don't, don't.

Yeah, he's, he arrived too late in the YouTube world for GamerGate, but he would have been a GamerGator. He's essentially that now, but for like, wokeness and DEI in, like, Mario. Oh, good. But he was originally just like this, I accurately described him. he originally was like meant to be an educational YouTuber that like taught you

how like sword fighting worked it turned out like all of it was BS but you gained a lot of a huge following out of doing content around medieval realism and he started posting pretty recently after he started

ranting about like wokeness and DEI and stuff he started posting AI art that he had commissioned right that he had had mid-Journey generate, and a bunch of people were appropriately mad, and he was like, well, actually, you guys don't understand. I'm a trained artist. And the really funny thing is his brother, it turns out, I didn't know this, and I wish I remembered his name, is somehow an even more popular YouTuber than him with like 2 million subscribers who is a trained artist and is a substantially better artist than him. And they don't talk to each other, which is even funnier. Yeah. Go on. Yeah. And so, like, he describes why him being an artist allows him to improve the AI generation. So what he does is he asks it to generate a really sexy picture of like Supergirl.

And, and then this picture with like two different sons in the background, but on earth of Supergold gets generated. She has an 11 pack. Yeah, exactly. And it's a very bad picture. And he's like, well, as an artist, I understand. proportions. So he puts it into Photoshop, screws around with it, uploads it back to Mid Journey and was like, hey, so I did a bunch of shit in Photoshop. Can you incorporate my changes?

And then Mid Journey does it and makes it worse again. And he's like, yeah, I go through this process. It takes me hours and hours and hours to do it. I put a lot of time and do it. And it's my artist training that allows me to produce this. And it's just the shittiest image in the world. Yeah.

And like real artists, there's a bunch of really great YouTube videos about real artists like breaking down on what he does, what his misunderstandings are, and, like, why that doesn't make sense. And also, like, you're in mid-journey. Just ask it to make the changes that you're spending hours in Photoshop. You're doing this to show off

that you're spending time, which ruins the point of this AI shit anyway. The craziest thing. But, like, yeah, a content creator, obsessed with creative content, loves AI. His artist's brother, who he is not on speaking terms with,

despises it. Well, this is, this reminds me of something that goes to a, it's a greater term. that I found from this guy called Rob Sloan. I don't know who this guy is. He seems like a decent guy, a writer maybe. But he has this term called Jarvising,

which refers to how AI is really good at creating a thing that you work on, like a tooling system that you're constantly dicking around with. You're constantly tweaking. You're constantly messing with because, and this is a paraphrase of atomic habits, which I mean, pretty good book, kind of a dickhead, the guy, but makes this point of there is a way to spend a lot of time doing nothing but feeling

real productive and I think these models really give it to you especially with like nano banana one of the worst things to whoever this just the worst names of anything in that you can be like computer make the booby bigger computer make the eyes red computer give her a sword

and you feel like you're doing something even though you're not you could not make that move yourself and indeed you want to not actually intentionally tweaking exactly what you're talking about because, I don't know, describing what you're doing in words is not the same as actually physically doing something. And people will say, oh, there are all sorts of automations. We don't totally know what's happening in the background.

Art isn't one of those things where that's okay, though. Like, art is not something where, like, not really knowing why you're doing stuff. That's not really part of the picture, at least when it's just, when the actual process of doing. Because to be clear, yeah, there are people who probably blindfolded themselves and painted. Your hand is still fucking moving. Or they throw something down a wall or something. Yeah. I think for a lot of these like human endeavors that are so difficult and complex to pick up that by the time you see the finished product, it's very opaque how to get there. I think, and obviously I'm like very football-minded, but like actually film may be a better example.

There are a lot of directors who will break the. traditional rules of film that you might get taught in your first year at film school about like, you know, composition and the rule of thirds and like guiding lines and stuff like that. Yeah. And, and when you watch like one of these directors, one of these outstanding directors, um, they'll, they'll break those rules, right? And, and somebody who's not invested in or ensconced in that world of film analysis or is an artist might conclude, oh, the rules don't matter when really what we've learned is that a lot of these directors only break these rules because they know what the rule is there for, why they

learned it and how they spent a lot of time. You have to understand the box to think outside or to work outside. Exactly. And so when they break that rule. Or whatever, right? Yeah, yeah. Half of my bit is that I do deep financial analysis, but I say fucking shit. and I speak in a lot, I say no IT loads refuse cum dump and stuff like that.

You generally don't, you generally don't say stuff. I know it's so funny, they get me a show. But it's just, but it's good because I'm working within the boundaries because it's not entirely me saying stuff like that. It's just those pop up and you go, oh, what a surprise. And then we go back to the analysis. It's the different way of doing, still having a purpose. I mean Lynch, a couple months ago, I watched Twin Peaks to return, tons of things that break the rules in that, but they work because they were done with intention. He actually knew why he was doing them. Every bit was done with intention. Yeah, and you know what the impact is of breaking this particular rule in this particular way. You know it even intuitively when you're a masterful enough, whatever, right? And like, you know, the example in football I was going to use is like these quarterbacks that like break traditional rules of quarterbacking do so because they know what those rules.

are they can accomplish things within the lines and then they go outside of it. Like Patrick Mahomes is an extremely good traditional quarterback. Sorry, I know both of you. Yeah, this is still going to be great for Caleb. But the way that he breaks the traditional rules of quarterbacking infuriates people who teach high schoolers how to play football, but works for him because he can play really well within the confines of the system. Then he breaks those rules because it'll work in that particular moment to accomplish a specific goal that he would. wouldn't have been able to do within traditional football. But like, just like a bunch of a kid's

learned how to shoot 26-foot-3s from Steph Curry or scramble and do insane stuff from Patrick Mahomes, it's not actually helping you to try and replicate that end process of the rule breaking. It is much better to learn what those rules are so that when you have the capability to break those rules, you know what you're doing, what you're sacrificing and what you're accomplishing. Yeah, and I mean, people are really, the people really don't like the sports stuff, so I'm going to keep going. Yeah. But also, I didn't say anything because not the time, right?

Oh, I don't give a show. Oh, these people would take what I give them. I love them, but they will enjoy my show on my terms. But Steph Curry, for example, he's not just shooting threes arbitrarily from the middle of the core. He has a proficient understanding of how defensive formations might look. He understands what his own body can do. There is a fundamental understanding of the structure of humanity and human beings and

basketball players and the rules of the NBA and so on and so forth that allows him to break those rules. These LLMs when creating anything, are words, whatever, don't understand rules. They may understand consistencies within stuff. Yeah, they're in relationships as they've been like historically defined through averages of text. Yeah. Yeah. But they don't understand why decisions are made, just that the decisions have been made, which I think is significant and also is what ultimately. makes creating anything frustrating?

Like, I think that the frustrated, like, for example, when I began this show, I could not read a balance sheet. I had never learned it. I found every time I looked at one, I felt like my head was full of sand. And I eventually just, with the help of Matt Hughes, broke through it. And I learned, and actually being able to understand these nuances with, and not from a traditional finance background, actually allowed me to do some really interesting shit, because I don't come into it with the predispositions of the system.

Nevertheless, the process of learning that stuff was what may be good. It wasn't anything to do with anything other than having understood the system, built my own system, and then doing things with that knowledge and the process. This is kind of a fucked up point, I realize, but it's very much about actually doing stuff to get to a point. And to be clear, I get it, like, learning is fucking annoying. like it's just like I don't think I don't think like it's not like fun sometimes when you especially when you don't understand something it's very frustrating when you sit there and you look at a concept you're like I

what do we do I don't get it and smashing your head against it sucks the same with making your annoying meat suit do stuff make it do thing that you want it to do when you can't make it do the thing that feels so crystal clear in your head but that is creation Jesus Christ yeah yeah Well, you know what? I think that's actually a good point to wrap us up. Where can people find you, find fellas? You can find me on Twitter at Arefasan NFL, on Blue Sky atareef. Atareef.Biskeye.com.

Social. And my newsletter, wide left. Football where I talk about, sometimes I talk about football, but a lot of times I talk about this shit. And Caleb? You can find me at birdrespecter. or killthecomputer.com. If you are interested in sort of like more of the first half of the discussion we were having, that's kind of what we do over there.

And kill the computer was of course the actual progenitor of open AI, of open AI, Jesus Christ, of better offline. They're going to have my ass in the comments for that. It's been a long week, fellas. It's actually genuinely Robert Evans heard me on Kill the Computer. And that's how he found me. And not Open AI, Jesus Christ. They're going to really get me for this.

If we created a. Open AI. You created Open AI. Yeah, no, they really would have our ass for that. Everyone, thank you so much for listening. I'll be back with the monologue this week, of course. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. I'm Ed Zietron. Good night. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Mattersowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattisowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-K-I.com. You can email me at E-Z at Betteroffline.com. or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat.

Where's your ed. dot at to visit the Discord and go to R-slash Better Offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes, Davenport. And Sean Clements.

We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard,

and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed.

I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling a little. alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I survived nine months in

captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart, Podcasts. Guaranteed human.