The Social Chronicles - Part 3: From GenX to GenAI

It seems every other IT newsflash I read these days delves into the next evolution in the generative AI saga. The tools at our disposal are improving almost weekly, enhancing their ability to generate text, images, audio, and video. Clever algorithms combine pre-existing materials, often producing impressive results. However, generating in this context does not equate to creating; no truly original content is being produced.

Ironically, technology has caught up with the direction society has been heading since the advent of social media and data driven creation: a decline in inspiration and originality. Previously, each decade ushered in new and original creations in music, movies, books, art, and fashion, distinct from what came before. From the swinging fifties through the colorful eighties and nineties, creativity was at an all-time high.

In the sixties, we witnessed the explosion of rock 'n' roll and the rise of the hippie movement. The dancing seventies introduced us to disco and kung fu. The eighties were possibly the peak of creativity, with pop music, pop art, punk, and goth, alongside action heroes and adventure epics dominating the silver screen—oh, and let's not forget the aerobics craze (thank you Jane Fonda). The nineties burst onto the scene with grunge, transitioned into the era of the supermodel, and concluded with the wholesome escapism of shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and Friends. It was the last time people had to wait a week for the next TV episode, and thanks to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, it was also the last time we got excited for a book release in print.

Then, the creative engine started to sputter. Our millennial friends introduced us to beards and hipsters, along with a coffee cult. They also became the generation that gave us Google, Facebook, and YouTube, sparking a revolution that would change our world forever.

Gen Z is the first generation to have never lived in an analog world. Their social interactions have been hardcoded into digital applications from the moment they got their hands on a tablet or smartphone. Their insatiable thirst for new technology gave us a glimpse of what social media on steroids would bring: Tinder, selfies, duck faces, influencers, bloggers, and vloggers were born.

A decade on, we seem to have entered the next stage: GenAI—a Generation Absent of Inspiration. Constantly fixated on screens, consuming an endless barrage of bite-sized content, has led to a decline in imagination. Additionally, tools like ChatGPT and other language models have further diminished our capacity for creative thinking.

This is a chicken-and-egg story: did we run out of inspiration and then design technology to squeeze the last drops from our collective past creations? Or has our overreliance on data and technology stripped away our desire to take risks and create something new, hoping it would catch on?

With Netflix as its pioneer, streaming content from any device dealt a significant blow to the movie industry. Confronted with the convenience and vast volume of entertainment a streaming giant could offer, no single movie could afford to fail at the box office. By substituting creativity with rehashing past successes, often driven by misinterpreted data, the industry inadvertently created the opposite effect, causing people to turn their backs on cinemas in droves.

Today, less than 5%—let that sink in—of content created by the movie and TV industry is original. We have been bombarded with sequels, prequels, reboots, origin stories, extended universes, world building, director’s cuts, extended versions, and the much-hated live-action adaptations of cartoon classics or bringing back classics inadvertently destroying their legacy by the latest instalment (think Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny). Even entire storylines are shamelessly copied (did anyone notice a similarity or two between Rebel Moon and Star Wars/Dune?). When Lord of the Rings was reinterpreted by Amazon into what was meant to be a money-spinning franchise many shook their heads in disbelief.

In the music industry, the situation wasn't much better. It began in the rap world, where clever artists like Sean Combs (aka P Diddy) realized that sampling the melodies of popular songs, such as those by Enya, would boost record sales. Today, DJs like David Guetta rehash every popular song from the eighties and nineties, overlaying them with screechy B-list singers, achieving alarming commercial success. Currently, there are at least three dance remixes in the charts using the original melody from The Verve’s "Bittersweet Symphony."

Fueled by the analysis of vast amounts of data, popular streaming shows repackage everything that worked in the eighties and nineties and meticulously transplant it into a new universe, ready to spawn endless spin-offs.

An overreliance on analytics and a fear of taking risks have led to a decade characterized by copy-paste, lift & drop practices, devoid of originality. While analytics remains an asset in many commercial sectors, doubts linger about its effectiveness in the creative realm, where human ingenuity still reigns supreme. The generation of endless blunt variations of original material, once crafted through human genius, is beginning to lose traction as people increasingly crave genuine originality.

For a while, Generative AI will continue to propel this trend forward. Every piece of content created will begin to resemble one another, influencers will adhere to a uniform narrative, storytelling will lose its diversity, and even individuals will appear increasingly alike, thanks to a mix of Ozempic, Botox, plastic surgery, and dental implants. Following this phase, a correction is likely —a return to originality.

Imagination is the beginning of creation (George Bernard Shaw), not a prompt.