If you spend any time on any sort of social media, you have probably noticed the massive influx of AI generated videos parading around. If you haven’t noticed, “I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona” that I’d like to visit with you about. I’ve developed an allergy to sharks and need to move further inland. My loss your gain. It’s a beautiful spot, “from my front porch you can see the sea.”

I’m not implying that these videos are outrightly easy to spot as AI generated shenanigans, foolery, and fakery, no they are very believable in appearance, but often very unbelievable in content. When we watch a movie or a television show, we often willingly suspend disbelief because we know going in what the game is. They produce entertainment and we produce a willing suspension of disbelief that a donkey can talk. Not only talk, but sound suspiciously like Detective Axel Foley.

The term “suspension of disbelief” has been around for quite some time, and is attributed to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in 1798. A poem that I remember reading in Mrs. Abrahams English class sometime last century…“Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

I can’t remember to floss or why I just walked into the kitchen, but I can remember a line of poetry I read 40 years ago. So it goes.

As the old chap Samuel Taylor Coleridge explained, “suspension of disbelief is a state of mind in which readers willingly ignore obvious untruths and fantastic elements in literature in order to allow themselves to enjoy the story.”

Admittedly, I’m not very good at suspending disbelief for the sake of entertainment, which is probably why I merrily skip past the “fiction” section in bookstores and I’m much more excited about the new Ken Burns six-part documentary The American Revolution than any of the gaggle of Marvel movies. If you’ve never merrily skipped in a bookstore, or anywhere for that matter, give it a go. It’s quite liberating.

Powdered wigs, wool uniforms, knee high leather boots…having to parade around in that stuffy sweat factory would stifle anyone’s urge to merrily skip anywhere for anything. Maybe it wasn’t “taxation without representation” that fueled the colonists to start a revolution? Hot, sweaty, itchy, no merry skippy?

The problem with this new game of AI generated content on social media platforms, is that these “untruths and fantastic elements” are intermingled with the truths and elements of our lives that are very much real…very much nonfiction.

There are no rules to this game. Sort of like when Mr. Ostrum would call our PE teacher to the office in the middle of a dodgeball game…a free-for-all was sure to ensue. No rules dodgeball is exhilarating for a while, but eventually the chaos of it all sidelines the majority and leaves a few with dented manhood and bloody noses. Fun for some, but not sustainable in the long-term.

Perhaps all this fakery will eventually lead to the downfall of the social media platforms they frequent. Perhaps people will tire of wading through this Storebrand Chicken Noodle Soup of social media, tire of searching through soggy noodles for that one piece of chicken and seek out something of more abundant substance and sustenance.

Perhaps AI will encourage us to revolt, encourage us to seek out social connections on the type of platforms that hold BBQ grills, patio furniture, fire pits and friends and family that fancy a merry skip in the moonlight from time to time. Encourage us to avert our gazes from reels towards the real.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.