The Great Generative Flood

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Or rather, the robot in the room.

In the past year, we’ve seen more and more generative AI. We’ve laughed at the news delivered by baby podcast hosts. We’ve watched the biggest companies in the world replace human-made direction and art with prompts. Our parents and grandparents are delighted by videos of cats and dogs living cozy, human-like lives in their little animated homes. It’s getting harder and harder to tell what’s real and what’s AI.

On Twitter (temporarily known as X), the most asked phrase at this point must be: “Grok, is it true?”

There’s no stopping it. Not unless we run out of energy. Which, honestly, isn’t entirely off the table given the joyful activities of the world’s most powerful old farts.

The sheer volume and speed at which generative AI produces content is unimaginable. No human can compete with that.

At first, it feels exciting. Funny. Magical, even. Then it starts to feel… samey. Then overwhelming. And shortly after, exhausting, repetitive, unimaginative, meaningless.

A machine Devouring Its Own Parts

The digital space is overflowing with AI slop. AI-run accounts are producing content at a pace no human can match, perfectly feeding the insatiable appetite of algorithms. Bots write posts and then other bots like and comment on those posts. Meanwhile, actual humans are out here fighting for scraps of attention.

Have you noticed how much of the human-made content that seems to be booming right now is:

“How to escape 300 views jail on TikTok.”
“How to hook attention in 3 seconds on Instagram.”

We are living in the era of infinite content and finite attention. That, in my honest opinion, is the definition of snake eating it’s own tail and part of me is weirdly here for it. Burn it all down. Let’s see what’s left.

I think the bubble is about to burst.  And I don’t mean the AI bubble. I mean the digital media bubble.

Because what happens when the barrier to entry becomes practically nonexistent? What happens when a market is flooded with the same thing, over and over again?

A change of tide

What was new and exciting yesterday becomes invisible today. And people start searching for something different. Something that actually stands out. Something that can’t be generated in three seconds. Care to guess what that is?

• Analog made things
• Human interaction
• In-person connection
• Once in a lifetime experiences

The magical atmosphere of an art show.
The tension and authenticity in a live theatre performance.
The almost primal experience of a music concert where you don’t just hear the music, you can feel it in your entire body.
The roughness of paper under your fingertips.
The difference of smell between the freshly printed and an old book.
The quiet pride of owning an original piece of art.

That’s where the value will shift.

In the past year we’ve been flooded by generative Ai but after every flood, when the water finally settles and we can see the damage… There comes a time to rebuild. To find what we slowly lost during decades of digital revolution, and what we have been missing all this time.

The return to something more grounded and tangible feels inevitable. Not by rejecting technology entirely, but by choosing what actually matters in that specific moment and making a conscious decision what tools to use to move us forward.

The beauty lies in the balance between the analog and the digital. I just hope we’re smart and intuitive enough to pick the best parts of both worlds. And then we can create something new. Something more meaningful. Something that looks more like a phoenix… and less like ashes.

It’s either that or the doom, and honestly? I think we’ve had enough of it already.