May 17, 2026
Some people really like to gatekeep shit, especially on the internet. There can be valid reasons for gatekeeping (I don't think it can even be considered gatekeeping if that's the case), like preservation and the prevention of exploitation and/or appropriation of culture (ex. Indigenous Americans advising non-Indigenous people to not use white sage), or putting standards to be part of a movement that needs them (ex. punk and goth are heavily political, specifically leftist, subcultures, and many people of those subcultures call out on "apolitical" or right-wing people trying to be part of it). From what I have observed, gatekeeping is usually done in fandoms (that are smaller and more obscure) in order to protect its health, linked to the latter valid reason for gatekeeping I mentioned. "The fandom has to stay niche or toxic people will find and infiltrate it and there'll be continuous drama and infighting." Something like that.
So, what about something like Critical AI?
A while ago, I made a "The people and media of modern AI criticism, ethics, Critical AI, etc." iceberg chart. One of the things I noticed as I put it together is that the upper levels of the iceberg chart mostly have entries related to TESCREALism and existential risk stuff, and that Critical AI-related entries are mostly in lower levels.
I've seen a lot of buzz around If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies in mainstream media, but the same hype wasn't really around for The AI Con. The AI Con, however, found a lot of love from alternate media. The people and work of the Distributed AI Research Center (DAIR) is generally more niche compared to TESCREALslop in general because while the indies all know and love them, the mainstream just... avoids them.
Oh, how about the tale of two AI documentaries?: "The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist," directed by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell, and "Ghost in the Machine," directed by Valerie Veatch. The former, in a true "centrist," "apolitical" fashion, tries to make itself appear "unbiased" while pandering to tech company CEOs. It might not appear so in the surface, but scratch it a little and you will realize. The fact that the PR teams of said tech companies are said to have liked the documentary (Is it even a goddamn documentary if it's just, I don't fucking know how to exactly describe it, centristslop? Man I need to cut down on my usage of the -slop suffix. Is it even a documentary if it's just... lying?) only adds insult to injury. "Ghost in the Machine" however doesn't worry about pandering to those fuckers. Those two documentaries are different types of that one "overly honest" friend. One type of that "overly honest" friend is just fucking bigoted and is trying to hide their bigotry under the label of "honesty." The other type is literally overly honest. Guess which one is which.
And guess which documentary is easily available on Netflix and which one is more "obscure," people wanting to watch it having to rent it from a site named Kinema or go to a screening (which are quite rare but also quite fun from what I saw). Yeah. Honesty often has a cost, and that is most of the mainstream pushing you out. Pander to the status quo and you'll go to places. But does it really feel the same as going to places with effort? I could imagine it would feel hollow, or one would feel a lot of pressure because one wrong sentence and you're DONE. And before those right-wing motherfuckers try to justify themselves through this, fuck off, you're of the latter type. You pander to the status quo. You just also like pretending to be the victim and sometimes you're really good at it.
I remember Alex Hanna talking to Diyar Saraçoğlu from Bianet. How cool is that!? (By the way, that article is part of Saraçoğlu's "Yapay Zekanın Politik İnşası" ("The Political Construction of Artificial Intelligence") series, seems like there's more cool stuff and more interviews with cool people, do check them out!! I do wish they completely ceased using AI imagery for featured images though. Also, Saraçoğlu, please please pleeeaaaaase interview Hanna again!! Get Emily Bender on too if you are able!!)
This shit hit Turkey before it hit the USAmerican mainstream media. You know it's COOKED when that is the case.
Hm... It's as if-
(Here's the article, for those who'd like to read it.)
Oh... Oh. Of course. Man, fuck.
TESCREALslop is mainstream mostly, or maybe entirely because it's what the billionaires want. Under capitalism, billionaires are the ones that have the power, and they can and use that power to further push what they want to see and happen. Or omit and destroy what they don't want. They drive the unwanted to the margins. That's why popular media is all riddled with TESCREALslop and Pygmalion displacement and whatever abomination that one Elon Musk SNL episode was. (I watched the entire fucking thing. The writers weren't really having a good time with the fact that Musk was going to be on SNL, I felt like. The only good things were that the Mothers' Day special opening was nice, and Miley Cyrus and The Kid Laroi absolutely killed it with the music! And also Weekend Update was quite funny!)