With Tech, Your Dreams Are Possible. And Impenetrable.

For your consideration: I recently had a friend post a photo of himself chin-deep standing in the Amazon River, likely surrounded by voracious piranha fish, holding a beer over his head.

What he accomplished was easier, more accessible, and quite likely less expensive than doing it virtually on a computer.

I also once worked with an army officer, back when computers were new. They were forever forking up, misbehaving. But they were cutting edge, so of course we had to use them.

“Just give me a goddamned typewriter,” he said, “so I can actually do some work.”

In other words, fly him on an old-fashioned passenger jet to the Amazon so that he can actually do something he has a passion for doing.

I’ve looked into making short videos with the aid of artificial intelligence.

“Only $120 a month!” the ads and barker videos shout. “It’s easy! Make feature-length Hollywood movies with your Amiga 64!”

What they don’t tell you is that the technology is ever-shifting beneath your feet. Developments come so swiftly that even how-to videos on the subject are outdated 3 weeks before they’re posted. Forget books. There are no books. Books on the subject are stone age.

I thought it would be great fun to make movies without the annoyance of dealing with – or paying – recalcitrant actors, nasty demanding financial backers, etc. The AI ads say that it’s possible.

I wanted, you see, a fun hobby.

The problem is that it’s, at the moment, a passion play, not just an idle hobby whim.

You can do it. Technically. But it’s not fun unless you have a real passion for it and enjoy tedium. And enjoy subscribing to the 16 or so separate services to knit your work together, so that it isn’t amateurish or stillborn.

And then that $$$1,300 a year bloats up to $25,000, like your leg after a piranha takes a chunk out of it.

Same with music composing. Score a symphonic work! No incompetent musicians to pay or deal with! No more annoying trombonists to hit over the head! Have fun! Enjoy life! Be Leonard Bernstein in the comfort of your sweatpants! Be creative!

I have a piece of software – such a thing is now called an app, or so I think – called Spitfire. Contained within is an entire BBC orchestra. I think. I’ve been told. It’ll work with ProLogic or LogicPro or whatever to produce instant, fun frustration, if you’re looking for an idle pasttime.

Again, you need passion, not a hobby mindset.

Same with serious video games.

“Serious” is the word here. There seem to be 2 types of games today: moronic time wasters for morons, and serious, realistic nightmares.

Load up Crusader Kings III to mate up Mortified King Leonardo of Dragsville with his twin sister Belcangio the Dreadful, just to see what happens.

Nothing happens. There is no way to get into the game unless you have an actual passion for mutant and morally suspect genetics and warfare. The game is mute. No way to even figure out where to click to begin.

Oh, there are videos online to instruct you. Reddit forums and subgroups and fetish chambers and rabbit holes to dig into. They are as much fun for the hobbyist as segmenting your hard drive, if that’s still a thing.

And so many of these games now cause motion sickness. And migraines. And are dangerous to people who have epilepsy. About 60% of the human population are subject to such problems. And video game developers wonder why people are giving up video games and taking up woodworking or papermaking instead.

And so I have another friend, an artist and photographer. He has to move models – humans – around the country, plus pay them.

You can technically do what he does by employing AI. You’ve all seen this stuff. It’s simultaneously remarkable and off-putting. Artificial, like tracing a doggie out onto tracing paper. It’s not real. It’s not art.

Moving flesh around the world and paying said flesh is art.

“Oh. it’ll get better,” technos say, and I’m sure they’re right. “It’ll get cheaper, too. As soon as we build a 44,000 acre data center next door, you, too, will be able to do art, just as if you’re an artist!”

In 1939, at the New York World’s Fair, there was an exhibit of model bacon processing and wrapping. I think plastic was involved. The point was to sell us on the wonders of technology and science.

I’d rather have the art.