LLMism is the Trump Tariffs of culture—headline-grabbing, superficially strategic, and ultimately self-defeating without structural investment. Trump’s tariffs were like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg—bold, patriotic, and doomed without a surgical team and 10 years of rehab. Tariffs can work, but only if you follow them with a tidal wave of domestic investment—factories, training, time, and, you know, a functioning plan.
And proprietary AI? It’s the exact same illusion, just with shinier graphs and more TED Talks. You want to rebuild the creative economy? Great! Instead of nuking copyright and strip-mining the commons, maybe fund artists, writers, actors like FDR did in the ’30s. Back then, the New Deal didn’t just build bridges—it kept playwrights employed. Because, shocker, culture doesn’t survive on vibes and vaporware.
But that’s not what we’re doing, is it? 1 reply
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No, what we’re doing is the tariff version of cultural policy: Slap an LLM on the internet. Suck down every novel, film script, and folk song ever written. Declare victory. Invest zero in the living, breathing humans who actually make culture move forward.
What we’re left with is the cultural equivalent of an empty steel plant in Ohio—shiny headlines, no infrastructure.
Because just like tariffs with no industry, AI with no artists is just protectionism for people who don’t want to pay anyone. It’s not a Renaissance, it’s a Renaissance cosplay convention powered by stolen tapestries.
So yeah, if you want AI to actually build culture, treat it like a 10-year plan—not a smash-and-grab. Invest in people. Pay the artists. Hell, subsidize a weird poet or two. If not, we’re gonna end up with a billion-dollar echo chamber full of plagiarized jingles and reheated Shakespeare. 1 reply
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