At first using ChatGPT and MidJourney feels like having a superpower. Words and images magically appear, seemingly out of nowhere.
But eventually you realize that it’s precisely the opposite. Those words and images are actually appearing out of everywhere.
We are just being fed our own collective words and images, all of the things we’ve put out there into the public sphere. Our keywords are simply prompting a giant search through all of that data.
And that’s when you realize that it’s not that different from what happens when you do a Google search. You are simply sifting through vasts amounts of information, and finding the part that interests you.
The only difference is that the information is coming in the form of imitation. Instead of simply pointing you to a set of webpages, the computer is answering your query by building for you a simulcrum of those pages.
And that’s when you realize that it’s really no more magical than Google search. Marvelous, powerful, yes, but not magical. You are not actually getting anything original. Like a Google search, you are just getting a remix of what we humans have already created.