Generative artificial intelligence produces overabundant, individualized, non-generalizable content. Generated text, music and film served to you will not be the same as the generated text, music and film served to me. Frames of reference at the point of composition and at the point of reception will necessarily be different. Generated from individualized prompts and profiles, such forms of content we will struggle to have a water-tank conversation about. Details will not match and be commensurable between our accounts. Who knows, maybe the mismatches might give a new lease of life to water-tank conversations, just as recommendations of our differing media diet do in the era of streamed content.
Historical record in training datasets can be chronologically and contextually vast. However, once processed into collocational frequencies, stripped of the specificity of their provenance, the singularity of historical events and their readings might get lost.
Changes brought about by the era of machine generated text, music and film will strain our capacity to make and share meaning from culture.