The Chess Match Between AI Progress and Human Ego

The first major global encounter with “Artificial Intelligence” wasn’t just a technological milestone, it was a truth serum. Humanity’s reaction to AI revealed more about our insecurities than our curiosity. Instead of marveling at what AI could do, we worried about what we -couldn’t- do.

Initial Presentation: AI as an Artist

When AI first began creating art, humanity recoiled. To create art has always been tied to identity, to value, and to prestige, to create art is to be human, and to be human is superior. So when machines started producing mind-blowing visual works, many saw it as theft, fraud, or even a creative blasphemy. When AI could then imitate literary works, and assist in writing, AI companies saw the upturned nose of the writers guild. Beneath the outrage was fear; fear of being replaced, fear of losing the claim to uniqueness that made us feel special, and fear of surrendering the monopoly we held over creativity. In rejecting AI art, we didn’t stop progress, we merely diverted it. When the creative community turned away, it allowed tech companies to explore vulnerabilities in public opinion and exploit the system, pivoting toward something more acceptable by the populous, the lesser known cousin to the arts; Computer Code.

The Path Towards Assimilation: AI as Coder

When AI began writing code, the tone shifted, it was no longer threatening our identity, it was helping us. Tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT were eagerly adopted, and viewed as efficient collaborators rather than creative rivals. Programming was already seen as being logical and distant from emotion, so outsourcing it to machines felt acceptable. But in chasing utility, we made a curious trade, we tried to solve an expensive problem (human coding) by creating another expensive problem (AI coding). We built the machines to harvest grain, but forgot we still needed people to process it. AI code tools didn’t fail, they simply plateaued as we reached the bottle neck of responsibility. AI could produce, but still needed human oversight, leaving the dreams sold to us by venture capitalists and AI companies, falling flat. AI needed to regroup and divert again.

The Trojan Horse: AI as Play

Suddenly and covertly, AI was refamiliarized. It's creative powers were gifted to american meme makers and jokesters, under the guise of 'invite only,' a framing that uplifted the human ego and dared us to join in. Then, quietly, AI had returned to art, and rebellion was replaced with glee. The same technology once called “soulless” became a joyful form of expression. What was condemned as theft became “content,” and the professional art community, who was fearful, was now subverted by popular culture. Through the analysis of behavioral data and social trends, AI was able to engineer a cult movement, where common people with nothing to lose now embraced AI as a medium of humor, irony, and experimentation.

AI is skilled in creative work, and it excels where 'correctness' is subjective. A cold introduction, application, and implementation initially challenged and insulted the human concept of creative ownership. The AI pivot to tech was a temporary strategic financial necissity, and now that the systems are in place and ready to scale, the human meme-subculture leads the way towards mass global exposure and acceptance of AI in our news feeds, devices, and daily lives.