Dreams of AI

Social imagination is the capacity to visualize the present in fresh ways

and to visualize the not-yet in positive ways

in order to release society

from the paralysis induced by technological dependency

~ Elise Boulding

How does the surrounding information environment full of the language of LLMs and Generative AI effect our human imaginations, fantasies and dream lives?

What do we fear and anticipate about how such technologies will transform the lives of human beings and all species on earth?

I entered a massive movie theater with many other people, and we began to watch visuals on the screen that I can only describe as "AI slop." You know the aesthetic: movements that are physically impossible/grotesque, discontinuity of faces and hands, stuff sort of melting all together.

There were other things happening in the theater, but my impression of watching AI slop was so vivid and unique, at least for my subconscious, that I immediately became aware (or so it seemed) that I was dreaming. It's strange to explain, since so much of dreamworld doesn't make much sense anyway, but I was actively differentiating this "slop" from the other strange and inexplicable things going on around me in the moment. What transpired on the screen was something else, I knew, because I had never dreamed that way before—exposed to some kind of stimuli that I recognized as intrinsically more "false" than the equally false context of the broader dream scenario. ~ Miles Klee

After Miles shared his dream, I decided to begin collecting human dreams about the insertion of AI into our everyday lives and will begin to share them here as they are submitted.

You are also welcome to follow along as I collect dreams of AI on Bluesky