If You Gave a LLM a Cookie
- Alex Raileanu
- Jul 12
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 5
Listen, I have to say this before I get into the rest of the blog because morally I have to come clean. I can't lie. I use GenAI, mainly for coding. Do I particularly like it? No. Do I understand it's purpose and use? Yes. If you are already against GenAI, please hear me out. Yes, I know it is environmentally terrible and we need to do something about it. But I am not the person to provide that knowledge, or make significant change. I want change, but I cannot give it.
I wrote a long essay on Karl Marx's ideas on labor theory and connecting it to GenAI. I also used Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, but that doesn't really apply here. (You can check it out on my writing projects tab!) To answer the question about GenAI's purpose and use, the first thing I'd say is that GenAI is helpful with is providing information on the unknown, regardless of how good it is. That is one of humanity's greatest primitive fears. The second point goes back to Karl Marx's theory on alienation of species being. It explains why normal, everyday people use it. Yes, yes I know. Karl Marx would hate GenAI. That's not what I am saying here. I'm saying with his theory and his thoughts help you understand why people use it. Allow me to explain alienation of species-being in simple terms. When you get home from your 9-5, or whatever job you work: Do you/Do you want to...
A. Sit down, grab some greasy food, pig out, and watch some slop like Love Island.
B. Immediately work out, eat organic veggies, write a poem, and recreate the Mona Lisa.
Okay, it is definitely more likely you do a mix of both, minus the Mona Lisa part, but I hope you can see my point here. Karl Marx's theory on alienation of species-being goes back to how people under exploitative labor are in survival mode. They are reduced down to animalistic needs like eat, drink, pee, etc. When you come home from work, you lack the ability to express yourself creatively because you are reduced down to something no more additive to labor than a hydraulic press. I explain it in more detail in my essay, and I'm dumbing down but that is not the point here. People use GenAI because when you come home from work, sometimes you just don't want to think. Hours are terrible, pay is terrible, you want to relax. So people cut corners.
Another way people like to unwind after work is social media. I have mixed feelings on social media, and I probably always will. I perpetually lean more negatively, but I understand some benefits. It helps spread information, and allows social activity and humor. Another one is from the time I saw someone online point out how the influencer is a high-paid, female dominated industry. That broke my brain a little bit. Don't get me wrong I don't like really like most influencers, nor what they stand for, but I think it is a great example of how women are objectified. Influencers are essentially billboards, but at the same time, they are people. They have lives, can help others, and women do deserve to be fairly compensated for labor. I am glad women essentially have access to making their own business and brand with them as the leader...It's just why does it have to be this? The line between influencing to prostitution is very fine, but I don't hate them. I can't. There is some good. The real people that benefit are the companies anyways...right?
Anyways speaking of influencers that brings me to the heart of why I am writing this and the headline. I recently watched a video from @jeremyfindsai and somehow it broke my heart.
Normally, I am never the type to fall for GenAI videos, but I did, just once. (I would post the video from TikTok, but it would not let me.) I linked it below. Check him out. It was the cookie. I fell for a smiling cookie. As a note, this could potentially not be GenAI because Jeremy's video is speculative in nature, but I am basing it off of his claims. I am alleging it is GenAI, and for creative purpose I will not be adding a disclaimer each time I mention the cookie. But however once again, it is allegedly GenAI.
Now, I don't know about you, but I have found memories of weird food. I distinctly remember having a photo of a square shaped cookie and a weirdly shaped slice of pie on my old computer. I think a part of this weird food phenomena is the beauty of flaws, preserving the memory, and sharing with others. In addition, that part of the video felt different due to pareidolia, or the ability for humans to recognize faces. Just by looking at some random cookie's face you can imagine that maybe she is a young cookie, fresh out of the oven about to start school. Or maybe he's a father about to come home from work and greet his cookie children...I am getting ahead of myself here. But this was an example of a harm I see no one talking about with GenAI: false hope.
With genocides, war, famine, dictatorships, and an Earth we treat so horribly, social media can make life more depressing than ever. But, it can be fun. You can see a random cookie with a face and find solace in it. But now the rug is pulled from under you and you are left with a cookie-sized hole. That one thing that brought you a little bit of joy after dealing with rude customers, staying late, or getting injured at work wasn't even real.
As GenAI imagery continues to advance, our hopes will be let down more and more, or people will just stop caring about it not being real, and if they do--we are screwed. We can't abandon technology now. I mean maybe, but it would be hard, so we are stuck with the Medusa we have created. If people stop caring about what's human, people could eventually stop caring about being human. We lose that Mona Lisa to a percentage in sales. What then? Is productivity really worth losing the beauty around us?
For the people thinking I can always tell. Sure, you may, but a lot of people don't. I am also sure you won't be able to tell eventually. You will sound like your grandparents saying, "I remember when we went to the Soda shop and did the Jitterbug." You are gonna say something like "I remember a time before GenAI." You won't be able to recognize it eventually. Maybe not now, next year, or even 10 years from now, but one day. That's why people like Jeremy are SO important. We can't lose our humanity. Paint that painting, play that song, and write that script! Art is one of the oldest traditions, I mean look at cave paintings, we cannot lose it. The important way to not lose hope not to be all preachy is to go to that museum, movie theater, or whatever you like and do something fulfilling.
Another GenAI trick that has been going around but I think is just tragic is the GenAI verse of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler. The GenAI verse was specifically centered around grief. If the person who "created" this was grieving I apologize for the harsh words, but it is so exploitative. It feels incredibly insidious "creating" a verse for a song that people find solace while experiencing such a deeply human emotion only to be bamboozled. Being able to detect GenAI content isn't some quest of intellectual, or moral superiority. You can just tell, so tell others what to spot. We can't lose ourselves to something we created.
I hope you enjoy this and heard me out. I also hope it did not seem like I was getting absurdly angry at a cookie, or too imaginative. I think it just sucks. Being an artist is only getting harder, and this is only making it worse.
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