AI is getting good. Really good. Like, terrifyingly good.
The other night, I watched a video of a cat being pulled over by the police. Sirens blaring, flashing lights, and an officer questioning the cat about catnip. The cat quickly puts the car in drive and suddenly takes off.
As someone trained in video, my first thought was: how the hell did they shoot that? Then it hit me—it wasn’t shot. It was generated.
AI.
Now, I’ll admit it—I was entertained. These ridiculous videos of animals getting pulled over crack me up. But lately, they’ve evolved into something less absurd and more… unnerving. I’ve seen clips of a toddler almost eaten by an alligator before a frantic mom swoops in to save him. Another of an elderly man attacked by a tiger—rescued by a bear. None of it real. All of it convincing.
And now we have Tilly Norwood, the AI “actress” who looks as real as anyone walking down Sunset Boulevard. Hollywood isn’t happy. I’m reminded of those early computer-generated actors that once had everyone worried—but we got used to them. Maybe that’s because they were still powered by people: human voice actors, animators, and artists who breathed life into them. The difference now is that the new AI “actors” won’t need any of that. No animators. No voice actors. No heartbeat behind the pixels.
Tilly doesn’t need them. Tilly doesn’t need anyone.
A friend of mine has this wild theory: that the government is letting AI get too good on purpose. His idea is that people will stop believing what they see online and start leaving the internet entirely—no more social media.
When I asked him what the government gets out of that, he said: “Control. No more organizing, no more protests, no more public squares.”
Now, I don’t buy the puppet master part—but I do think he’s right about the exodus.
There will come a point when the internet becomes so full of lies, filters, and synthetic everything that no one will believe anything they see. The web will eat itself. And when that happens, the smart ones will log off. People will seek reality again.
If there’s any real conspiracy, it’s that the powers that be don’t want us to wake up. They feed us the endless scroll, hungry for our attention, our data, our time. They want us staring down, not looking up.
The problem I have with my friend’s theory is that the internet isn’t really causing change for the masses. Social media gives us a false sense of activism. You share a post, you feel morally satisfied. Outrage becomes performance art. We’ve mistaken expression for action.
Real change takes work. It’s not going to come from a hashtag or a TikTok. Even these massive “million-person marches” barely ripple anymore. Maybe they don’t work because too many of us are just showing up for the post.
If you want real change, you have to get off your phone. You have to talk to people who disagree with you. You have to meet your neighbors. You have to rebuild the third places—cafés, bars, libraries, zine fairs—where we actually connect, laugh, and argue face-to-face. I recently wrote a post about third places. You can read it here.
The future isn’t online. The future is analog. It’s in the room you’re standing in.
The more realistic AI becomes, the more people will crave the unrealistic beauty of human imperfection. The handmade. The unfiltered. The flawed.
When everything is fake, even the worst hand-drawn sketch will feel like truth.
AI will find its place in entertainment, sure. Some creators will use it well. But the rest of us—the ones who want something real—will tune it out. We’ll find each other offline. We’ll trade art, stories, music, and ideas. We’ll build a new creative underground powered by imperfection and curiosity.
And the others? The ones who stay glued to their screens, believing every pixel and post? They’ll drown in the digital noise.
Only the stupid will remain.
So start early. Step away from the feed. Touch the world. Create something. Meet someone. Read a real zine. Listen to a real band. Sit with a real friend.
The future of being human is happening offline.
Join us.
Take it easy,
James