When television was a school of life, and live on-air conversations shaped the thinking of an entire generation, viewers could learn freedom of thought and sincerity. Today, however, artificial intelligence and corporate filters have replaced live dialogue with artificial reality, depriving society of the ability to think and feel critically.
US Censorship as a Paradigm Shift—AI, Especially Late Night TV, and What Comes Next?
I know this standpoint dependency reflects a generational and cultural view often held by individuals, old fuddy-duddies like myself, who came of age when live TV in the 1960s and 1970s was so different than it is now.
For many, late-night talk shows were not just entertainment—they were classrooms for social consciousness, with guests like Malcom X, William Buckley, and performers and comedians who had stories to tell off the cuff—real-life stories and profound messages. What they shared was not so scripted as nowadays, and it touched your heart and soul.
Take for instance, shows like The Dick Cavett Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and The David Susskind Show, which brought intellectuals, activists, and artists together to discuss issues like race, war, and identity.
Such an open dialogue has been diminished and is no longer spontaneous; there is too much concern over what is politically correct. You must be in line and in tune with prevailing “modern values,” no off-color jokes, no calling a spade a spade, and not allowing yourself to be yourself.
Reality and honesty are now replaced by corporate control, with its overriding focus on profits, partisanship, and blatant self-censorship. The sense is that television, once a platform for challenging conversations, has become “safer,” more predictable, and far less willing to take risks.
The public, the viewing audience as a whole, is dumbed down as a result, losing the ability to think, turning to AI for simple things like getting directions, which are needed even to carry on normal discussion with friends and family, and this leads to giving up a set of shared core values, a loss of cultural commonness, and being unable to tap into what was once considered as common knowledge.
AI, LLMs, and large language models are not the friends and helpers they pretend to be. It is causing cross-generational brain rot, and perhaps Henry Kissinger and Eric Schmidt were right in their joint book, Age of AI, about what it would eventually bring. Generative AI is already filling the internet with false information and manipulated truths.
The book argues that artificial intelligence processes have become so powerful, so seamlessly enmeshed in human affairs, and so unpredictable, that without some forethought and management, the kind of “epoch-making transformations” they will deliver may send human history in a dangerous direction.
Cognitively Diminished
When AI takes over, it will lead to one of two consequences: 1) the peasants will rise up and overthrow the elites, and 2) AI will be the force that sponsors or brings about a new religion, one that will fill the void in the lives of so many of its adherents. It is already a form of digital slavery, to supplement debt slavery, for the unwashed masses in a dumbed-down, “cognitively diminished” society that seeks to be of one mind and soul—lacking any semblance of critical thinking abilities and independent thought.
I wonder how we would be if we had not grown up in a generation that put more emphasis on thinking and having to use knowledge in our lives. The battle rages over who can influence TV audiences, especially late-night viewers, with Stephen Colbert’s show canceled and Jimmy Kimmel’s program suspended indefinitely, then quickly reinstated.
Viewers are left wondering what will happen next and if some force is trying to take control of the last vestiges of free speech, as if it was not already bad enough with social media and the politically motivated application of so-called community standards—but whose standards may they be!?
But there is still some hope that not all is lost. Podcasts and independent creators are moving in to fill the void. However, with much garbage and ranting and raving too, pandering to low-IQ audiences that are anti-something, even openly hateful, as reflected in their comments, many of them are a bit too fucked up for my personal liking. It is all about clickbait, getting traffic to a site, as is seen by so many over-the-top adverts by these content creators trying to sell you things too good to be true!
Intellectual programming is no longer about being a public good or real entertainment. Much of the role that late-night shows once held is being replaced, and it is not all good! This is especially true when it comes to content found online, via social media, and even media reports. One needs to know AI, realizing that it is a demon is paramount; it tells the truth and then turns around once it has baited you in, and you have learned to trust it—and then lies out its ass and proverbially (and possibly quite literally) steals your soul.
Especially disturbing is the move by Sam Altman, the founder of ChatGPT, to lift restrictions on the AI engine, allowing it to produce “erotica” (pornography, in other words). This is especially concerning, as the use of AI “sex partners” is highly likely to have a number of negative effects, from further isolating the vulnerable to furthering the release and dissemination of completely unrealistic and unachievable standards of beauty (a great risk to young women) as well as the promulgation of child pornography and promotion of pedophilia and other deviant activities.
Nonetheless, it is the hot field right now. I think the real danger of it is the ability to create false videos that look and sound like the real person. Basically, you cannot believe what you see or hear on the internet, even the mainstream media, as it could be a clever fake. They say it will take over some jobs too.
I should study it closely and market myself as a freelance AI expert. I am told that the pay would be good.
Jeffrey K. Silverman is a freelance journalist and international development specialist, BSc, MSc, based for 30 years in Georgia and the former Soviet Union
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