As AI continues to serve up slop, legacy media is back on the menu
Initially, it was quite amusing. I would get tagged in a photo on Instagram by someone keen to congratulate me on my skills with a skillet, the delicacy of my soufflé or the tastiness of my barbecued pork – I would just smile to myself at their foolish error. One time, I did find the mistaken post and commented that they had the wrong “Andrew Tuck”, that my kitchen skills had yet to go much further than the boiling of an egg. And as for my delicate soufflé, well, nobody has seen that since the summer of 1994. But annoyingly, the other Andrew Tuck’s chef stardom was on a roll (and no doubt on many other baked goods too). But it was only when I saw him on TV that I became suspicious that the influx of butchers and bakers on my Instagram account were not looking for me after all.
This week things got worse. Someone sent me a message asking if I had Googled my name of late – and suggesting that perhaps I should. “Andrew Tuck”, the AI-generated response confidently declared, “is a prominent figure in two distinct fields: journalism and culinary arts, known as the founding editor of Monocle magazine and a celebrated chef recognised for his expertise in open-fire cooking and his appearances on the Great British Menu.” Tuck and Tuck have been combined in some monstrous concoction whereby one minute we’re grilling an interviewee, the next a sirloin steak.
I mentioned the AI-human cocktail confusion to the other half, who did a quick Google himself and assured me that the risks of being mistaken for one another were rather slim. “One, he’s much younger than you are. Two he’s better looking.” That’s the last boiled egg he gets from me. Someone else suggested that the reference to “prominent” must be an allusion to my forehead. It has not been the best of weeks.
There have been a slew of stories in recent days about the salaries being offered to the world’s best AI engineers – apparently job offers of a billion dollars have been touted and declined. You can buy an awful lot of hoodies for that sort of money. And the world is certainly giddy for all things AI but you are also seeing the refuges from the excesses of this world appearing. I hope that Monocle can be one of them.
I had lunch this week with a woman who is writing a report on the impact of AI. When she started talking about brands’ increasing desire to distance themselves from a very technical term, “slop”, I started to cheer up. While AI might change companies and become a valuable tool in various trades, when it comes to telling their stories, brands are increasingly reticent about social media. There’s just too much slop being served; unchecked AI nonsense that makes cut-through for genuine and deep engagement impossible. Legacy media has an opportunity to be the new media.
Let’s see. I am sure that AI will progress apace and no doubt in the near future my digitally conjoined other half will retrieve his own identity and me, mine. But, anyway, I’d better sign off as I have decided to make the most of this mayhem and have 20 people round tonight for a flambé dinner – I just hope they like open-fire eggs.
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