#homogenization

#homogenization

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sure loves whole milk. Last fall, his health administration declared that the "war" on whole milk was over. More recently, he posted an A.I.-generated video of himself drinking whole milk and dancing, his upper lip adorned with a milk mustache. His new dietary guidelines prominently recommend whole milk. Specifically, the guidelines advise that Americans should eat three servings of "full-fat" dairy each day: "Dairy is an excellent source of protein, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals."

The results show that generative AI systems themselves tend toward homogenization when used autonomously and repeatedly. They even suggest that AI systems are currently operating in this way by default. This experiment may appear beside the point: Most people don't ask AI systems to endlessly describe and regenerate their own images. The convergence to a set of bland, stock images happened without retraining. No new data was added. Nothing was learned. The collapse emerged purely from repeated use.