[NetBehaviour] on Walter Benjamin and AI

Thu May 28 23:33:33 CEST 2026

Rhea - forgive me for taking  so long to respond to what you wrote around my Benjamin/AI text. I'm not sure my response will be satisfactory or even sure footed. It certainly won't be comprehensive.  Of course one is tempted to try and reply point by point to comments on something one has invested time effort and feeling into but I think that would be at best, heavy handed - I've laid out my stall as best I can and I think your generous and smart notes make larger the space of discussion in a very positive way...  More on the broader picture in a minute :)  I did want to venture two or three responses. I'm sure your note on 12 is entirely true. People do all sorts of subtle and interesting things ( you even managed it, mirabile dictu, with the blockchain) . In the case of AI I'll be blunt, *plump* & restate: I don't care - I don't think they should, in the same way as the gladiatorial example I quote or perhaps the idea of - I dunno- making nuclear powered art, for all the reasons I list in #12. It comes down, and this is a broader discussion, to *why* AI in its current form *now* . I think there are two fundamental unavoidable reasons: the ( empirically evidenced) tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the fact that any capitalist who steals a march by adopting technological innovations ( which in turn will themselves contribute to the falling rate of profit) can * temporarily* dig themselves out of the collective hole. It's testament to the panic amongst the capitalist class that even something so deeply flawed and speculative ( and it still is largely in terms of any *actual* ROI) can be seized so desperately - drowning folk & straws come to mind. The other is military uses, where the logic of military competition demands the same thing - although 'efficiency' , however obscene a concept in this context, is still signally lacking. We can ask the dead about this.   #15/ you are an excellent satirist and what you do is to force one to reconsider the possibility that one has been glib!                #16/ point taken but again for the reasons already outlined I won't be losing any sleep about this.
#30 / couldn't agree more. In a somewhat different way lots of synthetic chemicals prevent me having a heart attack and your broader point is well taken. I think I avoid any crude appeal to a glowing tradition & I'm not sure I actually at any point talk of 'authenticity'. #31 & #45 . Yep. Agreed. #40 / thank you for introducing me to this! #47 / great - smart & thought provoking as I would expect. #78 / *I* think it is careful observation :) - in a way it runs counter to auteur theory in that it asserts that we cannot escape our time, however much we might try or wish to.   ***  I hope I have got the tone and amount of response about right.  I think if we were face to face we could have a very productive chat about all this ! which leads me to a thought - most journals are happy to take 'A reply to ....' I think it would be really interesting given both our areas of agreement and some sharp differences plus a *very* significant different set of artistic interests,  experiences and practices if you put together a ' reply to Szpakowski on Benjamin and AI' & submitted it. I quite understand if that doesn't enthuse you but it would further and usefully open out the discussion ... In any case,  I'm grateful to you for a response where its clear you have *actually carefully read* the piece both sympathetically but alert to issues, nuances and bigger disagreements too. sending warm wishes, Michael
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

On Wednesday, May 13, 2026, 11:35 pm, Rhea Myers via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:

#yiv5651043574 html {}#yiv5651043574 h1 {font-size:1.3em;line-height:1.2;margin:0;}#yiv5651043574 ul, #yiv5651043574 ol {margin:0;padding:0;}#yiv5651043574 ul li, #yiv5651043574 ol li, #yiv5651043574 li li {margin:0 0 0 36px;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574filtered99999 li {margin:0 18px 0 0;}#yiv5651043574 blockquote {border-color:#dfdee1;border-style:solid;border-width:0 0 0 1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 0 1em;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574filtered99999 blockquote, #yiv5651043574 blockquote .yiv5651043574filtered99999 {border-width:0 1px 0 0;padding:0 1em 0 0;}#yiv5651043574 pre {font-family:"SFMono-Regular", Consolas, "Liberation Mono", Menlo, Courier, monospace;font-size:0.9em;margin:0;background-color:#f3f1ef;white-space:pre-wrap;word-wrap:break-word;overflow:visible;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574message-content {font-family:-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Aptos, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol";line-height:1.4;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574attachment {display:inline-block;margin:0;padding:0;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574attachment__caption {padding:0;text-align:center;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574attachment__caption a .yiv5651043574filtered99999 {text-decoration:none;color:#333333;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574attachment--preview {width:100%;text-align:center;margin:0.625em 0;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574attachment--preview img {border:1px solid #dfdee1;vertical-align:middle;width:auto;max-width:100%;max-height:640px;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574attachment--preview .yiv5651043574attachment__caption {color:#716d7b;font-size:0.85em;margin-top:0.625em;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574attachment--file {color:#282138;line-height:1;margin:0 2px 2px 0;padding:0.4em 1em;border:1px solid #dfdee1;border-radius:5px;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574permalink {color:inherit;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574txt--subtle {color:#716d7b;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574txt--xx-small {font-size:14px;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574flush {margin:0;padding:0;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574push--bottom {margin-bottom:8px;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574border--top {border-top:1px solid #ECE9E6;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574btn {padding:0.2em 0.4em;font-weight:500;text-decoration:none;white-space:nowrap;background:#5522FA;border-color:#5522FA;color:#ffffff;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574btn--email {display:inline-block;text-align:center;font-weight:500;font-size:1em;text-decoration:none;border-radius:2em;white-space:nowrap;background:#5522FA;border-color:#5522FA;color:#ffffff;border-top:0.3em solid #5522FA;border-left:1em solid #5522FA;border-bottom:0.3em solid #5522FA;border-right:1em solid #5522FA;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574shaded {padding:1em;border-radius:4px;background-color:#f6f5f3;border:1px solid #dfdee1;}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574shaded--blue {background-color:rgba(80, 162, 255, 0.2);}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574shaded--red {background-color:rgba(255, 120, 120, 0.2);}#yiv5651043574 .yiv5651043574strikethrough {text-decoration:line-through;}   Heya Michael.

This is truly wonderful. Thank you for sharing it!

Just to check - can we share the PDF link on social media?

I ranted briefly about social media anti-AI invocations of Benjamin a little while ago -

https://rhea.art/2025/09/25/walter-benjamins-superman/

Regarding your paragraphs:

12 -> The latent space of a model is the *unrealised* surplus value of cultural production. We are in an era of the rapid updating of "frontier" models, in some small part in response to their use by workers and artists. Some artists train and update their own models (Shardcore has been doing this for many years) as part of their ongoing artistic production. Open Source models and "skills" are shared and built upon publicly and iteratively.

The isolation of objects produced by isolated individuals is therefore, *in theory*, a product of the promotion of access to AI via web services that rely on individual accounts, billing, and use by people in a quantifiable way whether for the AI companies' metrics, or their promised reduction in labour costs to executives. 

15 -> https://rhea.art/2006/02/19/an-excerpt-from-a-recounting-of-an-adventure-by-baron-munchausen/ 😸

16 -> "slop" has become a before-the-fact dismissal of AI output rather than a characterisation of its lowest common denominator results by many users of the term. 

30 -> I am extremely wary of appeals against the "synthetic" to assert a (moral) lack to something that is nonetheless real, relying as I do for my existence on synthetic (but bio-identical) hormones and steroids. Fascism has never been a fan of the inauthentic (as it defines it).

31 -> AI shares this opaque brute force use of computation with Bitcoin's proof-of-work. Both technologies are hated by gamers for taking all the GPUs. 😸

40 -> I've always thought that the Aura went into brands, and more recently into memetic internet """aesthetics""" - https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Aesthetics_Wiki

45 -> Many social media responses to AI slop do make the mistake of throwing out modern and postmodern art by taking, essentially, fantasy book cover illustration as their model of what art is and must be defended as. It is here that I think that social media would-be anti-fascist anti-AI sentiment becomes indistinguishable from its "retvrn" classical-art-fetishising other.

47 -> https://rhea.art/util-inu-aura/ 😸

https://rhea.art/2007/05/30/the-aura-of-the-aura/ 😸

https://rhea.art/2007/05/31/aesthetic-aura-investigation-one/ 😸

78 -> Is this indexicality? Is this auteur theory? 🤔

I love the paintings, as well!

Thank you.

- Rhea.

On May 1, 2026, NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity <netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:

Hi

I have just had a short paper on Walter Benjamin and AI published in the journal ‘Arts’. It’s entitled: ‘Art and AI—Benjamin’s ‘aura’ as a Locus of Resistance: Notes, Theses and Images’

If you’d like to read it there’s a pdf here

 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/15/5/93/pdf

If you can think of anyone who might find it of interest, or indeed be completely outraged by it, please feel free to forward!

With warm wishes

Michael

_______________________________________________
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
  _______________________________________________
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/attachments/20260528/310b082f/attachment.htm>