Packetized Sensemaking
Discussion
John Robb:
"Let’s dig into how packetized media works.
In response to the packetization of media, we’re experiencing a shift from long-form literary thinking to network pattern matching — from analysis (logic) to intuition (emotion). Patterns help us cope with high volumes of information, serving as a mental router that lets us categorize new information quickly.
Packetized media is rocket fuel for intuitive perception because it is incredibly effective at conveying emotion in digestible chunks (below the level we’ve developed cognitive filters for), and emotion is at the heart of intuition. It provides you with the “feel” that lets you instantly understand something or the “sense” that something is off.
Packetized media clusters around thematic patterns, from the social/cultural theme (trad family) to the political theme (MAGA fascism or woke communism) to the purient (viral videos). All of these themes contain an emotional subcontext that animates them. At the macro level, thematic patterns that resonate (likely due to some commonality in the emotional subcontext) can spontaneously combine into a greater whole; the red/blue networked tribes, for example."
(https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/ai-media)
Amplication through AI Media
John Robb:
"AI media ... will generate themed, packetized media that triggers emotional reactions and empathy, enabling it to discover, build, and amplify thematic patterns. ... AIs (at first with human participation but eventually autonomously) will take it to another level:
- Increase the rate and scale of packet production by several orders of magnitude. The flood will become a tsunami.
- Radically improve the emotive impact of individual packets by quickly stitching together generative video, voices, pictures, and text to maximize the emotional impact.
- This generative capability enables AIs to rapidly discover, explore, saturate, and then amplify thematic spaces."