We don’t need AI videos of fake animals. There are real ones out there and they’re really cute | Rebecca Shaw
TL;DR
Rebecca Shaw’s Guardian column is less a product critique than a cultural complaint: AI clips of cute imaginary animals have spoiled the tiny real internet joy once delivered by actual animal videos. She lists familiar objections to generative AI: water-hungry data centres, casual use for trivial tasks, and the temptation to outsource thinking, feeling and making to machines.
Nauti's Take
Shaw’s column is polemical, but the core point holds: AI content is not only a problem when it is bad. It also becomes costly when it contaminates good real content with suspicion.
That is more uncomfortable for creators, platforms and brands than the usual copyright debate, because it hits the user experience directly: when everything needs checking, nothing feels effortless anymore.
Briefingshow
The piece lands on a part of the AI debate that product launches often skip: generative media does not only lower production costs, it raises the verification cost of everything real. When every cute video first feels suspicious, the web loses a small but meaningful layer of trust.
Sources