Nearly twenty years later, our world of AdTech and surveillance capitalism has woven a much darker web. Presaged and promoted by the brandscape blockbuster, our corporate metaverse is here, overlaid on our physical reality by the screens in our theaters and in our pockets. The opportunities for independence and radical thought in the cultural sphere have faded, just another piece of content drowned out by brands in an endless scroll. … Generative artificial intelligence trained on corporate IP threatens further repetition and degradation while lowering labor costs. Monotonous stories woven together with empty references to some other desolate entry in the corporate canon. Lots of content, but little creativity or criticism.

QUESTION: Does corporate-driven content creation actually measurably reduce original cultural output, or is this an impressionistic claim worth testing?

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 452