by Patrick Wood

September 27, 2023 - There’s a big word that you can add to your vocabulary: Simulacrum. It is a hard word around which to wrap your head, but one you are not too likely to forget. Indeed, you should not forget it!

Collins defines it as: “1) an image; likeness; 2) a vague representation; semblance; 3) a mere pretense; sham.”

Cambridge Dictionary says: “something that looks like or represents something else”.

Purdue University puts it this way: “Something that replaces reality with its representation.”

Jean Baudrillard wrote about this in a 1981 paper called The Precession of Simulacra, where he digs deeper, making a distinction between a simulation and a simulacrum.

Whereas representation attempts to absorb simulation by interpreting it as a false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation itself as a simulacrum. Such would be the successive phases of the image:

it is the reflection of a profound reality;

it masks and denatures a profound reality;

it masks the absence of a profound reality;

it has no relation to any reality whatsoever;

it is its own pure simulacrum.

So the switch for reality is anti-reality: “The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.”

This whole process does not happen in a vacuum because it involves human agency. Reality exists but human perception distorts it.

Just for review, reality slips into distortion, then into simulation, then finds its resting place in a state of simulacrum. Reality is subsumed by the simulacrum.

It is estimated that 90% of all online content will be generated by AI by 2025. This means news, social media posts, chats, pictures, videos, podcasts, websites, etc. A deluge of fake social media accounts will be run by AI. In short, everything.

Nina Schick, A.I. thought leader, wrote, “What generative AI can do, essentially, is create new things that would have thus far been seen as unique to human intelligence or creativity. Generative AI can create - across all media - so text, video, audio, pictures - every digital medium can be powered by generative AI. I think these valuations that you’re seeing for OpenAI are actually going to go up and you’re going to start to see even more generative AI companies that have universal applications across many industries in 2023.”

People will remember back to 2023 images and think that nothing has changed in 2025.

As described above, a simulacrum is anti-reality.

This is not a paradigm shift of reality. This is not a “new reality”. This is not reality, period. Unfortunately, billions of people risk being captured by it.

While everyone is looking at shiny new simulacra forming right before their eyes, reality is escaping out the back door.