This touches on something I've (and many others) have felt throughout my life, not just since the advent of LLMs.

To take a simple example: I grew up with computer games in the '80s where there were no 'physics engines' or frameworks for building games. As a result, each game was an expression of the author's personality somehow. Fast forward to the noughties, games bored me as they mostly looked and felt the same, or maybe felt like 3-5 different games all packaged differently.

Another example: going abroad on holiday in Europe (I'm from London) used to be a relatively wild, vibrant experience, filled with unexpected differences and challenges (not all positive). There were no McDonalds or Starbucks and the shops were filled with unfamiliar products and foods. Now everywhere in Europe feels the same when I visit, especially with smartphone in hand.

And films went from wildly different to one another to what now feels like 'arty' and 'CGI' being the two choices.

This article continues that into the realm of ideas, or idea production. Everywhere you go looks and feels familiar.

Or am I just getting old?

> Or am I just getting old?

Perhaps? But I think this is more a case of just not seeking things out.

Music is as vibrant and diverse as ever, but not if you're only looking at the top charts run by the music industry.

Same deal with games, there's more experimentation and interesting concepts in gaming than ever before, but not from the AAA studios.

Now I can't speak for how you vacation, but I've had wonderfully different experiences between Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Paris, Montpellier, London, Amsterdam, Oslo, and Florence. I just don't go to the starbucks and instead wander around a bit, optionally picking from a few hit destinations if I feel like it. But also, it's not like this was created for nothing: https://www.itchyfeetcomic.com/2018/10/omnimappus-europeus.h...

>Or am I just getting old?

Obviously not, since 20-somethings also dislike that and express the same things openly, which they didn't in the past.

Also obviously not, since one can just see it by comparing e.g. 10 pictures of NY or Chicago or LA vs 10 pictures of Berlin or London or Barcelona cafes from 1980s and from 2020s, and the latter all look alike. It's also been studied (even academically) and has several names: airport aesthetic, international style, placelessness, global monoculture, airspace aesthetic (air as in airbnb), etc.

Alex Murrell has a great piece on this: https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

I'll stick to games and movies, as I believe both have been moving in a similar direction, becoming more of an object to be consumed, rather than to be experienced. I've thought about this in two ways: it's either that (a) when fields are fresh, creators explore orthogonal concepts and fit to what performs best relatively quickly, or (b) the available idea space just isn't that large by itself, and novelty wears off after you watch some number of movies.

Both games and movies are predictable in the sense that we know what to expect, and they have been largely standardized. Games have common keybinding schemes, as well as user experience mechanics: how jumping feels, when we expect to autosave, what the UI/minimap symbols mean, etc. When it comes to movies, I find myself no longer turning away from the screen before gruesome scenes, because I expect in advance that they won't show it, depending on the mood of the movie. I also find that you can often predict which dialogue lines were meant as foreshadowing for a plot twist coming later. This standardization is intentional in the sense that people are more likely to consume something they are familiar with, and more likely to enjoy it if they can passively engage with it.

It's common nowadays to pay $20 for a game, play it for a few hours, and forget about it. Or, turn on a random Netflix show on the TV to pass time in the evening. Quite likely that a month later you won't reminisce about either of these experiences, but you probably didn't have high expectations either way. I think 'consuming' a travel trip is similar in the sense that it has very familiar tropes no matter where you go, but more implicitly resulting from market forces rather than intentional design from a creator.

Getting old for sure, but also globalization of cultures and ideas contribute as well.

It’s human nature to pattern-match experiences. As the number of experiences grows, more fit into something seen before. So, yes, we’re just getting old.

No, culture and the means of production went global. Bespoke only makes sense when you can’t get an acceptable good at a decent price. That goes for food, building materials and physics engines. Different will only be found in fetishistic disneylands from now on.

Or how about corporate memphis, rounded corners, etc.

It's crazy to hear someone think games in the 80s were more creative than they are today. That's taking nostalgia to a whole new level! Indy games today are amazing. When you lower barriers the ratio of good to bad probably tilts more towards bad, but the absolute number of good still increases.

There's going to be reams of AI slop (already is), but I bet the amount of amazing games will also (more slowly) increase due to AI tools. The trick is in how well we can filter.

I think we're in the early stages and being overwhelmed by low quality production. We'll find ways to filter, and find some real bangers.

there is also the fact those tools increased the number of offerings but the quality did not improve.

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