My feeds are a weird place lately. One minute, I’m watching a jaw-dropping AI video of something impossible, and the next, I’m seeing a display of raw human talent that feels just as magical. It’s this constant back-and-forth between machine-made marvels and human-made genius that’s got me thinking.
It feels like we're all trying to figure out our place next to these incredibly powerful new tools. What does it mean to be creative? What makes something feel "real" or "alive"?
I don't have all the answers, but I've stumbled upon a few things recently that have been helping me process it all. A drummer, an artist, and a novelist. They’re all wrestling with these same ideas in their own unique ways, and I can’t stop thinking about them. So, I figured I’d share.
Meet the Human Drum Machine Who Puts AI to Shame
A few months ago, my daughter showed me a YouTube video, and I’ve been hooked ever since. The channel belongs to a Spanish drummer who goes by El Estepario Siberiano (his real name is Jorge Garrido), and honestly, you just have to see it to believe it.
He posts these supercharged covers of popular songs, and his speed, precision, and creativity are just off the charts. He plays with this intensity that makes other professional drummers literally stop and shake their heads in disbelief. Seriously, half the fun is watching the "reaction videos" from other musicians whose jaws are on the floor.
Here’s the thing, though. Garrido is totally open about the fact that this skill didn't just happen. He spent years—we're talking all day, every day—behind his drum kit, putting in the hours. In a world where it feels like a machine can do anything in an instant, there’s something so powerful and defiant in that kind of dedication.
That’s why my favorite videos are his covers of electronic music. He’ll take a track built on a perfect, synthesized beat and just… obliterate it. Go watch his version of "Ra Ta Ta" by Skrillex and Missy Elliot. He’s not just keeping up with the drum machine; he’s outperforming it. He’s adding a layer of human fire and soul that an algorithm could never replicate. It’s pure joy.
Why Do Sora’s Videos Feel So Lifeless?
You’ve probably seen them by now. Those wild AI-generated videos from Sora: Michael Jackson sneaking away with a box of chicken nuggets, or Sam Altman taking a bite out of a weirdly fleshy, grilled Pikachu. They’re technically impressive, for sure. But they also feel… hollow.
Watching them gave me this weird sense of déjà vu, reminding me of an art exhibition I saw a while back by a British artist named Ed Atkins. Atkins creates these hyper-realistic, unsettling CG animations, often of himself. The skin has pores, but the movements are just a little bit off. He plays right on that creepy edge of the uncanny valley.
In one piece called The Worm, we see his CGI avatar on a long-distance call with his mother during lockdown. The audio is a real recording of their conversation. You see the avatar start to cry, and you're hit with this jarring question: Am I watching the artist cry, or his digital puppet? Your brain just kind of flickers between two realities.
Atkins once said he wants everything he makes to "corpse"—that’s the term for when an actor breaks character and laughs during a scene. It’s that moment the illusion shatters and you see the real person underneath.
Next to that kind of thoughtful, unsettling work, the current AI videos just look like cardboard cutouts. They mimic life, but they don't have any of its messy, beautiful, "corpsing" reality. They’re lifelike, but they’re not alive.
A Book About Talking Animals That Taught Me Everything About AI
Okay, stick with me on this last one. What do you think it would be like to be a pet? If you’ve ever wanted to know, Laura Jean McKay’s novel, The Animals in That Country, will make you wish you’d never asked.
The premise is simple: a strange flu sweeps the globe, and it leaves survivors with the ability to understand what animals are saying. Now, if you’re picturing a sweet Dr. Dolittle scenario, think again. These animals are weird. They’re nasty. A lot of the time, what they "say" is just a jumble of sensory information that makes absolutely no sense to a human mind.
It’s a brilliant and deeply unsettling book. And it feels incredibly relevant right now.
We’re all talking to our computers these days, asking questions to chatbots and treating them like colleagues. It’s so easy to fall into what McKay’s book exposes: the anthropomorphic trap. We project our own logic, our own way of thinking, onto these nonhuman intelligences.
This book is a fantastic gut-check. It’s a powerful exploration of what a truly nonhuman mind might be like—and a stark reminder that just because we can "talk" to something doesn't mean we can truly communicate or understand it. There are hard limits, and maybe that's a lesson we need to remember as we get cozier with AI.
