100 gecs and the Limits of AI Art

The article explores how the hyperpop duo 100 gecs, with their deliberately 'bad' aesthetic, offer a model for resisting AI's colonization of creativity. Their music, described as 'cursed' and genre-mashing, is often said to sound like the internet. However, the author argues this view is utopian, as AI tools like DALL-E are designed to eliminate weirdness and produce inoffensive, marketable content. The paradox of AI art is that using it 'properly' yields worse results than improper, creative misuse. 100 gecs, by embracing badness, cheat the logic of algorithms: they are trained on everything but refuse to conform to standards of 'good taste,' producing genuinely good art. The article references Adorno and Horkheimer's 'mythic cunning' as a parallel strategy for human resistance.