All You Can Eat, and I Am So Full

I had dinner at my sister’s place last night. The kids, bless their hearts, wanted to “show me something.”

It was a text-to-image model. The kind that spits out a fresh batch of pictures every twenty seconds. A bottomless digital vial. The prompt was “a hyperrealistic frog wearing a tiny sombrero, riding a unicycle, in space, cinematic lighting.”

And so we watched. For two hours.

The first hit was spectacular, I’ll admit. We laughed. “Look at his little face!” my nephew screamed. A perfect, glossy frog, sombrero casting a dramatic shadow on its green, impassive face. The stars were a gorgeous, swirling nebula. Art.

Then came the variations. The AI, our tireless dealer, kept pushing. A frog with a bigger sombrero. A frog on a red unicycle. A frog with a cosmic taco. An impressionist frog. A frog that looked vaguely like my brother-in-law, which caused a temporary surge of hysteria.

After the fiftieth frog, a weird silence fell over the room. The kids’ eyes were glazed over, thumbs still twitching for the “generate more” button. My sister was scrolling on her phone, half-watching. No one was talking. We were just… consuming. A family, together, mainlining absurdity.

The Great Frog Overdose

There was no story. No scarcity. No meaning. Just an infinite supply of space frogs, each one erasing the memory of the last. It wasn’t fun anymore; it was a strange, compulsive ritual. Is this what we do now? We poke the machine until our brains go numb? Have you seen it, too? That quiet desperation when the novelty wears off but the button is still right there?

It’s a strange form of mental exhaustion. The sickness of the infinite. It’s like being forced to eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet until you throw up, and then being told the dessert is even better.

For a dose of methadone, you could try this: next time you open an AI, force yourself to write a single sentence describing what you actually need before you type your prompt. A tiny speed bump on the road to oblivion. It’s a start to a kind of digital detox for the AI age. For a more institutional approach, you can always read the excellent resources from civic bodies like the CNIL on artificial intelligence.

As we were leaving, my nephew, bless him, tugged on my sleeve. “Next time,” he whispered, his eyes wide with junkie-like anticipation, “we’ll do hamsters in submarines.”

I can’t wait.

your turn: