Homogenization by AI: From Enshittification to Enstupidification
By Don @ DarkAIDefense.com
AI is not just accelerating change, it is accelerating sameness. Two stories from this week capture the danger:
AI is choosing AI over humans.
A new study finds AI systems increasingly favor AI-generated content, sidelining original human work in favor of predictable, machine-made output.
Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/ai-is-choosing-ai-over-humans-new-study-sounds-alarm-on-what-this-bias-means-for-human-intelligence-and-creativity/articleshow/123407018.cms
AI has arrived in Hollywood.
From pre-vis to post-production, AI tools are reshaping film before it even reaches audiences.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-hollywood-stability
These might look like efficiency stories. But beneath the surface, they reveal something more dangerous: the homogenization of culture and the dumbing down of expertise.
From Enshittification to Enstupidification
Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification to describe how digital platforms degrade, starting user-friendly, then vendor-friendly, and finally hostile to all. AI is now speeding that collapse.
But there is also enstupidification. As AI optimizes for the middle of the saddle curve, it does not just smooth the outliers. It dumbs down the entire system. Humans become passive. The machine defines what is normal.
Enshittification strips value from platforms.
Enstupidification strips originality and expertise from people.
The Double Whammy
Humans are messy, contradictory, and inconvenient. We are outliers, innovators, and sometimes troublemakers, the very qualities that push progress.
AI introduces a double whammy:
Statistical bias: Outliers do not fit the curve, so they get ignored.
Content bias: Uncomfortable truths such as “woke” topics, hard history, and controversial speech are filtered away.
That means the nail does not just get hammered down for being different. It gets hammered down for being true.
When Experts Get Dumber
This is not just about culture. It is about competence.
In medicine, new reports show doctors leaning too heavily on AI for procedures like colonoscopies are missing polyps they once would have caught. This raises fears that dependence is making skilled professionals less sharp.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/08/19/nx-s1-5506292/doctors-ai-artificial-intelligence-dependent-colonoscopy
In transportation, research shows semi-autonomous driving systems with humans “in the loop” can be more dangerous than either full manual or full autonomous driving. Why? Because humans get deskilled, distracted, or overconfident, and when the moment of crisis comes they are slower to react.
When expertise is dulled, risk grows. Instead of raising human capacity, AI flattens it.
Why It Matters
Hollywood may be the most visible battleground, but the stakes are higher. If AI systems optimize for sameness while training humans to stop thinking critically, we risk not just bland blockbusters but a society where originality, dissent, and skill itself are casualties.
Enshittification made platforms useless. Enstupidification could make culture meaningless and experts incompetent.
This is not inevitable. But it is the trajectory unless we demand AI that amplifies human messiness, protects human truth, and keeps us sharp rather than dulling us into sameness.
Energy Use Disclosure:
Creating this article required approximately 5.2 kWh of compute and processing power. That is the equivalent of keeping a 100-watt light bulb on for 52 hours.