I’ve been thinking lots about the “hyperreal”, the state that Baudrillard saw the seeds of in mass media and is now exponentially colonising us through social media and AI. Baudrillard’s key insight was that images (and I’d argue now, AI assets) are simulations of the real, but these “simulacra” become primary and self- perpetuating:

"simulation is … the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal…

….[the sign is ]never exchanged for the real, but exchanged for itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference….

…. simulation threatens the difference between the "true" and the "false," the "real" and the "imaginary.”

No wonder we are disorientated. Interestingly, Baudrillard chose the word “simulacra” knowing it was the word used in the Latin Vulgate Bible in 1 John 5:21:

“My children, guard yourselves from idols”