37° and Fog
Image
Last week, the Gazette published a CNHI editorial about “slop”. Slop is content generated through the use of artificial intelligence with an emphasis on quantity not quality.
In the last local election cycle, AI generated “slop” supported Republican candidates for council and County Legislature by slandering Mayor Robert Restaino, Niagara County Democratic Party Chairperson Chris Borgatti and being critical of endorsed Democratic candidates John Kinney, Bridgette Myles and Noah Munoz while supporting Donta Myles write-in, Tanya Barone and Vincent Cauley.
The Niagara Reporter even slammed incumbent Councilperson David Zajac who was the only party endorsed candidate in his party’s primary even if the party eventually backed Cauley and Barone.
In the end, Cauley, Bridgette Myles and Zajac authentically outworked their opponents. The slop generated by AI did not work. Real trumps artificial every day.
Natural things are better. Passion and connection from Cauley, even when we disagree, and Cauley and Myles both reminding us that community matters, especially when it comes from being involved in the church community. Zajac and Myles also showed family matters. Bridgette at the swearing in had her daughter and I assume grandfather with her. Zajac had his whole darn family and even brought his own Bible.
That Bible belonged to his father and was a wedding gift from his parents. His eyes teared up when I asked him about it. You can’t fake that.
Tanya Barone was a newcomer and fell in with the folks trying a new way for the Republican party, benefitting from being included in the slop but I don’t think she had the name recognition to make it work. At least not yet. She has to diversify the things she talks about so she doesn’t get pigeonholed as caring about the dog shelter and nothing else.
Donta was apparently a dead man walking because Mayor Robert Restaino remains a strong enough voice in the city Democratic Party to control the slate put forth. It’s Bob’s way or the highway. You can control the committee but you can’t control the voters.
In hindsight, Donta’s only path to reelection would have been to change parties and run as a Republican. No one suggested this to me but he could do it in two years and run on a slate with Barone.
The bottom line is that while AI is changing a lot of things, from giving us predictive text to screening calls on your cell phone or giving a concise email summary using it to create slop on social media and slander candidates creates a whole lot of smoke but no fire.
In the next election cycle, the Niagara Falls Republican Committee needs to embrace character and substance not slander and slop. That’s the real reason Zajac won. Voters were smart enough to not associate him with the nonsense just as they were smart enough to realize Cauley had enough character to not be involved even if they were boosting him.
