Broad has deep reservations about the ethics of training generative AI on other people’s work, but his main inspiration for (un)stable equilibrium wasn’t philosophical; it was a crappy job. The result, bits of which are still available online, are simultaneously a demonstration of the limitations, circa 2016, of generative AI, and a wry commentary on the perils of human-created intelligence. “How could you train a generative AI model without imitating data? Compare generative AI tools like Midjourney, with their exclusive emphasis on “prompt engineering,” to something like Photoshop, which allows users to adjust a nearly endless number of settings and elements. We know that if we feed generative AI data, a composite of those inputs will come out the other side, but no one really knows, on a granular level, what’s happening inside the black box.