I find this image terrifying.

I spotted it on Twitter and immediately recognised it as an Assyrian relief then almost as immediately realised that I would have seen it before now, given I’m an ancient history nerd. It’s an AI generated image.

But I only spotted that because I’m of the last few generations who lived before AI. I have memories in my skull of the reality of Assyrian art. Had I been born in 2015, say, I wouldn’t have that. I might think this just another stone relief, and a poignant one at that.

I worry that, should I make it to seventy, the memories inside my skull (and the memories of those like me) will be the only evidence of what is and what isn’t an Assyrian relief sculpture. And then that’ll vanish.

It’s a suffocating feeling.