Probabilistic Media and the Inversion
David M. Berry Figure 1: Probabilistic Media In my recent work I've been developing a set of concepts to help understand the cultural implications of AI-generated content (Berry 2023, 2024, 2025). Central to this emerging framework is a new concept of what I call "probabilistic media," a subset of synthetic media, which I believe helps to develop insights into our emerging digital landscape. To situate this concept within contemporary discourse, let me elaborate on how probabilistic media functions within our current technological milieu. Understanding Probabilistic Media As synthetic media has become increasingly prevalent it is blurring traditional distinctions between human and machine production – a moment of Inversion . Our media diet increasingly seems to consist of content generated or manipulated by algorithmic systems. I am developing the notion of "probabilistic media" to describe cultural artefacts produced through new stochastic computational methods...
