There was a time not too long ago when it was easy to find AI-generated content. It was surreal and ridiculous – like Jesus was made from a shrimp.
We are now entering a new era. AI slop looks so good that it's hard to tell it from the real thing. I was fooled by that. Even if you don't think so, you probably do. For example, this very realistic video of Nicolas Maduro doing a TikTok dance with Didi in prison. You know it's AI because it's impossible, not because the video quality is bad.
So what happens next in a post-Slop world? What will our future look like with AI?
One person who knows something about both is Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, who posted his predictions on Threads. He says AI images, text and videos will become increasingly realistic, including on the platforms he oversees, making it difficult to distinguish them from the real thing.
(That's already happening to some extent. It's been a long time since we could easily find AI-generated images like “Jesus the Shrimp.”)
What I appreciate about Mosseri's memo is that he thinks: optimistic About something that probably sounds like bad For most people. Admitting that his platform is filled with AI-generated content intended to deceive people is for entertainment and profit and should, in theory, get an L. But he thinks this is a problem that can be solved at the product level (at least for Instagram).
When it comes to Instagram, it will need to evolve in different ways and quickly. We need to build the best creative tools, AI-driven and traditional, to help creators compete with content created entirely by AI. AI-generated content should be clearly labeled and work with manufacturers to verify authenticity at the time of capture. This means that in addition to tracking fakes, you also need to fingerprint real media. Trustworthiness signals about posters need to be revealed so people can decide who to trust.
His other point is that people will naturally gravitate toward human-created content. Because it becomes a trend. That is, authentic, unrefined, intimate, Authentic.
“Authenticity is rapidly becoming a scarce resource, and that will ultimately be the driving force.” Demand for creator content increasesIf your job is to run a platform for creator content, and you're trying to reassure creators (and advertisers) to continue posting authentic content to the platform, this is certainly a hopeful message.
I think he's generally right. Conventional wisdom seems to be that human-generated content will be more premium in a world flooded with machine-generated content.
Could ChatGPT be useful for housework?
OpenAI's chief economist, Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterjee, also made optimistic predictions, telling the Financial Times that he believed AI could free us from mundane household chores.
Look, I love the sound of it as much as anyone, but I'm skeptical. Sure, someone is working on a robot that folds clothes, but it will likely be a long time before that becomes a reality for most of us. And it's hard to imagine automating the chores I really hate, like cleaning the toilet or organizing the piles of papers and trash that accumulate on my countertops every day. And I'm very skeptical about robots helping with childcare.
humans come to the rescue
On the other hand, Ben Thompson of Stratechery also seems to fall under the category of “human rock”! That side of things, I find much more appealing as a human being.
He wrote about a Substack essay that was circulating among some influential people interested in economics and AI. The essay suggests that income inequality will actually become much worse when AI and automation eliminate the need for humans to work.
But Thompson believes that even if the gap between the haves and have-nots grows exponentially in 2126 (which doesn't look great on paper), human labor will still be valued and celebrated for just being human. He writes:
Consider sex, the most despicable example. I have no doubts that we will see human-like robots that can have sex. I am also more convinced that humans' overwhelming preference is to have sex with other humans. And that, in turn, means that all the courtship and status games played to find a lover continue and become a complete economy in themselves. No matter how objectively perfect it is, a generic product produced by a robot will not impress your partner. True value comes from the uniqueness and imperfection downstream of humans.
I like this sound! It's very selfish of me, as a person who creates (writes words) something that I think an AI could do, but if it could do it, I probably wouldn't like it and wouldn't want to pay for it. And as humans, we would want to keep the species alive for several more generations. I'd like to think of this as a hope rather than a solution.
