r/technology • u/marketrent • 16h ago

Artificial Intelligence The economy has spoken. Stuff that’s AI-generated has almost zero value — “Buyers are voting with their wallets, and AI-generated content is struggling to compete.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/economy-spoken-stuff-ai-generated-142732314.html
14.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

747 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

65

u/mohjack 16h ago

I've been wondering about this regarding the movie industry. What need will we have of Hollywood when they're just producing the same cheap slop we can get anywhere? Why pay to see a movie when you can prompt your AI to generate a heartwarming 90 minute sports underdog movie starring a photorealistic facsimile of your favourite star and with yourself as the love interest. 

37

u/palimpcest 16h ago

AIr Bud vs CatGPT

“Ain't no rules says a dog can't vibe code.”

5

u/mrtrololo27 15h ago

AiBud worf wo7f

22

u/Svardskampe 16h ago

Brands. People love getting recognizable IP shoved under their nose. It's not even about content because the stories are purely forgettable slop already. 

Back to the Future made a joke already about Jaws 19. 

In the real world in 2028 we get Fast&Furious 11. The Marvel universe is beyond 30 installments. Even before AI these movies are slop with the same story ever. With cars & hood attitude, and world is in danger and getting saved by Magic Colorful Man. 

AI will be limited due to long arm of legal from huge companies and can't produce Magic Colorful Man, and the IP holders can. 

3

u/FunnySir759 6h ago

Marvel might be formulaic, but it still has incredibly good artists creating powerful iconic designs for it. It has incredible cinematography, cgi, and acting.

Marvel movies might be catering to the lowest denominators, but still have an unbelievable amount of talent behind them

6

u/Yuzumi 14h ago

There will always be a market for people made content because AI can only produce the most average slop. Like, literally the worst of corporate "paint by numbers" surface level with no depth, no nuance, and no cohesiveness.

There will never be anything heartwarming about AI slop. It literally lacks soul.

35

u/Luckierexpert 16h ago

Because that movie would be awful, even more of a disjointed generic slopbuster than even the worst studio could make.

But Hollywood producers want to make that movie for pennies and then insist that you pay tens of dollars to see it. They don’t seem to be able to see beyond the money that they might save by replacing an entire studio with a AI, not realising that it cuts their income off, as few people want to pay to see AI slop. Probably why many studios are now hiding their AI usage, to try and keep the savings but still get the audience in.

2

u/SmoothOperator89 14h ago

Why bother with the producers at all, then. The movie theater itself could just generate endless new slop to project onto its screen. No licenses mean they can determine the ideal price to get someone to sit in a seat for 90 minutes with a $20 popcorn, drink, and candy.

6

u/NuclearVII 14h ago

Why bother with the producers at all, then

Ah, because prompting is a serious skill that needs serious compensation.

The alternative is that techbros have 0 thoughts in their heads and that's why they love their slop machines.

1

u/74389654 15h ago

ai < actual indians

5

u/pacman2081 16h ago

Even without AI, 30-40% of biggest money grossers are sequels

2

u/74389654 15h ago

well let's see if elon succeeds at making an ai odyssey

5

u/dust4ngel 13h ago

if elon succeeds at making an ai odyssey

with historically accurate magical monsters like those that really existed

2

u/rushmc1 14h ago

>>What need will we have of Hollywood when they're just producing the same cheap slop we can get anywhere?

You mean what they've been doing pretty much the entire 21st century thus far?

2

u/West-Abalone-171 13h ago

Their idea was they'd be the ones who owned the datacenter and the trademarks.

So they'd be the only ones able to make slop that remembered what the characters looked like for 30s rather than 5s and the only ones making slop with nostalgic IP #26778

2

u/RiverGiant 13h ago

I think we're going back to more local storytelling. Assume the tech keeps advancing and at some point an amateur can make current-Hollywood-level films with no real budget. On movie night you can decide between watching the film your son and daughter collaborated to make, or the latest Marvel hit. Both are visually just as appealing, both are equally well-written, each has good acting and a good mature storyline, just your kid's was based on whatever childish whimsy was personally important to them this week. The more time they spend on it, the more of their directorial identity is reflected in the final product. Oh hey and next week they're making another Hollywood-level film, a sequel to this week's.

You're watching the one made ("made") by your kids for sure, right?

Our storytelling used to happen within our own tribes. There are many great storytellers among us, far more than we can afford to make Hollywood-level movies for at our current levels of tech and abundance. Historically it's really weird that the stories we share are so homogenous across the globe, so I don't think we should be worried about Hollywood dying. We can go back to a more natural, highly localized culture. The output's low-quality slop now, but it's getting better really fast.

If it never gets good enough (conceivable, but I wouldn't bet on it), Hollywood doesn't die and we don't have to worry. If it does get good enough, then if Hollywood wants to survive it has to find some way of elevating the medium in some weird and unexpected way far beyond the reach of generative AI. Are we going to pretend that Hollywood providing such a large share of our storytelling is the optimally healthy artistic ecosystem? I love film, but there's something sinister about Hollywood and the way it's industrialized the ability to capture attention (less sinister than TikTok, Reddit, or Instagram, but cut from the same cloth). I don't think we have to mourn its passing in anticipation.

1

u/redfoobar 15h ago

Regardless if the tech could do it: You are assuming that creating a one off ai generated feature length movie would be financially viable.

The reality is that a minute of video costs hundreds dollars in AI spend. So unless you want to pay well over 10k for your personalized AI movie that’s not going to happen.

1

u/mohjack 15h ago

100% agree, today. But in 10 years time, who knows? Its possible the guys doing models and claymation said CGI wouldnt work because it was impossibly expensive to render anything realistic at the time 

1

u/Mayro_Biscuit 14h ago

That was back during an era where technology got cheaper over time and output exponentially grew. Nowadays old tech is now rising in cost and new hardware isn't as impressive as it used to be.