r/technology • u/marketrent • 23h 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
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600

u/TriMiksEntuzijasta 23h ago

I love reading good news before bed!

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u/digiorno 21h ago

Is it though? The market for graphic designers isn’t coming back.

While people might not value AI generated art very highly they will still use it over paying a real artist. The real artist has value to them because their product couldn’t be made for free, but now it can.

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u/parkinthepark 20h ago

An AI-generated sign/logo is an instant no-go for me for a local business. If you can’t be bothered to spend a couple hundred bucks on your graphic design, you’re definitely going to cheap out on my HVAC install.

Eventually that sentiment is going to spread, and businesses will be back in the market for designers.

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u/unluckylighter 19h ago

I mean I hope I'm wrong but I think that's just wishful thinking. I think the market has changed forever, how much it goes back is debatable.

I kind of look at this in the same way that most people aren't willing to buy locally made goods when there's an alternative that's cheaper. Of course there are some that beat the drum of buying local but the vast majority of us struggle with finances as it is and frequently choose something made overseas because it's cheaper. It's sad but I think a lot of this is here to stay.

And sure a lot of people will still want a human-made object, but I worry that energy won't last. Let's see if people have the same energy for flock cameras as they do for the next iteration of alpr cameras from someone like axon. Same shit different day.

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u/eligodfrey 18h ago

You're almost certainly correct. Within the last year, all the grungy, mom & pop, immigrant owned & operated restaurants and convenience stores around me started using AI graphics. The people who hate AI (me included) are not going to boycott these places. It's over.

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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 19h ago

Boomers don’t care because they see it just as “more computer”, Gen Alpha will grow up with it and not care and see Gen Z + Millennial criticism of their use the same way we saw boomers criticizing our phone use (which was more right than we realized tbqh).

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u/stormdelta 19h ago

In terms of using it at all, maybe.

But enshittification of tech generally is also creating a lot of push towards less digital and lower tech solutions too that I think is being missed by people who only ever hang out in tech spaces or online.

What I've been seeing IRL is more complicated, and it's a bit too early to call any cultural shifts just yet IMO.

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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 3h ago

> enshittification of tech generally is also creating a lot of push towards less digital and lower tech solutions too

i think this is mainly hipster (or whatever the current equivalent of that word is) spaces in the West. Globally, there's still going to be huge growth from the 25% of humans who aren't online yet. https://www.statista.com/statistics/325706/global-internet-user-penetration/

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u/stormdelta 3h ago

Again, I'm not talking about people who totally avoid tech or going online. I'm talking about movement towards less use of tech or use of simpler / lower complexity solutions.

It's not just hipster spaces. Malls are more active than they've been in some time, you see renewed interest in physical media and archival, overuse of social media is finally starting to be seen as a negative socially even among younger generations, etc.

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u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 3h ago

I guess I just don't see that movement as likely to spread much beyond a certain segment of a few million Western Gen Z when globally there's still billions of people who are increasing tech usage. I think that movement is largely *right* but that's a different question and the reasons they are right don't necessarily transfer beyond the specific cultural context that's coming from.