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I don’t really buy the narrative that people will be only consuming AI content in the future. Maybe the content will be optimized and edited by AI, but there’s

I don’t really buy the narrative that people will be only consuming AI content in the future. Maybe the content will be optimized and edited by AI, but there’s a reason that hosts like Joe Rogan are popular: because people like people. No one wants to listen to two robots having a conversation. I think instead we’ll see an advantage for content creators that are charismatic and have brands built around their personality.

lostmsu 3y ago
Why do you think any of this would never get done by AI?
- keiferski 3y ago
  How soon do you think AI will be able to livestream a conversation between 2-5 participants and mimic their personalities, tics, and unpredictable conversational topics so well that they pass as humans? Edit: let’s assume this becomes possible in a century. Easy solution: a verification system that ensures that the official Joe Rogan Show is authenticated by the real Joe Rogan. No one will care about a computer copy version.
  - Dr_Birdbrain 3y ago
    Q1 of 2024, unironically
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    There's already an AI generated, fake episode of Rogan's show: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meu0CoYv3z8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meu0CoYv3z8
    - keiferski 3y ago
      Yes and it’s amusing for about ten seconds.
    - dbish 3y ago
      But the real question is how does it compare to the real one, do people listen to it at the same level and for the same amount of time (no). It’s neat, and I work in ML/AI, but it’s missing depth, coherency, and in some way an actual window into the real world.
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  Because people are capricious and change what they like for no apparent reason. AI would need to re-train on what’s hot and new and that puts it in position of always a step behind. Second, just the idea of consuming content solely created by AI makes people squirm even if the content is good. I personally think it is also a pointless endeavor.
  - sdenton4 3y ago
    Content freshness is a strictly easier problem than natural language understanding.
    - dbish 3y ago
      Natural language generation as well
ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> I don’t really buy the narrative they people will be only consuming AI content in the future. It really depends on what content you're talking about. Movies: the movie industry is big, glitsy, expensive, and makes a shitload of money. And they like all of that about their industry. The reason the mainstream movies cost so much both to make and to sell is that they are effectively the "luxury car" of media. While they might try and make AI tools a bigger part of workflows (which is one of the reasons SAG-AFTRA is on strike, they already are trying to do this) no company on the level of Fox or Warner Bros. is going to make a movie written entirely by AI, or even worse, an AI generated movie, and sell it as such. It would tarnish the brand. TV Shows: trickier. Depends on the studio. Lower-tier smaller studios might start leaning on AI tools harder to help them compete with bigger operations, but still, the notion that people would seek out and consume a TV show (or any media really) that was entirely AI generated only makes sense to me if the people are looking to experience AI generated art, for it's own sake. And we MAY get a bubble of that, briefly. But I suspect what AI is going to dominate faster than anything is: Social media gristle and Influencers: I think this is where we're going to see AI explode. We already have tons of very bizarre and yet seemingly profitable businesses that just run warehouses of video production teams overseas, that churn out all kinds of stuff: sponsored instagram videos, 5-minute-crafts type junk, those weird facebook videos where it's just some dude going "oh just wait till I take this off and it's gonna be amazing" for several minutes. That's what AI is going to dominate really, really quickly. We've already had cases of entire youtubers with multiple channels turning out to be a marketing team manufacturing "genuine feeling" content to promote whatever products, and imagine if you could automate it. You could construct an entire backend that would just accept sponsorships, work them into videos with surface level readings of current social media trends, render it and barf it out onto the various platforms and promote with ad services. And like the barrier of quality is so fucking low for that stuff, nobody will care if there's weird fingers here and there, minor grammatical errors or even if you use really old school text to speech. Just put a pretty face up there and hey, if whatever character you come up with doesn't catch, screw it. Burn the build, restart with a different one and repeat until you can go viral. And I think it's extra applicable there precisely because no one chooses that, and yet most people consume at least some level of it because it's so ubiquitous on social media. There is TONS of this stuff and the only way to lower the barriers of entry further to it's production is to make it so you don't actually need a pretty woman in a bikini to sell your crypto coin exchange, or some business casual douche to sell your LinkedIn alternative or market your podcast app or whatever. You just enter the commands, generate the slop, and upload it.
ryandrake 3y ago
The killer app for me would be if AI could generate infinite versions of old, discontinued content: TV shows with the original casts and believable storylines, movies by a particular director, music by a band who’s no longer making albums. I don’t like most media these days and end up just re-watching/re-listening to stuff from decades ago. If I could just generate a new Star Trek TNG episode each week that was 100% convincingly done, I would absolutely pay for that product. Or if I could just generate a new Pink Floyd album or whatever, and it’s convincing enough—that would be great.
- latchkey 3y ago
  I love comments like this where people talk about what they'd pay for. I hope someone is watching this and starting to build a company around it. That's far better than trying to convince someone to use your made up product that nobody asked for. I do think that 100% will be hard to convince though, simply because you know it isn't true. The human mind will be looking for the trickery, even subconsciously.
- keiferski 3y ago
  That would definitely be cool, but it wouldn’t replace all media. The hunger for novelty remains.
- goatlover 3y ago
  I'd like for that sort of AI to generate alternate versions of shows to explore the stories where characters made different choices, or things happened a bit differently and how the characters respond. Or generate Bandersnatch-style movies where you can make choices for characters. I know the director for that movie said it was very time consuming to film all the different paths.
- gs17 3y ago
  I'm not 100% sure if I really want this or only think I do. My big issue with all the bespoke AI-generated media ideas is the loss of being able to fully discuss them with humans who didn't watch the same thing. It feels like we'll just end up with 8 billion different media bubbles. I guess it could be like "Nothing, Forever" where there's one main feed everyone shares, or they could have AI-powered chatrooms/forums "watching" alongside you, but both feel like missing the potential/point to me.
systems_glitch 3y ago
See also: https://www.twitch.tv/seebotschat https://www.twitch.tv/seebotschat (I don't know about you folks, but my wife and I definitely wasted a few evenings watching that particular frivolity when it was a thing!)
extrememacaroni 3y ago
But what if AI was able to make a perfect copy of Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan decided to generate all his podcasts with AI without telling anyone? You could go forever without knowing this :O
extrememacaroni 3y ago
But what if AI was able to make a perfect copy of Joe Rogan and anyone else and Joe Rogan decided to generate all his podcasts with AI without telling anyone? You could go forever without knowing this :O
- dbish 3y ago
  This already happened with Lex Friedman. Longer than most podcasts, far fewer original or deep questions per episode, pretty monotone voice that would be easy to get any current TTS engine to emulate, I give it like a 30% chance.
  - keiferski 3y ago
    I'm fairly convinced that 90% of the comments on Fridman's videos are fake, as the excessive praise is really obvious.
j45 3y ago
As you said, it’s a lot of speculation and postulation. It could be easily tested and proven by content creators. Many content creators have mastered a style or format (BuzzFeed, Mr Beast), and maybe that style or format is at a point where it is a formula that AI can help with parts of, or completely with.
swyx 3y ago
> No one wants to listen to two robots having a conversation. (OP here) for what its worth, Wondercraft actually agrees with you here. it says so right on their landing page + I ask him about it in the interview. However in this case I may actually be more bullish* on AI audio than he is. *since a lot of HNers seem to be taking a very strong negative reaction to this suggestion as some kind of civilizational collapse, I do want to say that while I may not personally care about having AI Steve Jobs drivel on with AI Joe Rogan for 24 hours, I could see SOME version of this thing doing well among the general population in the future when they get the format and the topic right (eg start with meditation, language teaching, whatever else niche long form audio/video thing that doesnt actually really need human input, then go up from there).

lostmsu 3y ago

Why do you think any of this would never get done by AI?

keiferski 3y ago
How soon do you think AI will be able to livestream a conversation between 2-5 participants and mimic their personalities, tics, and unpredictable conversational topics so well that they pass as humans? Edit: let’s assume this becomes possible in a century. Easy solution: a verification system that ensures that the official Joe Rogan Show is authenticated by the real Joe Rogan. No one will care about a computer copy version.
- Dr_Birdbrain 3y ago
  Q1 of 2024, unironically
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  There's already an AI generated, fake episode of Rogan's show: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meu0CoYv3z8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meu0CoYv3z8
  - keiferski 3y ago
    Yes and it’s amusing for about ten seconds.
  - dbish 3y ago
    But the real question is how does it compare to the real one, do people listen to it at the same level and for the same amount of time (no). It’s neat, and I work in ML/AI, but it’s missing depth, coherency, and in some way an actual window into the real world.
lacrimacida 3y ago
Because people are capricious and change what they like for no apparent reason. AI would need to re-train on what’s hot and new and that puts it in position of always a step behind. Second, just the idea of consuming content solely created by AI makes people squirm even if the content is good. I personally think it is also a pointless endeavor.
- sdenton4 3y ago
  Content freshness is a strictly easier problem than natural language understanding.
  - dbish 3y ago
    Natural language generation as well

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

> I don’t really buy the narrative they people will be only consuming AI content in the future. It really depends on what content you're talking about. Movies: the movie industry is big, glitsy, expensive, and makes a shitload of money. And they like all of that about their industry. The reason the mainstream movies cost so much both to make and to sell is that they are effectively the "luxury car" of media. While they might try and make AI tools a bigger part of workflows (which is one of the reasons SAG-AFTRA is on strike, they already are trying to do this) no company on the level of Fox or Warner Bros. is going to make a movie written entirely by AI, or even worse, an AI generated movie, and sell it as such. It would tarnish the brand. TV Shows: trickier. Depends on the studio. Lower-tier smaller studios might start leaning on AI tools harder to help them compete with bigger operations, but still, the notion that people would seek out and consume a TV show (or any media really) that was entirely AI generated only makes sense to me if the people are looking to experience AI generated art, for it's own sake. And we MAY get a bubble of that, briefly. But I suspect what AI is going to dominate faster than anything is: Social media gristle and Influencers: I think this is where we're going to see AI explode. We already have tons of very bizarre and yet seemingly profitable businesses that just run warehouses of video production teams overseas, that churn out all kinds of stuff: sponsored instagram videos, 5-minute-crafts type junk, those weird facebook videos where it's just some dude going "oh just wait till I take this off and it's gonna be amazing" for several minutes. That's what AI is going to dominate really, really quickly. We've already had cases of entire youtubers with multiple channels turning out to be a marketing team manufacturing "genuine feeling" content to promote whatever products, and imagine if you could automate it. You could construct an entire backend that would just accept sponsorships, work them into videos with surface level readings of current social media trends, render it and barf it out onto the various platforms and promote with ad services. And like the barrier of quality is so fucking low for that stuff, nobody will care if there's weird fingers here and there, minor grammatical errors or even if you use really old school text to speech. Just put a pretty face up there and hey, if whatever character you come up with doesn't catch, screw it. Burn the build, restart with a different one and repeat until you can go viral. And I think it's extra applicable there precisely because no one chooses that, and yet most people consume at least some level of it because it's so ubiquitous on social media. There is TONS of this stuff and the only way to lower the barriers of entry further to it's production is to make it so you don't actually need a pretty woman in a bikini to sell your crypto coin exchange, or some business casual douche to sell your LinkedIn alternative or market your podcast app or whatever. You just enter the commands, generate the slop, and upload it.

ryandrake 3y ago

The killer app for me would be if AI could generate infinite versions of old, discontinued content: TV shows with the original casts and believable storylines, movies by a particular director, music by a band who’s no longer making albums. I don’t like most media these days and end up just re-watching/re-listening to stuff from decades ago. If I could just generate a new Star Trek TNG episode each week that was 100% convincingly done, I would absolutely pay for that product. Or if I could just generate a new Pink Floyd album or whatever, and it’s convincing enough—that would be great.

latchkey 3y ago
I love comments like this where people talk about what they'd pay for. I hope someone is watching this and starting to build a company around it. That's far better than trying to convince someone to use your made up product that nobody asked for. I do think that 100% will be hard to convince though, simply because you know it isn't true. The human mind will be looking for the trickery, even subconsciously.
keiferski 3y ago
That would definitely be cool, but it wouldn’t replace all media. The hunger for novelty remains.
goatlover 3y ago
I'd like for that sort of AI to generate alternate versions of shows to explore the stories where characters made different choices, or things happened a bit differently and how the characters respond. Or generate Bandersnatch-style movies where you can make choices for characters. I know the director for that movie said it was very time consuming to film all the different paths.
gs17 3y ago
I'm not 100% sure if I really want this or only think I do. My big issue with all the bespoke AI-generated media ideas is the loss of being able to fully discuss them with humans who didn't watch the same thing. It feels like we'll just end up with 8 billion different media bubbles. I guess it could be like "Nothing, Forever" where there's one main feed everyone shares, or they could have AI-powered chatrooms/forums "watching" alongside you, but both feel like missing the potential/point to me.

systems_glitch 3y ago

See also: https://www.twitch.tv/seebotschat https://www.twitch.tv/seebotschat (I don't know about you folks, but my wife and I definitely wasted a few evenings watching that particular frivolity when it was a thing!)

extrememacaroni 3y ago

But what if AI was able to make a perfect copy of Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan decided to generate all his podcasts with AI without telling anyone? You could go forever without knowing this :O

extrememacaroni 3y ago

But what if AI was able to make a perfect copy of Joe Rogan and anyone else and Joe Rogan decided to generate all his podcasts with AI without telling anyone? You could go forever without knowing this :O

dbish 3y ago
This already happened with Lex Friedman. Longer than most podcasts, far fewer original or deep questions per episode, pretty monotone voice that would be easy to get any current TTS engine to emulate, I give it like a 30% chance.
- keiferski 3y ago
  I'm fairly convinced that 90% of the comments on Fridman's videos are fake, as the excessive praise is really obvious.

j45 3y ago

As you said, it’s a lot of speculation and postulation. It could be easily tested and proven by content creators. Many content creators have mastered a style or format (BuzzFeed, Mr Beast), and maybe that style or format is at a point where it is a formula that AI can help with parts of, or completely with.

swyx 3y ago

> No one wants to listen to two robots having a conversation. (OP here) for what its worth, Wondercraft actually agrees with you here. it says so right on their landing page + I ask him about it in the interview. However in this case I may actually be more bullish* on AI audio than he is. *since a lot of HNers seem to be taking a very strong negative reaction to this suggestion as some kind of civilizational collapse, I do want to say that while I may not personally care about having AI Steve Jobs drivel on with AI Joe Rogan for 24 hours, I could see SOME version of this thing doing well among the general population in the future when they get the format and the topic right (eg start with meditation, language teaching, whatever else niche long form audio/video thing that doesnt actually really need human input, then go up from there).