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Everyone keeps ignoring supply and demand when talking about the impacts of AI. Let's just assume it really gets so good you can do this and it doesn't suck. Y

Everyone keeps ignoring supply and demand when talking about the impacts of AI. Let's just assume it really gets so good you can do this and it doesn't suck. Yes the costs will get so low that there will be almost no barrier to making content but if there is no barrier to making content, the ROI will be massive, and so everyone will be doing it, you can more or less have the exact movie you want in your head on demand, and even if you want a bespoke movie from an artist with great taste and a point of view there will be 10,000 of them every year.

GloamingNiblets 2y ago
A good parallel is writing books. Books can cost little to write and publish, but their success is Pareto distributed, not Normally distributed.
- mlboss 2y ago
  Writing book is really expensive. You have to think and put words on paper that engages the read. It is really hard.
mvdtnz 2y ago
Most of us have no idea what movies we want. The most delightful films are a total surprise (other than the drones who watch every Marvel film of course).
nmilo 2y ago
It will be like YouTube. Distribution will be hard and most of it will be slop but every now and then you’ll discover something so good and so creative and it couldn’t have possibly existed before that it makes the whole experience worth it. The best creative works are led by one person and I’m excited to see what people can come up with.
yorwba 2y ago
And one of those 10,000 will have a multimillion marketing budget and people are talking about it online and remixing it into memes and it will make a lot more money than the second-most popular movie, even though there's no discernable quality difference.
- Asraelite 2y ago
  It will basically be like the rise of indie games. Every now and again you get something like Among Us which is low quality but good enough to be enjoyable and with the right combination of luck and timing it becomes insanely popular.
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    Not just Among Us. You also get Minecraft!
barrenko 2y ago
To quote Nikita Bier, never underestimate how many people just want to watch Netflix and die.
- greesil 2y ago
  Am I the only one who can't stand Netflix's deluge of content? They occasionally had something good, but it's like once every two years.
  - klondike_klive 2y ago
    You just need to drastically recalibrate your definition of good.
  - barrenko 2y ago
    It's an AI slop factory, and it's not going to get any better.
motoxpro 2y ago
Totally agree. This is what Instagram and YouTube did and we got MrBeast and Kylie Jenner making billions of dollars. The cost of creating content is tapping record on your phone and the traditional "quality" as defined by visuals doesn't matter (see Quibi). Viral videos are selfies recorded in the bedroom. When you lower the barrier to entry things get more heterogeneous, not less. So you have bigger outcomes, not smaller, because the playing field expands. TikTok's inside was built on surfacing the 1 good video from a pool of 10s of millions. The platforms that surface the best content will be even more important. It's a little disheartening, I think, for people to think that the only reason they can't be creative is money, time, or technical skill, but in reality, it's just that they aren't that creative. So yes, everyone can create content in a world of AI, but not everyone is a good content creator/director/artist (or has the vision), same as it is now.
- SirMaster 2y ago
  Will the AI itself never be a good content creator/director/artist? People are always out there tying to convince others that AI is better than humans at X. How close is it to being better than humans at being a content creator itself? Or how long before that threshold is crossed?
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    It will always be subjective. There will always be holdouts who will denounce any AI work as "bad" simply because it was created by AI. Even when AI is objectively better and dominates in blind ratings tests, there will still be a strong market for "authentic" media. For instance we already have factories that churn out wares that are cheaper, stronger, better looking, and longer lasting than "hand made", yet people still seek out malformed $60 coffee mugs from the local artistan section in country shops.
    - gampleman 2y ago
      I think the other angle is a deeper question of why are you reading/viewing/listening to any particular piece? For some content, say summer blockbusters the answer may just be that it is moderately entertaining way to spend some time. I expect AI may well be able to do reasonably well in this category, although what we find entertaining may well shift if the supply/demand curve shifts drastically enough. In other words, people may still pay to see a new action film even if it hasn't anything particularly new to say. Then there is the more cerebral kind of art. Where there is an actual message that someone is trying to communicate to us. It's a form of argument, but not purely logical, but also aesthetical. I'm completely unconvinced that present day AI architectures will ever have something to say, purely because they lack agency, and so there isn't anyone there saying it to us. Finally, there is the art that is entirely spiritual or internal. The whole point of that kind is the author baring their soul to us. Why on earth would anyone want a soulless machine barring their non-existent soul?
panarky 2y ago
That was the story with CGI too, that there would be overwhelming supply that drives prices and value toward zero. And yet Marvel exists. Turns out in a world of infinite supply, value comes from story, character, branding, marketing and celebrity. Those factors in combination have very limited supply and people still pay up. I don't see any reason why AI-gen video is any different.
- tracerbulletx 2y ago
  It's still quite difficult and extremely time consuming to create a visual effect. And the technique to film actors and blend them is additionally quite difficult. If you get to the point one person can make a movie, yes you will be limited by your own creativity, but the number of people who can do that is still a lot greater than the number of people who can do that, and manage a 200 million dollar budget production and get an end product that meets their vision.
googlryas 2y ago
A lot of people can't actually say what kind of movie they want, until they see it. And even if there are 100,000 releases every year in every genre, virality will probably still exist where even if random, one of those movies is going to get more popular than the rest and then everyone will "need" to see it.
bufferoverflow 2y ago
Unless something radically changes, we're quite far from creating movies on demand. Most AI video generators cost ~$1-10 per minute. And generally it takes many attempts to generate a few seconds of anything that's not completely trash. Another issue is quality. Most of these AI generators output quite blurry 720p. If you want proper 4K output, we're at least a couple of doublings away. I think we will have some decent AI-generated animations next year, because 2D cartoons are relatively easy to upscale.
- eMPee584 2y ago
  there's a blender mcp addon available for folks who already have a clue how to make use of that..
victorbjorklund 2y ago
This. Having a super highly grossing movie makes no sense (maybe first one will just because people wanna see it for the novelty of it). The potential would be niche content that might even end up with movies tailored just to one person.
dgs_sgd 2y ago
AI will level the playing field for creation but not for distribution. The AI movie created by someone who's already Hollywood or social media famous will get more attention than a nobody.

GloamingNiblets 2y ago

A good parallel is writing books. Books can cost little to write and publish, but their success is Pareto distributed, not Normally distributed.

mlboss 2y ago
Writing book is really expensive. You have to think and put words on paper that engages the read. It is really hard.

mvdtnz 2y ago

Most of us have no idea what movies we want. The most delightful films are a total surprise (other than the drones who watch every Marvel film of course).

nmilo 2y ago

It will be like YouTube. Distribution will be hard and most of it will be slop but every now and then you’ll discover something so good and so creative and it couldn’t have possibly existed before that it makes the whole experience worth it. The best creative works are led by one person and I’m excited to see what people can come up with.

yorwba 2y ago

And one of those 10,000 will have a multimillion marketing budget and people are talking about it online and remixing it into memes and it will make a lot more money than the second-most popular movie, even though there's no discernable quality difference.

Asraelite 2y ago
It will basically be like the rise of indie games. Every now and again you get something like Among Us which is low quality but good enough to be enjoyable and with the right combination of luck and timing it becomes insanely popular.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  Not just Among Us. You also get Minecraft!

barrenko 2y ago

To quote Nikita Bier, never underestimate how many people just want to watch Netflix and die.

greesil 2y ago
Am I the only one who can't stand Netflix's deluge of content? They occasionally had something good, but it's like once every two years.
- klondike_klive 2y ago
  You just need to drastically recalibrate your definition of good.
- barrenko 2y ago
  It's an AI slop factory, and it's not going to get any better.

motoxpro 2y ago

Totally agree. This is what Instagram and YouTube did and we got MrBeast and Kylie Jenner making billions of dollars. The cost of creating content is tapping record on your phone and the traditional "quality" as defined by visuals doesn't matter (see Quibi). Viral videos are selfies recorded in the bedroom. When you lower the barrier to entry things get more heterogeneous, not less. So you have bigger outcomes, not smaller, because the playing field expands. TikTok's inside was built on surfacing the 1 good video from a pool of 10s of millions. The platforms that surface the best content will be even more important. It's a little disheartening, I think, for people to think that the only reason they can't be creative is money, time, or technical skill, but in reality, it's just that they aren't that creative. So yes, everyone can create content in a world of AI, but not everyone is a good content creator/director/artist (or has the vision), same as it is now.

SirMaster 2y ago
Will the AI itself never be a good content creator/director/artist? People are always out there tying to convince others that AI is better than humans at X. How close is it to being better than humans at being a content creator itself? Or how long before that threshold is crossed?
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  It will always be subjective. There will always be holdouts who will denounce any AI work as "bad" simply because it was created by AI. Even when AI is objectively better and dominates in blind ratings tests, there will still be a strong market for "authentic" media. For instance we already have factories that churn out wares that are cheaper, stronger, better looking, and longer lasting than "hand made", yet people still seek out malformed $60 coffee mugs from the local artistan section in country shops.
  - gampleman 2y ago
    I think the other angle is a deeper question of why are you reading/viewing/listening to any particular piece? For some content, say summer blockbusters the answer may just be that it is moderately entertaining way to spend some time. I expect AI may well be able to do reasonably well in this category, although what we find entertaining may well shift if the supply/demand curve shifts drastically enough. In other words, people may still pay to see a new action film even if it hasn't anything particularly new to say. Then there is the more cerebral kind of art. Where there is an actual message that someone is trying to communicate to us. It's a form of argument, but not purely logical, but also aesthetical. I'm completely unconvinced that present day AI architectures will ever have something to say, purely because they lack agency, and so there isn't anyone there saying it to us. Finally, there is the art that is entirely spiritual or internal. The whole point of that kind is the author baring their soul to us. Why on earth would anyone want a soulless machine barring their non-existent soul?

panarky 2y ago

That was the story with CGI too, that there would be overwhelming supply that drives prices and value toward zero. And yet Marvel exists. Turns out in a world of infinite supply, value comes from story, character, branding, marketing and celebrity. Those factors in combination have very limited supply and people still pay up. I don't see any reason why AI-gen video is any different.

tracerbulletx 2y ago
It's still quite difficult and extremely time consuming to create a visual effect. And the technique to film actors and blend them is additionally quite difficult. If you get to the point one person can make a movie, yes you will be limited by your own creativity, but the number of people who can do that is still a lot greater than the number of people who can do that, and manage a 200 million dollar budget production and get an end product that meets their vision.

googlryas 2y ago

A lot of people can't actually say what kind of movie they want, until they see it. And even if there are 100,000 releases every year in every genre, virality will probably still exist where even if random, one of those movies is going to get more popular than the rest and then everyone will "need" to see it.

bufferoverflow 2y ago

Unless something radically changes, we're quite far from creating movies on demand. Most AI video generators cost ~$1-10 per minute. And generally it takes many attempts to generate a few seconds of anything that's not completely trash. Another issue is quality. Most of these AI generators output quite blurry 720p. If you want proper 4K output, we're at least a couple of doublings away. I think we will have some decent AI-generated animations next year, because 2D cartoons are relatively easy to upscale.

eMPee584 2y ago
there's a blender mcp addon available for folks who already have a clue how to make use of that..

victorbjorklund 2y ago

This. Having a super highly grossing movie makes no sense (maybe first one will just because people wanna see it for the novelty of it). The potential would be niche content that might even end up with movies tailored just to one person.

dgs_sgd 2y ago

AI will level the playing field for creation but not for distribution. The AI movie created by someone who's already Hollywood or social media famous will get more attention than a nobody.