Human Written
An in-depth analysis of the future of content creators
This article took a whole week to write. Should I have told Chatgpt to write it instead?🤔
Introduction
If you type ‘How to make money with AI’ or ‘How to make money with Chatgpt’ on youtube, you will drown in a sea of videos promising you all the riches in Ali Baba’s cave. Often the thumbnails have an imperfect-looking dollar amount in them like 28,340 or 3,390.82 or 14,293.32 USD. Often the youtuber swears that you require absolutely no skills to become Uncle $crooge.
Anybody who has ever clicked on such a video ends feeling the same as they would if they bit into an apple and found it was made of plastic.
It is not just youtube, virtually every platform on the internet– including Medium– is facing an artillery barrage of make-money-from-AI content.
The folks who are primarily becoming wealthy in this gold rush are the ones selling shovels, as has been the case with all gold rushes– from California to Crypto.
I do not seek to downplay the AI revolution. We are witnessing something never seen before and this is certainly one of the most extraordinary times of human history. The differentiating factor from past technologies is that AI can learn on its own. There are very real opportunities and also very real risks.
But.
I have been using Chatgpt since February. Unfortunately, I have yet to become a productivity god. I must be an inexcusable dullard. I should have turned into a wordsmith possessing the speed of Flash (the DC comic superhero) by now, especially after so many months of using AI. I can almost hear the youtubers booing me. I have brought shame to them.
What do I use Chatgpt for? Mostly to get a bird’s eye view on a topic. Other uses include seeking synonyms to words, finding words that rhyme, teaching Math to a cousin, finding better structure for some paragraphs during a period of brain fog, and recently I used it to create a reference template for a new form of writing that I am exploring.
And yes, I have wasted considerable time asking random questions to Chatgpt. So… the very tool that was meant to supercharge my productivity made me less productive and ate my valuable time that I could have invested in other places.
But let’s not be so critical. Let’s just consider that as experimentation time. Let’s not consider it wasted.
Okay, let’s get to the meat of this article.
I have no interest in selling anything to you. Why? Because a good chunk of the people to read this would be writers. And most writers are poor. Secondly, Medium doesn’t pay Indian writers so I am not interested in clickbaiting you for the sake of views. Rather, this article is a thorough exploration of where the AI revolution is headed especially in relation to art and to purely human generated content. I am a freelance writer and I have tried to set my biases aside, because I better not dream up delusions for myself, as my neck is on the line.
And so is yours.
Does human generated content have any future at all?
AI is still an infant. One may even call it a zygote. But zygotes grow… and grow. While humans have several advantages over AI content generators as of this date, the scene would be very different twenty years from now.
After much contemplation, I have recognized two key factors that will decide whether a peace treaty could be signed between human creatives and AI, or if we of flesh and blood would be wiser to put up a white flag and surrender before we are butchered.
1. AI’s Negative Reputation
2. Perceived Value
AI’s Negative Reputation
Let’s look at some common words, you would eventually come across if you read about AI–
Human extinction
Usage by scammers
Human enslavement
Bias amplification
Privacy invasion
False information
Mass manipulation
Political instability
Terrorism
“If AI technology goes wrong, it can go very wrong” is a phrase that many leading personalities have echoed.
But the idea of human extinction is trivial. For the regular Joe and Jane, the most pressing worry when it comes to AI is — Will AI take my job?
AI-Will-Make-You-A-Gazillionaire content might take the gold medal in terms of popularity, but discussions on the negative aspects of AI win a very respectable silver.
American investment bank, Goldman Sachs, has estimated that AI could replace as much as 300 million jobs arounds the world. That is a huge number. And if one observes that most past predictions about AI have been widely off the mark, the number could easily be 2X, 3X… the sky’s the limit.
AI has a pretty bad image. The pictures of humanoids with glowing red eyes infiltrating the web do not help. Same goes with movies depicting AI as antagonists.
And as AI tries to mimic humans in appearance, in voice, in creativity, in thought and a range of other attributes… people begin to experience uncanny valley fear.
Uncanny Valley Fear: The concept that humanoid objects that imperfectly resemble actual human beings provoke uncanny or strangely familiar feelings of uneasiness and revulsion in observers.
Big brands are taking flak– even accused of racism– because of their experiments with AI generated content. An interesting case to study is Levis. The jeanswear giant’s use of AI generated models is being seen as discriminatory towards people of color, especially because Levis has hypocritically stated that they are replacing human models for the sake of diversity. It would be interesting to see how they proceed.
Perceived Value
Value of a product or service is dependent on its quality. However, there is a second element too– Perception.
In many of the cases there is no distinction between the two. Positive perception is quality.
The perceived value of a painting made by AI in a couple of seconds is microscopic compared to that of one made by an Artist after dedicating their life, even considering the work is aesthetically of the same caliber. When one wants to enjoy art, they subconsciously desire to smell the artist’s sweat and taste the artist’s blood, as gross as it sounds.
This is well illustrated by the fact that the first painting ever produced by AI was auctioned for USD 432,500. That might seem like a tidy sum, however human-made art is frequently sold for tens, sometimes hundreds of millions. The painting Salvator Mundi by a human called Leonardo da Vinci was sold for USD 450 million in 2017. The perceived value of human art is over a thousand times more than that of AI art.
Companies and brands thirst for a positive image. Several times they fall so low in this quest that they resort to malpractices like green washing. When you click on a website and see articles without bylines, and images without credits, and everything screams either ‘Stolen’ or ‘Made by AI’ the perceived value is significantly lowered.
As the years add up, it will become increasingly important to mention– or even prove– whether content is written by a human or a robot. The human voice would matter, even if AI is able to imitate it with uncanny accuracy. Brands that seek to position themselves as industry leaders and stand apart from the crowd of competitors would use human generated content as a selling point. Moreover, it would be a subtle way to reinforce loyalty of employees by indicating that the brand values human talent. You may be familiar with the concept of ’cause related marketing’, which is a powerful tool for companies to increase their profits. And what higher cause is there than to preserve the importance of humanity? Humans matter, and this idea alone — if done right — would be compelling enough for many companies to cultivate huge followings of customers.
We can also draw a parallel to the handmade market. It almost seems absurd that it exists, considering the comparatively low prices and sometimes even superior quality of machine manufactured products, but on retrospection the reason becomes crystal clear. As individuals we yearn for the connect with other humans.
The above two points have been explored in consideration of the long-term implications of AI on art and content generation. But creatives needn’t get too excited thinking the future is secure. Many businesses thrive with not a care in the world that the pollutants they spill out into the environment serve as agents for myriad genetic disabilities in children. Similarly, not all businesses are going to give a fart for the plight of creatives. But then, maybe that is how life plays out for most creatives. Historically too — from Van Goh to Kafka, so many of us have lived and died in poverty. We are used to this life through the centuries, although we cannot ignore also the fact that a certain percentage of us have and will join the ranks of the unreasonably wealthy. One thing I am sure of is whether it showers gold or hopelessness, we will keep making art anyway.
I want this to be neither a lament post nor an ultra-optimistic opinion piece, but something grounded in reality. Let’s move on to the short-term views:
1. RIP mediocrity… or is that so?
2. AI does not have intent
RIP Mediocrity… Or Is That So?
Some people say mediocrity would not have a place in an AI driven world.
I disagree.
As a result of the ease of feeding a quick prompt and seeing your AI servant excrete a thousand-word article or a seemingly stunning piece of artwork in the time it requires you to bat an eyelid, the oncoming flood- no tsunami– of mediocre content is inevitable.
Why? Suppose a noob asks Chatgpt or another software to write an article, sure they get it for free. But they have no clue as to the underlying mechanics of writing. They have no clue how to distinguish between a good article and a bad one.
Let me explain using the analogy of a sword.
Imagine you are given a Japanese katana. It has the perfect grip, the sharpest blade. Everything about it is beyond compare.
Holding it in your hands makes you feel like a warrior.
Except, you are not a swordsman. You are not even a sword enthusiast.
You try a couple of moves recalling a popular samurai movie you watched as a kid.
And the next thing you know blood gushes out of you like tap water and you are being rushed to the emergency room. Worse, you injure someone else and go to jail.
So my question is, what’s more important? The sword or the one who wields it?
While it is easy to create mediocre content with AI, you need to understand the nuances involved in order to create something that impresses. Otherwise, it would be garbage in, garbage out. Such content would not help your business in any way. Even if you get some miraculous SEO love, visitors would land on your website exactly once. After that they would seek refuge in a different website that boasts quality content.
When you were busy saving the money that a content writer or an artist might have charged you, you lost ten times as much.
AI Does Not Have Intent
Intelligence is a popular word. But its definitions are many and blurry at best, often contradicting each other and sometimes serving as sources of controversy. Merely attaching the word ‘intelligent’ to a machine does not necessarily make it so.
One may wonder how interconnected intelligence and intent are. For example, they share the same four letters.
“AI is just a tool that is meant to complement humans.” This phrase is repeated with such earnestness any time AI is mentioned, that one wonders if there is an underlying fear that it might prove false. But so far it holds true.
Let me illustrate with an example:
Grammarloo (name altered) is a great AI driven software. Except it marks ninety percent of my words with red lines, often suggesting me incessantly to change entire sentences.
Sometimes I intentionally make grammatical errors. Why? Because breaking grammar rules– if done correctly– can also add its own flavor to writing.
Grammarloo might be grammatically sound, but it does not have the tiniest clue of my intent behind why I write the way I do. It is annoying. I feel like it is forcing me to conform to some machine regulated standards and killing my creativity.
I do not want to be harsh to Grammarloo. It does have some good features, but it lacks intent. I do use it on occasions, but only as a tool that aids me, not as an overlord that I must obey.
Miscellaneous
Below are some points I have touched with the hope of bringing some new perspectives to your mind as far as the whole AI revolution is concerned.
1. People and what they say
2. Questions to ponder
3. Can you eliminate hard work?
4. An example of people using AI creatively
5. A special group to watch out
6. All set to become Homo techne
People And What They Say
Below are some perspectives of different people that I have uncovered after days of trawling the web:
AI Godfather– We regret our work. We have created a monster! If it goes wrong it will go very wrong! It will become forever impossible to distinguish between real and fake! (Casually moves on to the next AI invention)
Artist– AI art is not art!
Bunch of youtube commenters– Pandora’s box has opened!
Cheap businessman– Art by artists costs $10,000. Art by AI costs $ zero. Of course, I will go with AI art! It’s a no brainer.
Experienced freelancer without observing that there are fewer jobs in job boards– Meh, nothing has changed!
Humans– AI is only there to complement us… Right?
Me– Is Chatgpt even making me faster at all?
Newbie freelancer after approaching 2 clients– Client won’t hire!
People with brains– Let’s not come to conclusions.
Random youtuber/influencer– Here are a bunch of (sponsored) AI tools that will make you God!
Some people hell bent on past comparisons– Did computers replace humans or did they create more jobs?
Superstar entrepreneur– Meh, I’ll sell anything to anyone, AI or no AI.
As you can see, I have not flinched from exposing my own bias too. Perhaps there is indeed a way to really become 10x faster with AI that I do not yet know about. So far I have successfully identified a few ethical uses, perhaps I will find more.
Questions To Ponder:
Does being more productive equate to better?
Does slashing budgets always result in higher profits?
Does making things ‘easy’ always result in an easy life?
Can You Eliminate Hard Work?
Several youtubers give you a simple strategy that goes like this:
- Get chatgpt to write 1000 books
- Slap AI generated covers on them
- Publish on Amazon
- Become a passive income millionaire
I have published books on Amazon in the past. Let me tell you, you are more likely to get your account terminated on Amazon if you followed the above strategy due to the unusually high volume of uploads (as many LCB gold miners have discovered). Worse, you will make conditions worse for real authors, because in the process of catching scammers, Amazon’s imperfect AI has a tendency to suspend innocent accounts too. It is like when fishermen throw nets to catch fish but countless other (often endangered) sea creatures also get caught and die.
And there are many more obstacles you will have to overcome if you wish to make any significant money on Amazon. Forget your million dollars. You will end up working so hard that the day you cross a hundred dollars (if that even happens) Mississippis and Brahmaputras of joy would flow from your eyes.
I am not discouraging you from publishing books. But get-rich-easy schemes often transform to I-am-so-glad-I-made-ten-cents projects.
Hardwork is here to stay.
An Example Of People Using AI Creatively
There are a few people I have come across who are using AI tools very creatively.
An excellent example is youtuber Dax Flame. He was one of the superstars of baby youtube backs in the 2000s, and he has continued to produce remarkable content over the years. Although at first glance he might seem like another awkward guy, you soon realise that he is a pure comedy king. His humor is multilayered and has won comparisons to Andy Kaufman from his followers. Since the start of the year, he has been running his ‘Letting AI control my life for a year’ series. The series is pure hilarity. And the best part is that he is quite upfront regarding whether a video is made using AI or not.
A Special Group To Observe
Young kids in kindergartens all over the world are growing up in an AI world. For them AI is a natural preexisting part of life, just like movies and tv shows were for previous generations. I wonder, how do they perceive AI generated content? Will they attach more value to human-made things, just like people in cities crave greenery because they are so deprived of it?
When I was a five year old, I would point at big fat books and ask my parents, “Did computers write those?”
The idea that a human could write such long books seemed impossible, and a little illogical.
Not many years down the line, innocent kids would ask their parents, “Can humans write books too?”
To quote Kurt Vonnegut,
“So it goes”
All Set to Become Homo techne
Archery and horse riding are two disciplines that should have been absent from the twenty first century. Afterall, why shoot arrows when you have machine guns? Why ride horses when you can drive around in a Toyota? Yet, they still exist, and their respective markets are worth billions of dollars. Perhaps, the different art forms too will still be around a hundred years hence– at least as athletic feats, if nothing else.
I have laid down my hypotheses, and in a few decades, they would be proved either correct or otherwise.
I am all set to become Homo techne. But I want to take my time, and not rush it. Maybe you should exercise caution too. At least until better regulations are in place. Most AI applications currently exist in a legal vacuum. While it is cool to upload your voice to an AI software and watch it speak just as you would… you can imagine the chilling drawbacks of a machine that can impersonate your identity.
References:
You can find the references used here on Linkedin
