AI-created “virtual influencers” are stealing business from humans::Brands are turning to hyper-realistic, AI-generated influencers for promotions.
Forgive me for being entirely unsympathetic, but I would not call being an “influencer” a “job”.
Even as a job it’s highly overpaid. Hardly any “work” or “skill” involved yet makes millions in some cases.
Rarely, TBH. Unless you’re OK with being an absolute ass in some form or another.
Yeah just enough people get rich to make you think you have a chance at the same thing. so you start making more content for the site but when you make it it’s for free lol.
The same could be said about a lot of sources of income. It’s subjective what is considered a job.
It is a job, just a ridiculously stupid one
Are you a boomer?
Just because you don’t like or understand something doesn’t mean it’s not a job. I think it’s a bit ridiculous myself but at end of day it’s no different to being a celebrity for whatever reason and it’s still a job.
It’s odd where people draw the line. It’s pretty much the same as previous generations fawning over radio personalities and all the Oprah’s and such. To me, modern influences are equivalent to radio/TV hosts - personalities which are paid to promote and market products and lifestyles. Just because there’s now more and more specific niches for them, doesn’t make them any less valuable in the people’s lives who enjoy them and their content.
Nope: mid 30s, politically progressive, software engineer.
I don’t like people who make a living off of simply “being famous” either - e.g. the kardashians.
I understand exactly what an influencer is and does. I just don’t like what they do, because the vast majority of what successful influencers do is to aggressively perpetuate some of the worst aspects of social media, as well as rampant consumerism and unbounded capitalism in general.
Oh no, fake people are stealing fake jobs from fake people!
Anyways…
People’s identities become fully commodified then a technology is invented to simulate it. Late stage capitalist dystopia things.
I’m not entirely unsympathetic here - we all do what we can to survive. For some of us, that does mean cashing in on nature’s gifts.
There is a darker side here, as much as I like to joke, influencers are people and most people draw the line somewhere. There are some things no-one wants their face tied to. AI personas on the other hand…
Oh no, those poor influencers … anyway …
Better than AI influencers
How about none at all? But you’re probably right that real ones are better than ai. Although ai might be more ethical than some
Let’s define “stealing” and “business” here.
-
Influencers don’t produce anything, nor do they add intrinsic value to products they promote. Not much business to that if you ask me.
-
They do already compete fiercely for brands’ atention so every successful influencer by definition has “stolen” potential income from others.
If you want to split hairs, influencers’ work is creating an idealised image that they project to peddle products. If AI can outmatch them in that regard, I see no problem with that.
-
If your job is easy, then it’ll probably get replaced with AI eventually. What’s easier than being an influencer?
So much of the job is face tuned and post-productioned anyway. And what are you even doing? Unboxing videos? Soy face in front of a sports car or a machine gun?
The real job of the modern influencer isn’t sitting in front of a camera. It’s all the SEO and brown nosing and cross-posting to raise your brand profile.
In a media economy where everything is online is it any wonder that an AI video in a feedback loop with a bunch of AI controlled bot “users” is going to max out on a platform that only knows how to reward these artificially manipulated metrics?
And thus social media has reached its apex.
After a decade plus of bombarding people with a mix of whatever they desire most and whatever causes them to become emotionally invested to the point of exhaustion, we see the pinnacle innovation of social media:
A literally completely fake person selling overpriced fashion I guarantee was made in a sweatshop, that nearly no one viewing ‘her’ can afford or look good in, who receives many thirsty comments praising her as if ‘she’ will be their friend or something, who in the process of doing all this also puts out of business actual human models who are simply fake in every sense of the word that is not literal.
It is basically the most perfectly capitalist thing I can imagine. Everyone loses except the capital owners.
I mean sure, maybe it will get some people whose entire personality is “I am pretty, worship me!” to think about doing something actually useful or learning and developing a real personality.
But… we are fairly far into the predicted cyberpunk dystopia now. No its not exactly as predicted, but shockingly close in many ways.
The average consumer of content cannot tell a bot or a fake person such as Aitana here from a real one, and there will just be another after news of Aitana in particular gets around.
At this point I would say that most humans have basically failed a reverse Turing Test.
Yeah, we really are steamrolling right into a cyberpunk dystopia, aren’t we? Well, if we can even include the world “punk” there. It might as well just be cyber-capitalism in the end.
That’s a business risk lmao
Ok, I’m all for worrying about the impact of AI in jobs but… Living advertisements are easy to replace, what a suprise.
People who make actual interesting and/or funny videos, those that require personal work and are a direct result of the creator’s skills or interests, are not really at risk of this.
Wow, a bunch of assholes just getting paid for showing you free stuff they got, pretending to be relatable and your friend while evading their taxes in Dubai, may be out of business. And think of those parents who won’t be able to exploit their kids by getting them free toys and exposing them to the whole world!
I don’t think I will lose any sleep over this.
Damn, what a shame, those poor poor influencers
maybe they need to get an actual job now?
Did a complete idiot write this article? How the fuck are you allowed to report on business without the basic understanding of technological innovation and its impact on business relationships and transitioning business operations?
Does this dumb motherfucker think that we still have horse and buggy businesses and children working looms?
I don’t see the downside to this in particular.
“Stealing” business…?
AI is stealing the job of immigrants, being blamed for stealing jobs!
This is a problem for the whole internet. I’ve made a long version of my argument here, but tl;dr as companies clutter the internet with cheaper and cheaper mass produced content, the valuable places will also get ruined. There’s an analogy to our physical world: Because we build cheap and ugly cities that roughly look the same, the few places that are beautiful and unique are also ruined, because they’re just too valuable; everyone wants to go there. I think that we’re already seeing beginning, with pre-existing companies like Reddit that have high quality human-generated content walling themselves off more and more as that content becomes more valuable.
