The bots are going to do far more damage to the Status Quo worldwide than we thought. Below is a WDW Pro video on how this screws Hollywood, but it's bigger.
This eats Hollywood, and thus global media production of all sorts.
The commercials go first. Stringing 8 second clips into a 30 second ad is already viable. By extension, videos for TV show openings and endings (90 seconds) are already on the chopping block, followed by full-length music videos.
TV goes next. Once you can piece together half-hour or one-hour episodes the same way, that's the breakthrough moment for TV and film (which is just 30 minute blocks stitched together, so 3-5) falls shortly thereafter. Add in filters for animation, and now you can make the anime series of your dreams at home.
Oh, and the porn industry--already in decline vs. OnlyFans and Source Film Maker--is done.
I've already mentioned how Tabletop Product Slop gets cratered by the bots.
As for books bots killed the Indie Rapid-Release model. New models are in flux.
Authors can't win against bots because Normies view books, and all other media, as a product to consume and nothing more. What is here for prose is fast moving on to film/TV (including animation), and Vidya not long thereafter. The way out is not to see yourself as no better than a plumber or craftsman. The real pivot to make is to become Producers; you don't write, or edit- bots do that. You manage projects from start to finish; you move to a High Concept position, where you're in command of a bot army what executes your orders. This includes knowing how to manipulate the algos to get your stuff before your audience- something that networking with other authors or influencers does not do anymore. Other pros are ahead of the game here, and flat out say "You're slaved to the algos" to folks looking to go pro.
The bots are making commercial media production obsolete across all media, and no IP law will not stop this; piracy is already a permament presence, so you better believe pirates will feed All The Things into the bots--no, poisoning the inputs won't stop it; just slow it down--and those results shared freely. The first manifestation of abundance, like all the Star Trek wankers kept saying was coming, is going to be in the realm of illusion and phantasm that is Entertainment Media.
The skills you need are a mix of RTS habits and C-Suite acumen, and the attitude you need is non-commercial hobbyist enthusiasm and passion. Within a decade, there will be no money in this anymore.
The current author and editor cohorts are going to be turfed out if they are neither willing nor able to do this. The future belongs to Fanfiction.Net, not to Walter B. Gibson or George Lucas.
This also means that ghostwriting is on borrowed time; Joshua Lisec is the last millionaire ghostwriter because the bots can do his work--and his output--better than he can too.
The only smart thing to do now is to learn and master the workflows so you can benefit how you can while you can because once this transitional window closes, convincing people to spend money on what you produce is going to become very difficult when they can just copy it and make their own. Crowdfunding and neopatronage is also on borrowed time; get ready to adjust.
So the future is, what? Entertainment creation no longer exists as a job by the end of the decade? No alternate skill market replaces it because the entire sphere is captured by robots? Anyone who wants to make stories or art by hand will be seen as a pretentious Luddite like calligraphy-enthusiasts and noone will believe you actually don’t outsource to AI if you weren’t an established figure pre-2021? Every man can instantly commission his own auto-generated slop from his laptop and if he looks for media made by others it’s just gonna by ephemeral propaganda churned out on a gigaton-per-second basis? How is this a state of affairs worth valuing?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's what's going to happen.
ReplyDeleteThe masses want Content. Entertainment is a Product to be consumed; just look at the Romance market.
If the cost of production is trivialized or eliminated, then the market goes to those who master the workflows to churn out Endless Slop and then market it to that audience.
The skillsets are Marketing, Bot Utilization, and Project Management. That's where the money will be, and the current trend will only accelerate: middling companies crater, leaving only those too big to die and those too small to get hit at all.