AI-created “virtual influencers” are stealing business from humans
AI-created “virtual influencers” are stealing business from humans
Brands are turning to hyper-realistic, AI-generated influencers for promotions.
AI-created “virtual influencers” are stealing business from humans::Brands are turning to hyper-realistic, AI-generated influencers for promotions.
That makes sense. The goal always seemed to be as fake as possible.
Oh no, fake people are stealing fake jobs from fake people!
Anyways..
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.
Let's define "stealing" and "business" here.
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Influencers don't produce anything, nor do they add intrinsic value to products they promote. Not much business to that if you ask me.
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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.
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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?
People's identities become fully commodified then a technology is invented to simulate it. Late stage capitalist dystopia things.
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.
I don't see the downside to this in particular.
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...
They terk er jerbs
Wait, are we supposed to think of influencers as humans?
I mean, someone like Hatsune Miku already existed before. It's just (slightly) more mainstream now. The only issue with "virtual influencers" is how straightforward the owners are in admitting that their product is AI.
Would you look at that, another story where I hate everybody involved.
That's a business risk lmao
I first saw pinky in the picture when on a post saying italian company tired of dealing with insufferable influencers so they just built their own.
Ill say the same thing now that I did then.
Reminds me of the novel Idoru by William Gibson. Worth a read, not sure how it holds up in this era though
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?
user @ElBarto@sh.itjust.works has reached their maximum amount of fucks given for today.
To purchase more fucks visit your local bottleo.
Good. Influencers are a plague.
The new Southpark on influencers is good
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I think technically whoever created that AI persona is now profiting from the work they put into creating and maintaining that. It's different than what a human influencer does, but the money they are generating still goes into someone's pocket, not dissolving into thin air. This isn't AI stealing people's jobs, it's someone stealing someone else's market share. It's like a guy with a saw complaining that a guy with a chainsaw is stealing their business.
In some ways, I’m very excited about the sociological and economic opportunities for change this kind of scenario brings. And far, farrr more horrified. I haven’t yet seen a meaningful or impactful use of AI yet, that doesn’t mainly further capitalists or state power over their own or other civilians.
“AI development is dominated by capital, led by some of the world’s most powerful oligopolistic corporations… strengthening capital vis-à-vis labour, and elite sections of labour relative to others, and are hence likely to increase inequality along lines of class stratification that are also lines of gender and race.”
The future is cyberpunk, and Gibson started that as a sci-fi horror show future to avoid. Congress knows that Meta/Zucc influenced the 2016 election via ML/AI targeted ands and did basically nothing.
People who won the genetic lottery are angry that they can't milk their attractive appearence for money anymore.
Well, that's too bad.
What's funny to me, is AI generated content is virtually indistinguishable from heavily filtered content, but it cannot replicate a high resolution, untouched image.
So, obviously it's putting influencers out of a job.
Good
This is the best summary I could come up with:
She posts selfies from concerts and her bedroom, while tagging brands such as hair care line Olaplex and lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret.
Aitana is a “virtual influencer” created using artificial intelligence tools, one of the hundreds of digital avatars that have broken into the growing $21 billion content creator economy.
Their emergence has led to worry from human influencers their income is being cannibalized and under threat from digital rivals.
That concern is shared by people in more established professions that their livelihoods are under threat from generative AI—technology that can spew out humanlike text, images and code in seconds.
Over the past few years, there have been high-profile partnerships between luxury brands and virtual influencers, including Kim Kardashian’s make-up line KKW Beauty with Noonoouri, and Louis Vuitton with Ayayi.
Instagram analysis of an H&M advert featuring virtual influencer Kuki found that it reached 11 times more people and resulted in a 91 percent decrease in cost per person remembering the advert, compared with a traditional ad.
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That's what AI is made for. Bull-shiting.