How AI-Generated Content Could Fuel a Migration From Social Media to Independent 'Authored' Content (niemanlab.org) 68
The chief content officer for New York's public radio station WNYC predicts an "AI-fueled shift to niche community and authored excellence."
And ironically, it will be fueled by "Greedy publishers and malicious propagandists... flooding the web with fake or just mediocre AI-generated 'content'" which will "spotlight and boost the value of authored creativity." And it may help give birth to a new generation of independent media. Robots will make the internet more human.
First, it will speed up our migration off of big social platforms to niche communities where we can be better versions of ourselves. We're already exhausted by feeds that amplify our anxiety and algorithms that incentivize cruelty. AI will take the arms race of digital publishing shaped by algorithmic curation to its natural conclusion: big feed-based social platforms will become unending streams of noise. When we've left those sites for good, we'll miss the (mostly inaccurate) sense that we were seeing or participating in a grand, democratic town hall. But as we find places to convene where good faith participation is expected, abuse and harassment aren't, and quality is valued over quantity, we'll be happy to have traded a perception of scale influence for the experience of real connection.
Second, this flood of authorless "content" will help truly authored creativity shine in contrast... "Could a robot have done this?" will be a question we ask to push ourselves to be funnier, weirder, more vulnerable, and more creative. And for the funniest, the weirdest, the most vulnerable, and most creative: the gap between what they do and everything else will be huge. Finally, these AI-accelerated shifts will combine with the current moment in media economics to fuel a new era of independent media.
For a few years he's seen the rise of independent community-funded journalists, and "the list of thriving small enterprises is getting longer." He sees more growth in community-funding platforms (with subscription/membership features like on Substack and Patreon) which "continue to tilt the risk/reward math for audience-facing talent....
"And the amount of audience-facing, world-class talent that left institutional media in 2023 (by choice or otherwise) is unlike anything I've seen in more than 15 years in journalism... [I]f we're lucky, we'll see the creation of a new generation of independent media businesses whose work is as funny, weird, vulnerable and creative as its creators want it to be. And those businesses will be built on truly stable ground: a direct financial relationship with people who care.
"Thank the robots."
And ironically, it will be fueled by "Greedy publishers and malicious propagandists... flooding the web with fake or just mediocre AI-generated 'content'" which will "spotlight and boost the value of authored creativity." And it may help give birth to a new generation of independent media. Robots will make the internet more human.
First, it will speed up our migration off of big social platforms to niche communities where we can be better versions of ourselves. We're already exhausted by feeds that amplify our anxiety and algorithms that incentivize cruelty. AI will take the arms race of digital publishing shaped by algorithmic curation to its natural conclusion: big feed-based social platforms will become unending streams of noise. When we've left those sites for good, we'll miss the (mostly inaccurate) sense that we were seeing or participating in a grand, democratic town hall. But as we find places to convene where good faith participation is expected, abuse and harassment aren't, and quality is valued over quantity, we'll be happy to have traded a perception of scale influence for the experience of real connection.
Second, this flood of authorless "content" will help truly authored creativity shine in contrast... "Could a robot have done this?" will be a question we ask to push ourselves to be funnier, weirder, more vulnerable, and more creative. And for the funniest, the weirdest, the most vulnerable, and most creative: the gap between what they do and everything else will be huge. Finally, these AI-accelerated shifts will combine with the current moment in media economics to fuel a new era of independent media.
For a few years he's seen the rise of independent community-funded journalists, and "the list of thriving small enterprises is getting longer." He sees more growth in community-funding platforms (with subscription/membership features like on Substack and Patreon) which "continue to tilt the risk/reward math for audience-facing talent....
"And the amount of audience-facing, world-class talent that left institutional media in 2023 (by choice or otherwise) is unlike anything I've seen in more than 15 years in journalism... [I]f we're lucky, we'll see the creation of a new generation of independent media businesses whose work is as funny, weird, vulnerable and creative as its creators want it to be. And those businesses will be built on truly stable ground: a direct financial relationship with people who care.
"Thank the robots."
Somebody has too much faith in humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at the crap people believe and the crap they consume media-wise, most will just be happy to be fed more crap as long as it confirms they all-too-often inane beliefs.
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Disney is really having problems....most of it due to pushing "the message" vs providing actual family entertainment that people WANT to see, especially with their children.
Disney has had most movies this past year flop and some very badly.
It seems park attendance is down too, and to answer that, they've been raising prices.
They don't seem to have anyone with common or fiscal sense over there to try to turn the ship around, although, I do be
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Disney is really having problems....most of it due to pushing "the message" vs providing actual family entertainment that people WANT to see, especially with their children.
Nah, the troubles started long before the so-called push of "the message" (a claim popularized by Youtubers like "Critical Drinker"). It's the same problem plaguing the general super-hero franchises (MCU, DC.)
And the problem is due to excessive budget costs to create content rather than stories. A movie needs to make at least 3 times the budget to break even and recoup the investment. That's hard to do with films with budgets comparable to a small 3rd world country.
Compared that to movies like "Godzilla
Re:Somebody has too much faith in humanity (Score:5, Interesting)
I tend to agree. Twenty years ago, when I was in college, the Internet was the great uncontrollable liberator of the people. It was going to free China and all other dictatorships, political opinion would be uncancellable, and nothing could stop it. Fast forward to now and European governments arrest people for what they say online, China has the largest censored and firewalled network on Earth, and even companies in the United States are selecting what speech they want via usage agreements and “community guidelines.” In the free world, the Internet had not liberated, it had consolidated under a few big, controlled, names.
Bitcoin was supposed to usher in an era of uncontrolled finances where no government could impose rules on your payments and no central bank could control your currency. We can see how well this worked in almost every bloc as bitcoin regulation fills greedy government agendas.
Also, the internet was supposed to bring us liberating wonders as featured in the AT&T “You Will” TV ad series. Brilliant, almost 100% accurate, prediction of the future, but it wasn’t AT&T who brought us those things, and sending a fax from the beach did not liberate you from work so you could vacation. No, instead it tied you to work during your vacation.
So, yes, this author has way too much faith in humanity. I predict the Internet will continue towards being an authoritarian cesspool.
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Bitcoin is regulated because naive people fell in with crypto bros and were very predictably scammed. You could have predicted the hype -> scam -> regulation chain of causality from a thousand miles away.
Sending a fax from the beach was never going to liberate you from work. Technology did not create the base corporate forces that aim to extract every last drop of blood from the cogs in the machine, but it provided more efficient ways of doing so. On the plus side, we
Re:Somebody has too much faith in humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem comes from the fact that there are two different types of Government. There is the Government that regulates and mediates in our interests, and the Government that controls us and exerts it's power to exploit us. Problems arise because these two get conflated. The former is necessary, because there are a lot of untrustworthy people out there who will rip others off, and if left unregulated all the power goes to them and so the rest of us are left struggling to suvive while they take everything.
So efforts and movements that seek to take Government entirely out of the equation are at best misguided, but usually they are secretly controlled by the same people who benefit from the second type of Government and want to get rid of the first, so they can exploit the rest of us even more. Cryptocurrencies are very much like that. The people behind them are annoyed that controls on other currencies keep exposing their scams, and so they wanted a currency outside of controls so that they can cheat people freely.
The difficult part is maximising the first type of Government while minimising the second. We haven't yet come up with a decent way to achieve that. Voting once every few years is most certainly not that method. It's too prone to boost the power of charismatic scumbags, especially if you allow the free use of wealth into politics. Advertising and propaganda is more successful the more you can throw money at it, and the type of people who have money to throw at it are the same people you want to keep out of politics.
Moving closer to the original meaning of Democracy should be the next method to try. Instead of voting in Representatives every few years, treat it like Jury Service. Pick Representatives by lottery from the local population to serve on local and national Governing Bodies, one term each. Make everything they do transparent so anyone can watch exactly what they are up to. When their term is over, these people will have to return to their local Community and justify their actions, which will do just as much to keep them honest as an occasional vote does if not more.The people actually running important Government Departments are hired seperately and overseen by these bodies, much as a Company's shareholders hire a CEO and others to run the Company they own. Gerneral policy is set by the Representatives, and they keep an eye on the people running Departments to ensure they stick to these policies.
Lastly, no European Governments are arresting people for what they say online, except when they are inciting violence.The sole exception to this is Germany, where Holocaust Denial is illegal and has been ever since the Second World War ended. Personally I'm mostly ambivalent about this. I don't think it's great overall, but I can see why Germany does it. I can also see and understand the argument that Holocaust Denial is inciting violence, although I don't entirely agree with it. Hateful yes, false yes, but not explicitly inciting violence. Germany does it mainly because they want to be seen to be cracking down on Nazis and Fascists more than other Countries, which is understandable in the circumstances.
Re: Somebody has too much faith in humanity (Score:3)
I agree that random selection of at least some of our political leadership is a good idea.
The problem with short terms is that it shifts a great deal of power to a politically less accountable professional bureaucratic class. This shift happens because the mechanics of governance are very complex (needlessly so, perhaps, but also unavoidably so), and the newcomers will as yet have no idea who to call when about what, let alone when and how to bring issues to the floor.
It cuts a helpful way, too, when the in
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Maybe we can allow elections for the people to run Departments and actually administer Government, while the law makers are picked by lottery. We don't need a manifesto for people standing for election, we need a CV and references. The incumbent can rely on their record so far, while people who think they can do a better job can provide evidence of their career so far, especially their experience relevant to the Department they want to run. The Parliament or Senate or whatever you want to call it can overse
Too Easy to Corrupt (Score:2)
these people will have to return to their local Community and justify their actions, which will do just as much to keep them honest as an occasional vote does if not more.
Seriously? Given the average person what is far more likely to happen is that some company will turn up with an offer of lots of money they support something paid in an entirely legal way. That amount will be more money than they have ever seen and they'll know that they have this one brief opportunity to get it and no prospect of a future political career to hold them back so the pressure to accept will be overwhelming. Sure they may get some flack for it from their local community but it would be easy fo
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That would be illegal for a current politician to accept, and equally illegal for them to accept, possibly even more so. They won't have the connections required to help them hide such corruption from scrutiny so are much less likely to get away with it. Currently they get away with this a lot, because the Ruling Class have the infrastructure and connections to hide it. Would you accept $1 million if you knew you'd spend 20 years or more in jail and get it taken off you?
The idea that people would be forced
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They won't have the connections required to help them hide such corruption from scrutiny
What are you on about? A lot of this crap goes on completely in the open and is entirely legal. In the UK MPs just have to declare their "interests" - they can take jobs, holiday just about anything as long as it is declared. The idea being that such public scrutiny will keep MPs "honest" but, if you have no option/interest in getting re-election why would you care about that just so long as it is legal?
For those who would find it an imposition on their business as Company CEO or banker or similar, there will probably be loopholes they can use to get out of it,
That is _exactly_ my point! These are the people you most want to serve since they have unique skills a
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Fast forward to now and European governments arrest people for what they say online
[Citation REALLY FUCKING needed]
Sadly far too easy to find... (Score:5, Informative)
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It's interesting how the UK one of those avoids even describing what was written, as if they did they would have to admit that the posts were specifically inciting violence. No, people do not get arrested in the UK simply for causing offence. If they did, newspaper editors would be getting arrested every day. Despite the wording in the Independent (a badly named rqag if ever there were one, owned as it is by the son of an ex-KGB bigwig) it requires fairly explicit incitement to violence before you get arres
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No, people do not get arrested in the UK simply for causing offence.
Yes, they do. If you want examples of actual posts try this [theverge.com]. While some of these examples do include threats of violence, several are just expressing opinions ranging from utterly abhorrent to just politically incorrect and while in the milder cases charges were dropped the people involved were still arrested and hauled off simply for expressing, admittedly offensive, opinions but still just opinions.
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Once again, that link is disingenuous at best. Some do indeed include threats of violence. The ones that don't were not from a one-off post. They were because of a persistent and determined series of posts that constituted harassment. It is not the speech that is being criminalised, it's deliberate and sustained harassment, shading toward stalking. The 'milder' cases that were dropped were after the perpetrators had signed agreements to cease the harassment. Nobody has been arressted in the UK simply for ex
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Bitcoin failed even before regulation caught up. This whole dream was held only by a very small amount of people, who got completely overwhelmed by the "get rich quick" crowd as soon as BTC turned from a theoretical thing for nerds to
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Re:Somebody has too much faith in humanity (Score:4, Informative)
That's pretty much what people are after. Confirmation. A sense that they're not the only ones that have some "nuttier than squirrel poop" beliefs. That's what makes those antisocial media sites so popular.
Until their advent, the village idiot who was convinced that the moon is made of cheese and about a mile up in the sky was a lone idiot who got laughed at and ridiculed for his stupidity. But now, these village idiots can congregate on /r/themoonismadeofcheese (and I really, really hope that this is one of the few subreddits that doesn't exist yet...) and congratulate each other on being one of the few who actually know The Truth (tm).
And no matter how completely insane whatever world view you have may be, rest assured there are others out there who believe the same harebrained bullshit and there is even some hashtag, some subreddit, some group, some... however they call those filter bubbles elsewhere. You no longer have to feel like you're the only idiot out there. Now you found your people.
One of us, one of us...
And to make matters worse, the whole shit radicalizes itself. Because the most kudos, the most esteem and the most likes you will get for being the most radical of them all. Because the more insane you are, the "purer" your faith is.
And these people should want human curated content? Content that challenges their views? That makes them engage in a good-faith discussion?
Dream on.
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Yep, pretty much. Also the reason why my social media intake is pretty low. Occasional (smart !) confirmation is nice, but getting insights works differently. Insight seems to be the last thing most people want though.
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I actually prefer the discussions I have here with people who have a diametrically opposite position to me. It gives me a chance to get another view on a subject that I possibly didn't consider and yes, it does force me to adapt my point of view because at least from time to time there are arguments I can't just brush aside.
Personally, I think my position gets stronger that way. Positions and theories get better only when they can weather storms, anything that remains unchallenged for too long will crack un
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Agreed. But it needs to be reasonably reasoned opposite positions. The all-too-common statements of deep faith in some unjustified viewpoint are not doing it. Same for sloppy and grossly incomplete "arguments", because the usual nil wits can now also use Google. I find myself finding fewer and fewer of the good ones though. I do not think that is because I get less mentally flexible, but it is a concern.
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I usually leave the bad arguments with a few keywords that can be googled for a longer retort. Because if you can google an argument, it's usually one that has already been refuted and I can do just as little work to refute it as the person invested to make it.
I hope so ... but look at tik tok (Score:4, Interesting)
Addiction is timeless. (Score:2)
I'm concerned a lot of people crave little endorphin hits of novelty, no matter the source .. human or AI generated. I feel that a lot of people won't "care". And those litte hits are even more tempting when it reinforces your worldview, no matter how "synthesized" those hits are.
If you're craving a few hits of drug analogies to describe a problem in society, then I'd it's already a considerable one of addiction, regardless of the source.
Views are already "synthesized". We humans call them lies. Marketing calls them profitable.
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It's obvious they do and even if people do care it's difficult to override some of these behavioral patterns, it's pretty much baked in for us to pursue things that feel good, that dopamine response is pretty instinctual.
While we as a species have advanced greatly our monkey brains are not all that different then they were thousands of years ago and was never really designed for something really as mind-melting as having all of human knowledge at your fingertips and the ability to reach nearly every other p
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It's obvious they do and even if people do care it's difficult to override some of these behavioral patterns, it's pretty much baked in for us to pursue things that feel good, that dopamine response is pretty instinctual.
While we as a species have advanced greatly our monkey brains are not all that different then they were thousands of years ago and was never really designed for something really as mind-melting as having all of human knowledge at your fingertips and the ability to reach nearly every other person on the planet and doubly so when there are entire business models built around taking advantage of that fact.
I use it to look at pictures of cats and pick fights with strangers.
But YOU are not going to see it (Score:5, Interesting)
...because it will all be behind closed doors to keep it from being (sc)raped by hot new AI companies. The open internet is done for.
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The open internet is not done for, but you have to do a lot for it if you want it. Since there's no profit in it, it won't be handed to you.
The answer to humanity, is irony. (Score:4, Funny)
"And ironically, it will be fueled by "Greedy publishers and malicious propagandists... flooding the web with fake or just mediocre AI-generated 'content'" which will "spotlight and boost the value of authored creativity."
Huh. That must be why people just can't get enough of their Inbox these days. All that spam just boosted the value of email.
Robots will make the internet more human.
Curious to know which robot wrote this bullshit.
Re: The answer to humanity, is irony. (Score:3)
To me it looks like a thoughtful, smart piece written by someone who doesn't realize most humans are neither smart nor thoughtful. Most are cattle, judging by what sells.
An interesting comparison though, might be OTA broadcast TV. I recently repaired a problem with my OTA antenna system, and can now see ALL the channels in my area. And apart from the major networks (which aren't so hot anyway), it's a shit fest: stepped-on pictures of ancient reruns, thoughtless clones of cable TV car shows, shopping, Jebus
hmm (Score:2)
Humans have been flooding the web with fake or just mediocre 'content', why should robo-blitherings change anything? The sheer quantity?
Come to think about it, you could probably generate all the social media posts locally. Would it be cheaper to have a standalone racist echo chamber than to pay the data costs of a racist echo chamber hosted in the cloud?
sturgeon says no (Score:2)
An endless supply of crap will not trigger the revolt you imagine.
Look around you. if you're hypothesis were correct it would have happened a long time ago.
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if you're hypothesis ....
But what if they *aren't* hypothesis? What then?
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yecch.
i can only please voice-to-text and poor proofreading.
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plead*
WTF is wrong with me? i need to go to sleep
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I don't even understand what they're thinking. On social media, if you don't like someone's content... like, don't follow them? Or if this is about replies, then like, use one of the numerous social media sites that lets you limit replies to your friends? Exactly what are they picturing that's different about what they're proposing? They want websites... where people can post content... and selected friends can see and interact with that content... well, hello, that's social media. Unless he wants thin
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Like slashdot? (Score:2)
Crap posts are not just the realm of AI... (Score:2)
In an ideal world, this may have at least some merit.
We're not in an ideal world.
Last time I looked, which was today, the web is already flooded with Human created fake and mediocre content.
Once upon a time, I actually liked YouTube, but the algorithms that surface "shock" mediocre content are making the platform close to unusable - and these are videos created by humans.
The content
mediocre AI (Score:2)
no loss (Score:2)
unlikely (Score:2)
Big social platforms became big because they answered a need, they put people together. When everybody around had a Facebook account, the easiest way to get in contact was for you to also have one. Now Facebook changed, it pushes paid content (spam, fake news, ads) over the genuine content from your real friends.
Still, those small platforms won't address the original need: to have contact with your friends, they will fulfill a more limited scope. So whey may get some traction, but won't ever replace big soc
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Less content, more information (Score:2)
High quality niche publications have been there since forever. I for one couldn't recommend enough lwn.net [lwn.net]. It is one of the most reliable sources of Linux and Open Source news. Professionally done, because it is subscriptor paid. And deliciously devoid of ads.
I'm sure many such publications exist.
The problem is that their signal is drown down by humongous amounts of noise. That's the consequence of the ad-driven Internet that we have today.
Nope (Score:4, Insightful)
People don't value quality. It's that simple. If faced with the choice between cheap and quality, cheap always wins out. And not only because people don't have the money to afford quality.
It's just easier to digest. Think food. If you offer someone a hamburger or a lobster, how many would reach for the lobster? They don't know it, they have no idea how to eat it and it's kinda ... weird, so let's just wolf down that burger and feel good about it. Same shit here. Nobody gives a toss about your "human curated" content. People want to read what they're used to. The same good ol' drivel that's been fed to them for the past years, just now from an automated source instead of the desk of an equally unimaginative opinion piece writer.
People don't want to "engage in a good faith conversation". They want to hear that their prejudices and preconceived positions are correct and that they're the smartest and best people. People want to have their ego stroked, not challenged.
And AI can do that pretty well.
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Re: Nope (Score:3)
How do you expect to maximize shareholder value without paying your executives as much as possible????
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People prefer the known and tried when they are feeling insecure. To be inquisitive and eager to explore, they need to feel they can do that from a position of safety. You can also see that in their voting (and acting) patterns, the worse the situation gets, the more they turn conservative.
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The spammers will allows follow the humans. (Score:1)
Somewhat misleading headline. (Score:5, Informative)
But we should most certainly NOT expect the large social network platforms to care about the tidal wave of 'noise' unleashed by AI-generated content. It's been proven time and time again that most people react to content that amplifies the all-too-common 'confirmation bias' which informs most of their online opinion choices. Whether it's human-generated garbage or AI-generated garbage doesn't really make much of a difference.
If gifted writers leave mainstream big media and set up their own shop, they will undoubtedly gain a small (albeit sizable) number of followers. But it won't be the end of the social network behemoths as we currently know them. They've astutely invested far, far too many resources in extremely accurate behavioral studies to be made into fools. They clearly have a handle on this new 'opium of the people' and it appears wishful thinking that the vast majority of users addicted to their social media feed will suddenly feel compelled to follow independent and original thinkers.
It may shift a few percentage points in favor of independent self-published authors to create new types of communities where highly curated content is shared and appreciated. But it most certainly won't change what the great majority of the 'online unwashed masses' consume otherwise. I fail to see this gain much traction in any measurable sense, perhaps as a generational shift (younger people rejecting Facebook in favor of TikTok is a good example - pick your poison)
Lastly, it glosses over the reasonable possibility that certain types of AI-generated content will be of outstanding value, and possibly extremely entertaining. Most of this will probably be owned by the social networks as they're probably going to use the best tools and most advanced LLMs to maintain an advantage over their competitors.
Not entirely (Score:2)
Not sure how well that would work (Score:2)
I'd have to find out about all those niche sites and like a single, or small group, of writers enough to want to follow them on a regular basis. History has shown any site that gets popular enough eventually wants to monetize it and then it because a race to the bottom to maximize profit.
Re: Not sure how well that would work (Score:2)
Right, it costs money to run and host these things. The internet isn't a giant free lunch. Those communities will be paywalled. Hosted on Azure, Google cloud, AWS or whatever. The big tech companies win, and mine your data at rest.
AI isn't necessarily bad (Score:2)
Don't see it happening (Score:1)
This greatly overestimates the public appetite for quality content, no one has become rich by betting on it.
We only have to take a look at the constant decline in quality on your average social network ecosystem, while some might migrate to highly curated niches, the rest will be left behind in an ever declining ecosystem of ai powered content, only because it will be cheap, and effective.
Echoes of the WWW (Score:3)
The web was supposed to democratize publishing and introduce a meritocracy of ideas.
The problem, it turns out, is that most people are really, really, REALLY fucking stupid and will believe absolutely anything that jives with their own personal prejudices. The people casting the votes in this democracy of publishing are morons.
Those who don't learn from history are... (Score:2)
Did Ticketmaster inspire a national wave of independent concert venues?
Did Clearchannel inspire a renaissance of smaller radio stations?
Did Fox News, Discovery Channel et al inspire a resurgence of Community Cable television stations?
Did thoughtful and considerate newspapers appear when NYPost, DailyMail, and the Sun crowded out newsstands?
It's good that you want a better Fifth Estate -- don't be painfully naïve thinking it will happen without a fight.
Unlikely (Score:2)
Even if people identify and reject AI-generated schlock, they're still going to congregate in social networks to discuss the stuff they DO want to read. Including the networks that already exist.