This data is courtesy of Dan Shapiro.
As there are only so many people and hours in the day, the market for human attention is finite. Hollywood is spending more money to make TV and movies, but its market share is declining. People, especially younger people, are far more likely to watch videos on the internet made by small creators. Needless to say, the small content creators’ costs are vastly cheaper. AI is rapidly making them cheaper still.
And it’s not just that small creators using AI-generation will displace Hollywood’s existing efforts; they are likely to create new artforms that will displace the old screen/broadcast formats of TV shows & movies too. AI-gen artforms, as yet uninvented, may be real-time rendered, personalized for individuals, hyper-niche, etc, etc
This is all part of a surprising trend with AI, its tendency towards decentralization. Some dommerist nightmares see all powerful corporations in the future, but as with open-source AI & robotics equalling the Big Tech efforts, the trend seems more for AI’s power to be dispersed.
There’s a lot more small people, so the odds are massively in their favor. Also, using AI tools to make content is not just writing a prompt. If you are going to make videos of any length and depth, then you are utilizing a number of various tools. Just think of all the view time that silly TikTok videos have taken from Hollywood, now imagine people putting in the same amount of effort and ending up with much more impressive results since they have AI to use as a tool.
Two years ago, making something like Unanswered Oddities would have taken many months and a lot of money, now it can be done in an afternoon by someone creative.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL14oiCokyIUUgHiNR-rPqavC9bPbm46U9&si=dR3dkeW4m5bmIjUw