AI “innovators” may destroy the influencer economy

Just in June, Jeremy Carrasco uploaded his first videos to TikTok and Instagram. In this short time, he has amassed over 300,000 followers on each platform. No, those aren’t quite Charlie D’Amelio’s numbers, but it does make him one of the biggest names in AI on social media.

Jeremy said Edge That he always wanted to try his hand at becoming a YouTuber. Instead, he found himself behind the camera, working as a producer and director on multi-camera live broadcasts. But he finally decided to take the plunge after realizing that most of the conversation around generative AI was being driven by technology companies. “We need other people to approach it from a creative standpoint, like a producer standpoint,” he said. While he maintains YouTube Page, it’s running Tik Tok and Instagram He found his audience.

Originally, the idea was to talk about how to use artificial intelligence. “I named my page showtoolsai because I was actually very optimistic about AI and the ability to use it ethically for video production.” But this idealism turned out to be short-lived.

One thing I quickly realized was that no one was really talking about the basics of how AI video recognizes. “There was a need for it… and I had all the knowledge to do it,” he said. But he also knew that this wasn’t the kind of conversation the current crop of AI influencers would start: “There has to be someone who comes from like this creator space and understands it.”

He quickly found his niche, posting stories about AI videos like mysterious textures, wobbly eyes, or objects popping in and out of existence in the background. While Jeremy’s primary focus remains AI literacy and identifying errors generated by Sora, he has also begun researching potential pitfalls and risks posed by the increasing number of AI-generated videos and improving their quality, especially for creators.

Ultimately, the creator economy is an area of ​​interest. And now people are competing with an endless stream of AI-generated content. Jeremy wants people to understand that “it’s not that hard.” Sora 2 is free, removes many barriers for people directing clips, can create sound and, at first glance, can be very convincing.

The goal here doesn’t have to be so outrageous. Sometimes it’s just about generating views and tapping into your TikTok Creator Fund. A seven-second AI clip of a cat doing something silly isn’t worth much on its own. But put together in a one-minute compilation, if it can get five million views, it could net the account owner about $1,000, according to Jeremy. While this may not seem like much, to those who live in… Developing countryIt can be an important source of income.

There are, of course, worse actors. Some, like AI-based Chinese medicine calculations, Yang Moon (or Yang Cups, depending on the site), Jeremy says, are straightforward scams. It has a vague and offensive cartoon of an Eastern-style healer espousing health and wellness advice that appears to be aimed largely at Western audiences. With over 1.5 million subscribers, there’s money to be made just from views on Instagram. But the real scam comes from directing these viewers to a website to purchase an $11 e-book. If the e-book exists (at least one person reached out to Jeremy saying they were unable to access said book), it was almost certainly created entirely by AI, just like the videos.

Others, such as Maddy QuinnNot only are they trying to scam people out of their money, they are actively stealing other people’s content and hijacking their photos. Such accounts take videos, usually from female creators, and then replace the real person with an AI-generated avatar or replace the face with an AI-powered one. In some cases, creators’ entire photos are stolen, fed through an AI generator, and then end up on OnlyFans.

At this point, when asked if he thought there was an ethical use of generative AI in the creative industry, Jeremy replied: “generally not.” But he says: “There are exceptions (to facilitate access) and cultural considerations that prevent me from saying no outright.”

Some, like Lionsgate,They attempted to create ethical video generation models by training them entirely on their own library. But it’s simple Data was not enough To produce anything usable. “The only way you can create AI-powered video as a generative tool the way they currently do,” Jeremy says, “is to steal a bunch of people’s data… I think that’s fundamentally flawed and we should reject it.”

Unfortunately, these platforms only hasten the collapse of the creator economy that fueled their rise. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube have largely allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by AI slowdowns, and don’t even consistently enforce their own rules around AI content classification. This makes it difficult for content creators to cut through the noise, and also makes the platforms less attractive to users.

To make matters worse, they are all building their own generative AI tools. “Content creators are basically like running ad agencies,” says Jeremy. Sponsorship deals are the primary way content creators make money, but AI is quickly finding a home in ad production (from To the fullest extent questionable quality). As AI video takes over advertising, it will “destroy the entire creator economy.”

dead, Amazonand DirectTV They have all engaged in generative AI advertising services. Eventually, Jeremy says, they will “sell advertising services directly to customers.” Some creators may be tempted to try to jump on the AI ​​bandwagon to take advantage of it. “It’s very reasonable to ask if this is actually a good business opportunity for any creators, but I don’t think it is,” says Jeremy.