You're probably onto something, but then it's also nothing new that we attribute value to handmade goods over industrial goods. Because they're backed by storytelling (real or imagined), rare/exclusive, etc.
It's clear that amidst a deluge of AI-generated content, audience urges for authenticity will rise. Attention is in more finite supply than content, has been even before generative AI; only so much will stick out, and it will perhaps be the most authentic or analog content and goods.
The real question is whether AI/AGI can make it past the "authenticity threshold" and xenophobia to where we also accept AI storytellers and brands as eligible.
Perhaps opening the AI content firehose will force everyone to start carefully curating what they consume. This might actually be an improvement, and might be the way out of today’s limbo where crap content is snuck onto our plates half the time.
Don't we already, though? I mean, how many of the hundreds to thousands of mediocre movies that hit Netflix, Hulu & co every year do you watch? If they were AI-generated, would it actually matter to you?
As far as I can tell, there's just two interesting things to watch out for:
- Personalized AI-generated content. What if the movie were just for you? What if it expired like a Snapchat, never to be seen again by anyone else? Would this tickle us? Would we succumb to new filter bubbles, increasing the distance between us?
- Can AI make the movie that's so good that it sticks out and does become the one we watch collectively?
Ideally, AI art would be tagged on any large platform and AI artists would be forced to compete in a race to the bottom against all their fellow prompters.
I wish this would happen. But, looking at the current world where publication and distribution are dirt cheap and simpler than ever with the internet, most people's media curation is "What's free" as opposed to "What's good." If the new torrent from the firehouse is AI-generated content, careful curation will lose more. The time and money cost become harder to justify.
I think you also discount that handmade items are generally valued for being higher quality and sturdier than mass produced items in many cases. It’s not just this kind of emotional thing.
It's clear that amidst a deluge of AI-generated content, audience urges for authenticity will rise. Attention is in more finite supply than content, has been even before generative AI; only so much will stick out, and it will perhaps be the most authentic or analog content and goods.
The real question is whether AI/AGI can make it past the "authenticity threshold" and xenophobia to where we also accept AI storytellers and brands as eligible.