Will AI Slop Kill The Creator Economy?Why online content creators are at risk, but only a small segment of them.
The debut of Meta’s Vibes and OpenAI’s Sora 2 has seemingly put a new type of worker in AI’s path of destruction: Professional online creators. The new AI video feeds are fun, bizarre, uncanny, and suddenly very popular. Above all, they are social. They are meant to spark conversation, shares, likes, and engagement. And instead of the painstaking content creation process behind today’s human-created video, their content is generated effortlessly via prompts. While the term ‘creator economy’ has always been a bit of a misnomer — only a small number of people actually support themselves creating content online — some longtime media watchers now think it’s living on borrowed time. “The creators are all high on the hog right now, but I would be thinking they’re one of the first things that could be totally annihilated by AI,” Ari Paparo, founder of Marketecture Media, said on a TWiT podcast episode I guest-hosted this week. But as with much of AI’s potential impact on work, the possibilities here are nuanced. Some parts of the creator economy may indeed be hurt — models and brand spokespeople in particular — but much of it is likely to remain intact, or perhaps even become stronger than before. A core reason people tune into online creators is they want to watch (or listen to, or read) something authentic, not passed through multiple rounds of approvals or edits. The format has gained popularity as a mass media alternative in particular because of this quality. AI generated media is, by definition, inauthentic, and as such it’s not an easy substitute for today’s online creators. If anything, more AI slop might drive people to seek out more human generated work. Online creators also tend to bring new information, insights, and viewpoints to their audiences, which AI will have a hard time replicating. AI today tends to recycle the old vs. come up with its own concepts. And it simply can’t replace the ingenuity of today’s online creators — at least so far. Notably, all AI videos start with a human prompt. If a video catches on, there will be a creator behind it, even if they’re not facing the camera. In some instances, people might not care if the content is human-generated, and AI could cause real disruption there. Fashion models seem to be vulnerable as AI is getting really good at generating good-looking people with the correct number of fingers and toes. The connection audiences have with them tends to be surface-level too, so we could see AI models replace fashion models. Brand spokespeople are likely in trouble as well, given AI’s ability to generate compelling human-looking characters who can speak eloquently and with passion. Some ad agencies will likely pass on working with (often difficult) human talent, generate AI ads themselves, and pay to promote them. To some extent, it’s already happening. That’s not a complete substitute for working with a creator who has an engaged audience, but it could cut into the business. As AI videos proliferate, the greatest risk is to the broader publishing and entertainment industry, not creators in particular, as the AI slop could effectively become a DDoS attack on media itself. With such effortless creation, AI content and videos could flood the zone to the point that all media effectively becomes worthless. It’s not an imminent scenario, but it’s the one that bears watching. Oktane 2025 Recap: Okta Unveils Identity for the AI Era (sponsor)
For founders, identity isn’t just a security checkbox; it’s the backbone of scaling safely. At Oktane 2025, Okta showed how to move fast without leaving gaps: identity for agents with its new Cross App Access (XAA) that helps you secure and govern your AI agents, Privileged Access with Axiom that helps Okta continue to be the single control plane for all privileged resources, and new Auth0 capabilities that help you securely win the AI game. If you’re building the next category-defining company, make sure identity isn’t your weakest link. What Else I’m Reading, Etc.OpenAI staffers have some conflicted feelings about Sora 2 [Techcrunch] Meta is going to use your AI chats to target ads [WSJ] How AI changed Y combinator [Inc] Climbing influencer dies in a Yosemite fall [BBC] Apple takes down ICE tracking app following Trump admin pressure [New York Times] Identity belongs in strategy, not dev backlogs. Our CIAM Buyer’s Guide cuts vendor spin and filler—just the facts you need to choose the right platform for your org. Download now. (sponsor) Big Technology Celebrates Five Years!This week, we toasted to five years of Big Technology at the offices of Human Ventures right above Union Square in New York City. My deepest thanks to you all for reading, listening, and watching. Here’s to the next five!
This Week On Big Technology Podcast: Microsoft’s Head of Cloud & AI on the AI Buildout’s Risks and ROI — With Scott Guthrie
Scott Guthrie is the executive vice president of Cloud and AI at Microsoft. Guthrie joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the tech industry’s massive AI infrastructure buildout and whether it is overdoing it with the hundreds of billions of investment. Guthrie discusses the way Microsoft thinks about its OpenAI investment, whether it’s worth investing in scaling pre-training, and Silicon Valley’s growing debt problem Tune in for the second half where we discuss the longevity of the GPU, custom silicon, and competing with NVIDIA. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast app of choice Thanks again for reading. Please share Big Technology if you like it! And hit that Like Button if you’d prefer your news to stay human for a while. My book Always Day One digs into the tech giants’ inner workings, focusing on automation and culture. I’d be thrilled if you’d give it a read. You can find it here. Questions? News tips? Email me by responding to this email, or by writing alex@bigtechnology.com Or find me on Signal at 516-695-8680 Join our private Discord!Daily, top notch conversation about AI, media, and tech. You can join at the link below:... Subscribe to Big Technology to unlock the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Big Technology to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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Will AI Slop Kill The Creator Economy?
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