Thoughts

Digital assets will be personalized and exclusive based on our preferences

In this post, I will present an interesting perspective on the future of content creation in the age of Artificial Intelligence.

jeff

May 8, 2023 — 3 min read

An uncertain future awaits us...

Introduction

A couple of days ago I was struggling to find an interesting movie on one of the many streaming services I’m subscribed to. I know exactly what I like, but I feel that it's becoming hard to find something that fits my taste.

It's the same issue with music, nowadays I rarely find great tracks to listen to. I might be getting older, who knows? But this got me thinking, how soon until the content I consume becomes completely personalized to my liking?

To some extent, it already seems to be the case. Social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram recommend to us an abundance of engaging content based on our preferences. These platforms use recommendation algorithms that predict what we like, based on previous interactions we've had with the service. The same thing applies to Netflix, Spotify, Disney+, and many other services.

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These platforms can accurately predict the things we like and present them to us, ultimately keeping us engaged and interested.

Generative AI

If you Google “Best AI tools” right now, you’ll find About 1,020,000,000 results... That’s straight from Google’s results page, and you read this right, about a billion results. Things like "Top 100 AI tools you need to try today" and "These AI tools will blow your mind".

A lot of the interesting ones fall under a category called "Generative AI". Which refers to a type of artificial intelligence application that can generate content, like audio, video, and graphics. Projects like ChatGPT, ElevenLabs, DALL-E, etc.

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Do you recall the old saying, "there’s an app for that"? Well, now we can confidently say that "there’s an AI for that".

Here is a short list of some of the capabilities of generative AI:

Clone and Generate Voices
Generate Images
Generate Sounds
Generate Text
Generate Video

We've always had tools that somewhat performed these tasks, but the latest AI solutions are producing exceptional outcomes.

Content in the New Age

If you haven't already, go ahead and listen to this song by AllttA:

AllttA - Savages

My mind was blown after hearing this for the first time (aka 🤯). I couldn’t believe that Jay-Z's voice was actually generated by AI, and not sung by Hova.

I couldn't agree more with Sam Cornwell's comment on this video:

Throw in ChatGPT to write you a couple of verses, and you can basically generate Jay-Z bangers all day, every day.

Not impressed? Ok. Have you seen this demo video by InVideo?

InVideo AI

Although it may not look spectacular now, it’s worth noting that this particular model has the ability to create all necessary components and compile them into a cohesive video using only one text input! Ask any video producer to replicate the output seen in the demo above and they'll tell you that it’ll take at least a few days to replicate, if not more. (Not to mention having Morgan Freeman do the voice-over).

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Here's the world's first AI-generated short film The Frost by Waymark which used Open AI's DALL-E 2 to generate all frames. You can read more about this story on MIT Technology Review.

I’ll remind you that just 16 years ago, we clapped and got super excited when Steve Jobs demoed scrolling on the iPhone using his finger and a touch screen. The least we can say is that the next “few” years are going to be very interesting.

Generated Content Everywhere

The reason why I wrote this post is to share a thought about AI, content, and the future. What advancements can we expect in the future? Say in the next 10 years?

Here's an idea (in mind my mind at least):

You could open Instagram or TikTok and the content you see will be pre-generated exclusively for you, in the format, style, and length of what you’d expect from such platforms.

Imagine now, you're at home, sitting on your couch, you turn on the TV, and a custom AI-generated movie from start to finish is waiting for you; perfectly aligned with your taste and style. It ticks all the boxes you like, from the story, acting, to the beautiful music, and everything else.

You also potentially open up Spotify and start playing a playlist of generated music, tracks exclusively generated for you. Essentially, so much of the digital world could become tailored to your preferences.

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The difference between humans and computers is becoming increasingly indistinguishable. It’s only a matter of time before it fades away completely.

Conclusion

If this ever happens, I could finally enjoy some fresh 90s-style sitcoms again.

But, for the time being, we're still far away from such a scenario given the technical limitations, costs, storage, and computing power needed. But one thing is for certain, a lot of the things we know today will change in the coming days, months, and years.

Do you have similar thoughts of your own?