AI Innovators and Their Potential Disruption to the Influencer Market

Jeremy Carrasco took social media by storm in June with his first videos on TikTok and Instagram, rapidly gaining a following of over 300,000 on each platform. While his numbers don't rival those of Charli D'Amelio, he's become a significant figure in the realm of AI education on social networks.

In a conversation with The Verge, Jeremy shared his initial aspiration of becoming a YouTuber. However, his journey began behind the scenes as a producer and director of multicamera livestreams. It wasn't until he realized that big tech firms were monopolizing the generative AI narrative that he decided to create his own space. He believed there was a need for different voices from the creator community to contribute to this discussion.

Setting Out On A New Path

Initially, Jeremy's goal was to explore the practical applications of AI. He named his venture 'showtoolsai' with a hopeful vision of harnessing AI responsibly for video content creation. However, his optimism was short-lived.

He soon discovered a lack of basic knowledge on identifying AI content. Jeremy felt compelled to fill this gap, drawn by his expertise in AI identification, and noticed a distinct absence of discussions led by creators like himself.

Jeremy quickly found his niche by identifying signs of AI-generated videos such as blurry visuals, unstable elements, or suddenly appearing and disappearing objects. Despite his primary engagement revolving around AI literacy and distinguishing such content, he's also delved into the potential dangers that improved AI-generated videos pose to creators.

Warnings About AI

In the creator economy, the struggle is for audience attention, now faced with a deluge of AI-produced material. Jeremy emphasizes that understanding these processes isn’t particularly challenging. With tools like Sora 2 being freely available and simplifying video production, AI videos that appear quite realistic can be easily made.

The intent behind these creations doesn't necessarily have to be harmful; sometimes it’s merely to garner more views, benefiting from platforms like the TikTok Creator Fund. Even simple AI clips crafted into longer compilations can be financially rewarding with enough views, showing a substantial return for those utilizing them.

However, there are more nefarious elements at play. Cases like an AI Chinese medicine account deceive viewers with dubious advice under a stereotypical healer guise, drawing large audiences and leading them to purchase questionable materials, purportedly created by AI. Even the ebook offered—a common endgame of these scams—exists in a realm of doubt.

Exploitation and Ethics in AI

Other troubling practices involve unauthorized use of real creators' likenesses, digitally replacing individuals in videos with AI-generated avatars, sometimes leading to entire identities being replicated and misused on platforms like OnlyFans.

Jeremy contends that ethical applications for generative AI in content creation are challenging to endorse broadly. Exceptions might exist for accessibility improvements or cultural contexts, but he views the foundation of AI video generation, which often involves exploiting creators' data, as fundamentally flawed.

The looming risk to the creator economy is exacerbated by major platforms—Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube—that seem inundated with AI content yet fail consistently to enforce rules on its proper identification. This not only complicates visibility for genuine creators but also reduces platform allure for users.

Illustrating a broader concern, Jeremy notes that these platforms are also developing their own AI-driven content generation tools. Creators, acting almost as advertisers themselves, rely heavily on sponsorships to earn money, but the expanding role of AI in producing advertisements poses a direct threat to this revenue stream.

Several companies are venturing into AI advertising, foreseeing a future where they might offer ad services directly, potentially bypassing traditional content creators. Despite the temptation for creators to adopt AI for quick gains, Jeremy questions the long-term viability of such ventures, implying it might not be a sustainable or beneficial path for creators.