I was struggling with this question for the better part of a year trying to decide “should I invest energy into creating content if it is just something that will become worthless in the age of content generation and AI?”
Well, I have finally decided that if content is to become meaningless due to AI in the future, then that future is one that will find me still creating content in it. I will not be dissuaded.
AI is amazing. It can create blog posts, write code, create user interfaces, deepfake video, and spoof peoples’ voices.
But, due to this very point, I feel and have a strong hunch that value in the future will lie in personal human connection. Sure there might be some blogs that will be artificially created. There might be some onlyfans accounts that are AI operated but I do not see this as being an alternative for genuine and authentically created content that comes personally from someone. It’s like what John Carlton, the godfather of online marketing, says: to sell is to merely be human. To write content that connects will be to merely be human.
Similar to how Bluebell ,one of my favorite ice cream brands, still is 1/2 gallon, I can imaging blog taglines of the future reading “still written by a human.”
The Uncanny Valley
There is a concept in animation called the uncanny valley.
The concept is that given a robot that looks eerily human, but not 100% human, a person will feel uncomfortable when observing it. The mind will say “I can’t tell if this is a real human. What is this?”
Have you ever read something created by AI generation? If it is long enough and in depth enough, can’t you get a sense that a human didn’t write it?
That is why over the next number of years I plan to invest my energies and time into creating content that is personal, authentic and meaningful to me. Hopefully this will attract those to my content that value the type of content that I will deliver.
It’s kind of like the saying from CS Lewis regarding the atomic bomb. Rather than fearing content generation, and refusing to take action because of it, I will create content in spite of it.
If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.
– CS Lewis
