Is Gen AI the catfish of creator content?

Have you noticed that everyone’s content has had a glow-up recently? We’ve seen a massive uptake in creators embracing generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) in their content creation process. And it’s easy to see why – powerful tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney and DALL-E 2 can help us work smarter. One way it can do this is by helping content creators produce their content in a fraction of the time. Great right? Until we consider the flipside; which is its potential for saturating social feeds with mediocre, samey content. This is something the creators, marketers and brands scrambling to incorporate Gen AI into how they work will have to be careful to avoid. Read on to hear how we think it’ll impact creators.

Whose content is it?

One of the biggest issues we think will emerge is that of ownership and copyright. Right now, a lot of the content made using Gen AI is unregulated but is drawing inspiration from the work of existing artists. We’ve seen this happening in the music industry, where AI has been used to mimic the voices of artists like Drake and Kanye West to make viral music that’s indistinguishable from their own, even by the musicians themselves… Scary, right? And it throws up a lot of questions in the air around ownership of these artists’ voices and musical styles. Universal Records has since called for a ban on music made with Gen AI from streaming platforms.

What are the pros?

On the plus side, Gen AI has been used to spark creativity, increase efficiency, and even speed up research. We have seen examples of content creators using ChatGPT to generate social captions as well as cloning their voice and image to automate content creation. We may also see, as content created using Gen AI floods the market, that human-made content may soon command a premium.

And what are the cons?

One potential drawback could be that using Gen AI to generate ideas will impact our ability to think critically. There is also concern that creators would grow overly reliant on Gen AI and that it may disrupt creative work. Moreover, as the use of Gen AI to generate content becomes more commonplace, we will undoubtedly see a greater emphasis placed on authenticity, originality, and the human touch.

Then there are the ethical issues surrounding creators who use Gen AI. In a similar sense to sponsored collaborations, any content created entirely or substantially using Gen AI should arguably be labelled appropriately (how about #AI?). As we have seen in recent years, when creators failed to disclose their paid partnerships, this called into question the validity of the opinions and messaging in the content. We then saw laws swiftly created to regulate the use of #Ad or partnership labels on paid creator content. We believe this should be true for #AI as it testifies to the origin and authenticity of the content. Failure to disclose the use of Gen AI may soon have an impact on a creator’s ability to collaborate with businesses or even carry penalties.

Gen AI seems to be here to stay and has already changed the landscape of creator marketing and content creation. The emergence of Gen AI presents both advantages and challenges for content creators. While it offers benefits such as increased efficiency and creative inspiration, there are concerns about copyright infringement, loss of critical thinking, and overreliance on the tech.

The need for regulations and appropriate labelling of Gen AI content is crucial to ensure transparency and protect intellectual property. As the world of content marketing continues to change, it will be fascinating to see how creators and brands adapt to the increased use of Gen AI.