Survey: Will We Ever Pay for Entertainment Content Mostly Created by Generative AI With Little or No Credit to Human Creators?

POLL: When will we see premium entertainment content -- movie/TV, pop song, game, book, etc. -- that's primarily created through generative AI like ChatGPT & Midjourney that *earns a profit* for the AI programs' unknown curator? (I.E. not by a well-known / publicized creator.)

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 1, 2023

Here's a hopefully fun survey I'm running on Twitter this week (take by Thursday):

When will we see premium entertainment content -- movie/TV, pop song, game, book, etc. -- that's primarily created through generative AI like ChatGPT and Midjourney that earns a profit for the AI programs' unknown curator? 

If you don't have a Twitter account, please answer in Comments. But before you decide, consider some of the important qualifiers:

• I'm not asking if we'll watch and read free AI-made content -- we're already doing quite a lot of that!
• I'm also not asking if established human creators will use AI as part of their process -- that's been happening for quite some time. Artist Nettrice Gaskins, for example, has been doing that since at least 2018.

So basically I'm asking if we'll soon pay money to see a movie or download an album or play a game on Steam (etc.) that's not primarily credited to a human creator.

(Infographic via Sonya Huang of Sequoia Venture Capital.)

Comments

[Jack]

As a content creator, I am both excited and apprehensive about the idea of generative AI being used to create premium content. On the one hand, the idea of being able to quickly and easily generate high-quality content is incredibly appealing, particularly for those of us who are always on tight deadlines. However, I also worry about the impact that this could have on the industry as a whole.
There is no doubt that AI-generated content will disrupt traditional content creation industries, and I worry about the potential implications for human creativity and jobs. Additionally, I have concerns about the ethics of using AI-generated content for commercial purposes. While the technology has come a long way, I don't believe that it can yet match the creativity and intuition of a human writer or artist.
It is possible that soon artificial intelligence will create sites such as informational blogs, such as https://easy-dating.net/hot-polish-women or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, or sites with games. I wrote one of these blogs and I assure you that this is a huge job. I don't want to lose my job to AI, but there's nothing we can do about it. What do you think about it?

[Moon Brite]

I think we probably will. I can already imagine a film created by AI and released to the cinemas. It will be a novelty at first, and people will be curious to go see it. I also picture a backlash against it if AI-generated films became common, since many will believe human-created content has more "soul." Those who release films may start to use AI in secret if that happens.

[Nadeja]

The "unknown curators" already started to sell AI-written books, not based on famous books / stories, even before the GPT-4 release:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-launches-boom-ai-written-e-books-amazon-2023-02-21/
So I guess for books the answer is "now"? Not best sellers, but you would need some luck and/or a good marketing for that, even if your book were excellent and better than what GPT-3 or 4 can do. Meanwhile, the Sci-fi magazine Clarkesworld stopped submissions recently, after a rush of AI-made stories.

Songs by unknown people: kind of here too, earning something since a while.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59878572
And generating songs also with vocals is improving, as the recent Drake and The Weeknd case shows. Becoming a star out of nothing may be harder, though, more so when Spotify is going to be inundated by AI-generated songs.

Movies: video generation is progressing rather quickly. Perhaps in a year or two...

Game content: Robolx has some idea https://blog.roblox.com/2023/02/generative-ai-roblox-vision-future-creation/
Whole novel games on Steam, that are AI-made by Jane or John Doe: if you don't mean a simple 2D shooter game, it may require a longer time; but a breakthrough could always happen.

However, I don't think this is where the business is going to go.
Once you can generate any film or song in the same way as Midjourney generates images - i.e. not AI-assisted, but the whole content AI-generated on demand, where the demand is you asking what you want - it's likely you aren't going to pay for images, songs, movies, ... but rather for the service. It is happening already.
Who is going to be the next Neflix?

[Wagner James Au]

"The 'unknown curators' already started to sell AI-written books"

That's a good example, thanks!

Far as I can tell, though, the guy mentioned in the Reuters story is giving the book away for free and/or hardly anyone's bought it (1.9 stars on Amazon from 4 people):

https://www.amazon.com/Wise-Little-Squirrel-Saving-Investing/dp/B0BT2CT8XS

[Nadeja]

You are welcome! Quote from the article (dated February 21, 2023):

The Wise Little Squirrel: A Tale of Saving and Investing," available in the Amazon Kindle store for $2.99 - or $9.99 for a printed version

It says it was "for sale in January".
So it wasn't free, although now it's listed as "Out of Print--Limited Availability."
As you said, it only sold a few copies, and the article too reports that in February the book "has netted Schickler less than $100, he said"; then it looks like the listing has been changed.
But, well, it was sold by an unknown person and earned some (little) money :-)