In the last week, BuzzFeed has announced that they're going to be jumping into
the whole AI chat text generation thing for
the future of their content creation, at least in part.
Their chief executive, Jonah Peretti, said that the company will be aiming to quote,
lead the future of AI-powered content, end quote.
Maximize the creativity of our writers, producers, and creators and our business.
Well, I guess to some extent, but it sure sounds like to whatever extent you can,
you'd like to not have to have those things anymore.
I know that that's not how it works.
I have a lot of experience with ChatGPT, but
I also know what direction it's going in.
So stop pretending that this is about just maximizing your writers content.
You definitely don't want there to have to be writers.
In any way, he goes on to say, if the past 15 years the Internet has been defined
by algorithmic feeds that curate and recommend content,
the next 15 years will be defined by AI and data helping.
Create, personalize, and animate the content itself.
They do the animation?
Anyway, so I think a lot of people react negatively to this,
not only the creators, but also I think a lot of regular people don't love the idea
of all their content being created artificially.
But bear in mind, I saw that tech stocks that rely on AI or
believe to be involved in the future are doing really well.
BuzzFeed gained 300% after they announced this.
So investors definitely think a BuzzFeed of the future that has no people
in it anymore is the way of the future and they wanna get in on the ground floor.
>> Isn't that amazing?
Just some random new shiny thing that doesn't have any bearing on
the betterment of our society, our information,
our news media landscape, and investors are just flocking to it.
Yes, [SOUND] let me eat from the remains of the carcass of American society.
It's disgusting.
That doesn't mean it's gonna succeed.
It doesn't mean it's good.
All I can think about is BuzzFeed workers.
They formed a union not so long ago and this is again,
an attempt to make precarious media jobs.
Which honestly, as someone who's worked in media and BuzzFeed outlets,
I can tell you they are very, very precarious in and of themselves.
They rely on platforms like YouTube and Facebook for their funds and
their money largely.
They rely heavily on sponsored content.
Obviously not this channel, this channel we rely on you all.
But they look for ways to cut corners for media workers all the damn time and
this is just another way for them to do it.
John, I know you have a lot to say on it as well.
>> Yeah, look, we can have debates and we'll continue to,
because I'm a nerd, about people employing these sorts of things.
I use Midjourney, I use ChatGPT, I wanna understand these things.
So I want to be aware, so I'm using it.
I think that artists could use this sort of stuff.
I think, in some ways.
>> Sure. >> We can have a debate about that and
I might trust some individuals and not trust others.
You know what I don't trust?
A major corporation.
Because they are not interested in finding new ways to integrate a little bit to
streamline some parts of the process, but still it's a human centered thing and
they're not interested in that.
They're interested in not having to have a single person in that building.
That's what they want, because people are expensive and AI is gonna be cheap.
That's what they want.
They want the thumbnails be created by AI and the headlines to be created by AI and
the scripts to be created by AI, the schedules, everything.
The choice of what they're gonna talk about is gonna be chosen by AI.
That's what they want.
And maybe for regular people, that will end up being fine and they won't mind.
I am apparently getting old because I'm getting increasingly frustrated
by how much people are willing to tolerate incredibly low value content.
More and more, I feel like stuff is getting pushed out that requires thought
and creativity for just really quick little things.
And so it might be possible that they will actually have no problem with this and
that this will be just as good as the BuzzFeed lists of old or whatever.
I guess we'll find out that together.
But I don't think that even if that works that we can say that nothing will have
been lost along the way.
>> I mean, it's a commentary on our entire media landscape as a whole in the ways
that it is so easy to get clicks from just random asked things.
Are goldfish racist?
My God!
Watch this Karen in an airport bathroom film herself.
Just- >> [LAUGH]
>> Anything.
>> What is she doing in there?
I kind of I'm curious, come on.
>> I don't know, Karen calls cops on herself
after white toilet paper calls her privileged.
I don't know, I don't know what happens.
But the point is I just wrote that,
I bet AI could probably have written some of those better and they'll get clicks and
then advertisers will be able to sell on that article.
It is a sad state of information right now.
>> Yeah, 100%.
You know what?
I am gonna continue to use it cuz I find it to be interesting.
I find it to be a very limited technology in a lot of different ways, but
it's gonna get better over time.
We're gonna continue to talk about it anyway.
I don't trust businesses.
They already find workers to be completely optional.
In my research though, I did have a little bit of fun really fast.
If you jump too graphic seven,
one of our producers actually shared this in our chat.
Trump retweeted this image of himself as
a military officer walking with a lion in front of a helicopter.
And I speculated well, that's definitely just AI generated, right?
So I thought, if I put a minimum amount of effort, what can I make?
So initially, I was able to create this,
Trump in front of a giant lion with a helicopter.
And then I thought, you know what?
Their minds are so limited.
What do you need a lion for?
So I made this, and
I think that this is objectively cooler than any of their lion stuff.
And now I'm curious, could I get him to retweet that?
[LAUGH] Anyway, that's his AI, that's 30 seconds.
>> Are you on Truth Social?
>> No, I'm not a Truth Social, but maybe somebody send it to him,
if you're on Truth Social.
And let me know if you can get him to do it.
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