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Comment by jasonsb | Hacker News Reader

This might be controversial, but I genuinely love AI-generated “video slop”. Hear me out for a second: I’m utterly exhausted by influencers peddling their endless “buy this crap” content. Honestly, the AI slop often feels more creative, less salesy and refreshingly free of performative perfection.

But Meta knows AI slop poses a problem for their business model. When anyone can churn out engaging content without needing perfect lighting, a six-figure ad deal, or even a face or voice, there’s little incentive for users to stay locked into the influencer-driven attention economy that fuels Meta’s ad revenue. They don’t just want your attention, they want it monetized. And right now, AI slop is too democratic to profit from.

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My friends and I have been having a blast coming up with hilarious situations to put ourselves in. Will it get old, maybe, but new features might keep it fresh.

Is your AI writing HN comments for you too now?

AI is a business. Almost everyone putting it out is trying to exploit the influencer-driven attention economy and monetize their content. AI isn't difficult to profit from because it's too "democratic" - anyone can already participate without perfect lighting and a six figure ad deal most people do - it's difficult to profit from because it isn't compelling or interesting to most people.

It just hasn’t been optimized yet because it’s so new

I'm not sure I completely understand what you're saying.

Are people locked into the influencer economy because of the "polish" of the videos?

I feel like people are more locked into consumerism, and this is just the cheapest channel of delivery.

Won't much of the AI slop just become, or try to become the influencer itself?

Agreed. All content eventually optimizes for clicks -> monetization, which is typically dictated by the platforms' algorithms. That's why things end up looking the same over time as that's what people are creating content to optimize for.

> Are people locked into the influencer economy because of the "polish" of the videos?

Yes. Influencers with big production and marketing budgets will usually create more content that has the "wow" factor. With AI people can add the same "wow" factor in their videos with little to no budget. This should slowly erode the value of a platform like Instagram as AI content gets better.

Why would it devalue the platform? The more time people spend watching, the more attention that can be monetized. More content, or higher quality content, or content produced more cheap does not detract deon that? The algorithms will pick winners anyway, and can shape things into the familiar power law of popularity, if that is the desired mode. People parasocial needs can be exploited by human creators to differentiate from AI generated content. Modern social media is like a casino, the house always wins.

> Are people locked into the influencer economy because of the "polish" of the videos? > I feel like people are more locked into consumerism, and this is just the cheapest channel of delivery.

Don't forget parasocial relationship

I'm not sure it's fair to separate "AI Slop" with "Buy my crap" marketing.

People will monetize one way or another. It may be more or less explicit with AI slop.

Additionally, I would challenge "AI slop posing a problem": AI Agents and automation of content keeps people engaged inside of a platform, inside of a niche. A democratization may lead to more expensive ad space.

Meta can certainly assist in creating slop and maintaining conversational salespersons

> Meta can certainly assist in creating slop and maintaining conversational salespersons

They absolutely can and you could’ve said the same about Stack Overflow or Quora. But in the end those platforms fizzled once AI began to democratize the creation of “good-enough” answers. The same trajectory likely awaits Instagram as AI-generated videos reach parity with user-made ones, the distinction between creator and consumer will blur. The shift is inevitable if the technology doesn't hit a wall.

Maybe companies like OpenAI will make even more money by licensing the technology that keeps us entertained, but the influencer economy will eventually collapse. I’m not saying what’s coming is necessarily better, I’m just saying Meta’s platforms are in for a rough ride.

I believe Stack Overflow and Quora were screwed because chatbot interfaces became the new entrypoint. _If_ Instagram/TikTok/YouTube manage to stay the place people go habitually, then I think they will benefit, not be harmed. But there are probably many ways to step wrong here. There is a bit of an innovators dilemma for the platforms that currently relies on human produced content. If I were them, I would fund 2-3 new/separate efforts to be able to experiment while not immediately killing the current golden goose.

Only difference is soon you'll have Mickey Mouse tell you (and your children) to buy same old crap that the influencers were shilling.

Big Tech will find a way of ruining it for you.

AI slop and influencer peddling can both be bad at the same time. The answer is to get off facebook/instagram, not to replace one awful thing with another awful thing that also happens to boil the oceans.

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