The content industry in the age of AIGC: A Pandora's box that has been opened

We must be clear: the era of AIGC (AI-generated content) as the core may never come, because from the current situation, even AI like ChatGPT is not yet original, but only a relatively efficient collation of human existing knowledge. If AI can have human creativity and even self-awareness, then there is no doubt that it will mean the end of humanity; If not, then the core of the content industry will still be people. Compare the manufacturing industry: the application of industrial robots in the production line has been very deep, but the core of the manufacturing industry is still people.

So, the question we should actually be discussing is: assuming that humans are still the "soul" of the content industry (responsible for providing original ideas and tonality), and AI takes over the "flesh and blood" of the content industry (standardized, repetitive labor), what will the content industry look like? In my view, that would significantly raise the ceiling of the content industry while seriously exacerbating inequality within it. Under the intersection of these two forces, we may see trillion-dollar content companies and hundreds of billions of content creators - although this is not necessarily a good thing for the entire content industry.

First of all, one thing must be clear: since the birth of the Internet, the Matthew effect of the content industry has increased day by day, and the gap between head creators and ordinary people has widened geometrically. Take film and football, two well-known industries, as examples:

In the mid-1990s, before the Internet came to millions of households, the highest salary for Hollywood stars was $20-25 million, equivalent to about 800 times the average salary in the United States. By 2022, the year of the peak of Internet penetration, the highest salary of Hollywood stars has reached $100 million ("Top Gun 2", Tom Cruise), which is about 2,000 times the salary per capita in the United States. In fact, Daniel Craig's annual salary also exceeded $100 million, but it included more than one film.

In the 1990s, it was rare for stars in Europe's top leagues to earn more than 2 million euros a year before tax, and 5 million euros could already enter the "top salary club". In the 2020s, Mbappe, Ronaldo, and Messi all have annual salaries of more than 30 million euros, and there are countless players with annual salaries of more than 5 million in the Premier League and La Liga. If it weren't for UEFA's Fiscal Fairness Act, banknote-wielding tycoons could raise their top salaries even more.

The above does not calculate income such as advertising endorsements, investments, etc. Superstars like Tom Cruise or Ronaldo who "bring their own traffic" can earn millions of dollars from posting a promotion on social media, and the price tag for them as official spokespersons may be as high as 8 figures.

Why not in other areas? Whether you write web articles, write public accounts, do short videos or engage in live broadcasting, the goal is always to become the head (at least the vertical head), because the income of the head and waist can be orders of magnitude different, and the income of the waist and grassroots is orders of magnitude worse. It is no exaggeration to say that Li Jiaqi's income may be hundreds of times the average income of Taobao anchors, while He Jiaqi's income is equivalent to tens of thousands of times the average income of B station UP owners. Therefore, it is not worth the loss to think of content creation as a "side hustle", because it is almost impossible for amateur long-tail creators to make money.

The spread of AIGC will exacerbate this trend of inequality, pushing the Matthew effect to the extreme, and even creating a never-before-seen "monster-level" head content. There are two main reasons:

AI can take on most of the repetitive work and replace a number of grassroots content jobs. In other words, the cake has not become smaller, but fewer people have divided the cake. Head creators can also waste less time managing and focus on the content itself, further extending their lead.

In terms of timeliness, no one is stronger than AI, so AI is a powerful tool for "chasing hot spots". This tool can be in anyone's hands, but it is most useful in the hands of the head creator, because it can pry the talent, popularity and tonality of the head creator in the maximum multiple. Some mid-waist content parties originally expected to "work hard to make up for weakness" and win with speed or quantity advantages, but it may not be possible in the future.

In this process, the so-called "capital" will take a back seat to a less important position. Don't get me wrong, the content side still needs capital, but the voice of capital will be relatively reduced. The lower and more popular the threshold of AI technology, the more the head content party can be above the capital, or even become a new "capital" itself; This kind of thing is not uncommon in the past. As for capital's ability to interfere in content creation, I am afraid that it will also be greatly reduced, but this is nothing. After all, most investors only need to make money, and very few (although it is especially common in China) to get a sense of achievement by interfering in creation.

All in all, for the head content side - writers, screenwriters, directors, stars, producers, game planners, UP hosts, streamers with originality and fan base... The era of AIGC is the best of times. Among them, there will definitely be a group of old stubborns who are not willing to accept AI and cannot control AI to be eliminated by history, but that belongs to the "internal contradictions of the ruling class" and does not affect the overall situation.

At the same time, "pendant creators" with strong characteristics (that is, the so-called "tonality" and "authorship") based on a certain category will also usher in unprecedented opportunities. After all, most of the head content parties first become "vertical heads", and then out of the circle to become "whole network heads". As long as a content party's core competencies are originality and tonality, it will benefit from the AIGC wave: because originality and tonality are the most difficult things to replace by AI, and industrialization and standardization needs can be completed at a lower cost with the help of AI.

Of course, in this process, the benefits of pendant creators may not be as obvious as those of head creators, but they are always beneficiaries. The real victims are those "assembly line" content parties that are neither the head nor have a strong tone, which were once regarded as the development direction of the content industry in the Internet era, but now their core competitiveness will be completely replaced by AI. With AIGC, it will become extremely easy to create "walking work" (a black word in the industry, I believe many people have heard of it), resulting in a serious imbalance between supply and demand of "business work". Over time, those who can only create "work" content will be eliminated.

After a period of time (maybe 3-5 years, maybe longer), the market may reach a new equilibrium point: a very small number of head creators enjoy the biggest dividends, raise their value to a new dimension, and even become new super-rich (some of whom are now there); Below are a large number of unique pendant creators who are enough to maintain a well-off life, ready to challenge the head (although most will end in failure). What about the once vast number of content organizations that were featureless except for capital and industrialization (such as the video industry's thousands of MCNs)? More than 90% of them may disappear.

If the content industry in the AIGC era can usher in such a picture, it will undoubtedly be very good. I welcome this picture, and I believe most users will welcome it too. But let's also remember that facts will always be more complicated than theories. AIGC is a Pandora's box, and since it is opened, it will not release only one effect. We can only take one step at a time, carefully evaluate all possibilities, and not overtalk at any time.