The end game is eliminating the last remaining human element in the engagement optimization pipeline, so that the corporations can control 100% of it.

Platforms like YouTube and TikTok already have almost full control of how the majority of users spend their time on their platforms. They open the app, they immediately get a feed of content algorithmically selected to keep them on the app for as long as possible. They don't need to search, they don't need to think about what they want to watch, they just consume. Fully automated consumption with 0 human effort involved.

Well, almost. There's one last thing remaining: you still need humans to produce the content that you then put on people's feeds. Or rather, needed. Now that the actual production can also be automated, those platforms no longer need to put effort into finding existing human-created content that will keep people watching - they can just generate new, algorithmically perfect content. This is their endgame.

Other advantages to generating content: (1) fewer copyright issues. (2) No creators to pay, just GPU bills scaling with the use of the platform. (3) a much smaller critical mass.

Given these advantages I expect the current "social media" to be replaced with a new one, rather than them pivoting. The next big thing after tiktok might be something that only has generated content, where a last final bit of "social" is taken out of "social media".

Generating stuff is very cheap compared to building and training the model. When you have your model done you're incentivized to use it as much as possible. Maybe even considering the sunken costs.

Why can't it be the actual tiktok? By simply winning competition with humans i.e. whereas vast majority of humans see their pay go too low to bother to continue?

The end game is that computer generation beats human content for a subset of the population who becomes accessible to advertisers and propagandists through model alignment, and unresponsive to word-of-mouth.

> What's the end game?

What makes you think that there is an "end game"?

Someone figured out how to make computers be able to create content that is costly to distinguish from human-made content. Someone else is using it to pump out AI slop in the hopes that it will make them a quick buck. The platform becomes unusable for anyone that values their own sanity. No "end game" to be found.

AI will be the worst thing that happened to society in a very long time.

IDK about the worst thing.

To flip it around AI can help a doctor find a cure, the other day I used AI to help translate and assist a non English speaker find the right bus.

AI is just a tool. It's up to us to determine how it's used.

I know I'm not using any service or product that's so lazy as to use AI sloop to advertise. Especially if it's clearly AI with jumbled text.

There is no “end game” it’s just hustlers out for a buck for themselves — YouTube, the slop makers, the ad companies, the bots scraping videos, all of em.

Same as it ever was. When this cash cow proves worthless or runs out it’ll be another thing.

YouTube always had a slop problem. Previously it took time, people, money and effort to create a slop channel. That’s why it was mostly run by content farms based out of Eastern Europe. For example 5 minute craft based out of Cyprus. With AI creating slop and content farming is easier than ever. Now it can be run at scale by anyone.

As such the only purpose is to make money.

YouTube has started banning some AI channels and maybe with time put serious restrictions. Or maybe not, at least not for big channels because 5 min crafts continues to exist despite producing most bizarre, outrageous and down right dangerous content. YouTube needs that sweet advertisement money.

the 'slop' is generally at either end of the extremes of video length, either shorts or multiple hour videos.

shorts get paid by the view, ppl put on long videos to fall a sleep to and youtube premium does a rev share based on watchtime of the premium user.

this is why you have like 10 hour playlists and white noise videos.

I have noticed people on the subway watching them. I sneaked a peak on a few of their phones and it was legit AI slop with clear signs (for me at least) that it was AI generated. The end user (viewer?) seemed hooked but they are mostly shorts (10-20sec videos) and you can see their fingers swiping to the next one.

The other day my mother told me if I watched some random AI slop (Putin getting in a physical fight with Trump) and I asked her why she watches this stuff and her answer is that it comes up in her feed. She said it was funny.

I don't know what to make of any of this.

People do not want reality; they want to comfort.

People do not want reality; they want comfort.

I'm observing this with my dad. He watched some genuine history documentaries on YouTube, and now the feed keeps showing him AI slop history videos. You know the type: an hour long, overdramatic AI voice with pronunciation issues, barely relevant stock footage, loads of factual mistakes and nonsensical sentences, epic Hollywood music on a loop...

He knows it's crap, keeps making fun of the horrible AI voice, shaking his head about all the vapid bullshit it's saying, and yet, he keeps watching them.

I'm also at a loss.