i think generative ai will fail to land at scale with consumers.

I’ve been thinking recently a lot about generative AI, and the implications it dreams of having. On the tech side, every person in tech I know is talking about it. Massive amounts of VC money is pouring into a space, despite a mild slow-down and harder times funding other companies.

And yet, no one I know outside of tech cares about it. Gen AI companies and the APIs they use (at least OpenAI’s) are being massively subsidized with VC money, hiding the true cost of running the product a-la Uber. Generative AI also has a massive user retention problem.

That being said, I use generative AI for work: often. I think the most time-sucking parts of my day are just thinking of how to lay out documents, and how to approach boilerplate code. I architect high level structures and functions, and then ask ChatGPT to implement the lower level functions and algorithms.

I also ask it to create general document structures. Faura used it to create all of our example images within our assessment because it would have been really hard for 2 broke girls to go take photos of everything that needs to completed on someone’s house.

In the future, I’m planning on using it to generate phrases and content for Aetheria. I’m waiting for the pricing to more accurately reflect what it looks like (or to save up money for Astra to host its’ own LLM) so that we can build a natural disaster tool that generates evacuation and preparedness plans for people.

But, I don’t necessarily know that generative AI will have the impact that the general consumer population is looking for. Why? Because everyone is sick of computer automated shit.

When I’m looking for a therapist, I want to talk to an actual person who can empathize and give their own experiences. When I go online, I want to see content made by people who’ve crafted their art over time, and take pride in the details. It seems our loneliness crisis is worse than ever, especially for young people within the US. And we seek content as a way to interact and connect with others: that’s why we have these parasocial relationships.

Not to say that some people don’t get attached to AI: I have in the past and I will in the future. But I think we’re discounting the true value of a lot of things: it’s not just about the information being given but the attention and time behind the person giving that information to you.

There’s a level of humanity constantly being abstracted away from our technology in the name of efficiency. But what’s efficiency worth when what’s left is increasingly less human interaction?

I think generative AI will be incredibly revolutionary for companies looking to not pay artists, copywriters, and programmers. No doubt. But early on, in a time when everyone seems starved for human touch and care, I don’t AI puppet versions of the people we love will take off the way we want it to.

I could be wrong, there’s a lot of work going into the consumer space and I have no doubt we’re going to see breakout hits. But increasingly, just like with the handmade and mass manufactured product market, it seems apparent to me that our content will be diverging in between generated and human.

And in a world where everything else is automated, why would I want the only form of connections we have to be?