Things are changing rapidly.
I keep writing about the death of industries, especially when it is tied to knowledge work. Some keep disagreeing with me since they believe that total disruption is in the cards. The idea that somehow contracts or outrage is going to stop anything goes 100% counter to technological history.
The reality is that technology does not care. In this sense, it is like an organic being, continually evolving. That means whatever is going to get disrupted will.
We covered a great deal of the Hollywood strike with the writers trying to protect themselves from AI. This is absurd since, as the technology progresses, the barrier to entry is reduced. This means that more entities can enter the field, spreading the production abilities out. Remember when broadcast television was the only place to get content of that form. Now look at things. How many streaming services can you subscribe to each month?
And that is just the start.
Now we are seeing the same thing happen to the creation of content.
The End of Print Media
Here is a video that is worth watching because it talks about what Sports Illustrated did. We also see the reaction to these individuals, total Luddites.
So there is outrage that Sports Illustrated is using artificial intelligence to write its articles? Of course, the company denies it, blaming some third party entity.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter what SI says nor who is at fault. The reality is that AI systems are only going to improve. What this means is that it will become available to more people. That is the end of print media and all the money they make.
Why is that the case?
Simply because if two people have access to these type of systems, both are able to produce content. When it comes to "journalism", we already see most major media entities having AI write the stories. Certainly there is still the claim (valid) that humans edit it. However, this is likely due to the fact that technology still struggles in many ways. That won't be the case in 3 or 4 years (or perhaps less).
So why would people pay SI when the content can be viewed in a number of other places for free? Also, as I often discuss, why will anyone go searching for this content when they are going to be tied to a network.
Not Going To Be Stopped
There was a time when there was outrage over robots entering the manufacturing process. We also saw the outsourcing of much of this as companies sought cheaper labor. Of course, the pushback was enormous, right up to the point where the companies closed the plants. What was left, was automated.
We are seeing two shifts in my view. The first is the massive rise in these language models, something that is advancing at a pace we never saw before. Another is the rise of public networks which will completely alter the structure of the Internet.
Both of these means websites like NY Times, Wall Street Journal, or Sports Illustrated will be done. They are no longer necessary. We all know they are using AI to assist in the creation of content. It is only a matter of time before most, if not all, of it will be generated by machines. After all, a company like Tesla is already able to train its systems just using video. How long until this is available in many industries?
There was a time when people thought Blockbuster or Kodak was relevant, being a mainstay. They are both gone. Sears is a longtime American brand that is just hanging on. The destruction of many brands over the next decade will be unrivaled in history. Knowledge work is about to get completely disrupted.
We will see a shift when people start to realize what a network like Hive needs to do. Once that happens, we are going to see a massive shift in the landscape.
What we are looking at is the disruption of content creation and distribution. No longer is it all going to be segmented.
By the end of this decade, things will be completely different. The end is near for a lot of things.