Will AI-generated content match human-generated content in perceived value to audiences?

Victor Riparbelli · Jan 15, 2025

The real/fake distinction in content is already meaningless and will blur further; content should be evaluated on its own merits rather than on how it was produced

Most content we consume is already 'fake' to some degree — Instagram photos are touched up and cameras do color correction at the sensor; we don't judge films by whether they used green screen, we judge whether they're good

Scope: how it was produced remains one signal among others like when and by whom

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Harry Stebbings · Jun 9, 2025 · hedged

AI-generated content today already has value similar, though not quite equal, to human-generated content, as seen in short-form video

Scope: not quite the same value; short form video especially

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Kieran Flanagan · Jul 11, 2025

AI-generated content does not inherently have less value to audiences

Looking at AI-first social media avatars, people are happy as long as the content is good enough — they don't care how it was made

Scope: conditional on the content being good enough

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Harry Stebbings · Jul 11, 2025

Value in content should be measured by distribution, retention and usage, and by that measure AI-generated video is equivalent to human-made video

He stays and watches AI videos in exactly the same way he watches normal videos, so to the provider the outcome is the same

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Kieran Flanagan · Jul 11, 2025

Consumers do not care whether content is AI-generated as long as the idea and execution are good

An LA dentist's Veo 3 gorilla parachute ad went viral and booked his practice out for years; everyone knew it was AI-generated and nobody cared, including Kieran

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Harry Stebbings · Sep 5, 2025

AI content is already as valuable to him as human-made content, and in an increasingly crowded feed competing for scarce attention it will get harder for creators to stand out

AI content will only keep getting better, and he attaches no less value to it than human content

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Guillaume Cabane · Nov 29, 2023 · hedged

It isn't cold outbound that's dying but personal communication generally—email, phone, text, blog posts—because AI's marginal cost is near zero and its output quality will exceed humans', so people will start ignoring messages from real humans too

High-quality personalized communication will be everywhere all the time and recipients won't have time for it; anything human-written will soon be done better by an AI

36:00 Ai quality and volume will make people ignore personal human communication too

Alex Schultz · Sep 5, 2025

Authenticity and creativity will be the two things that matter in an AI-saturated world — real conversations with actual decision-makers will be prized, just as people still queue to see Monet's water lilies despite free infinite prints

Human presence and authentic human skill retain value even when perfect copies are free, as explored in Iain Banks's Culture novels

34:14 Authenticity and human connection remain prized even as ai content is free