One of the big unknowns in futures discussions around AI and media is what happens when content creation itself becomes effectively free. Not cheaper, not easier, but abundant enough that output quality stops being the main differentiator.
Most current AI video platforms seem to assume the existing social model still holds. Infinite feeds, passive consumption, engagement as a function of novelty. That works early on, but it may not scale psychologically or socially.
Recently I came across a small AI-native social project called Slop Club that takes a noticeably different approach. The emphasis is less on broadcasting AI videos and more on remixing, responding, and collective play. The model fades into the background and the social dynamics become the primary object of interest.
What makes this relevant from a futures perspective is not whether the project succeeds, but what it represents. It treats AI as infrastructure rather than destination. It assumes that in a world of infinite content, the scarce resource is not creation but coordination and shared meaning.
If that assumption is correct, then many feed-based systems may be transitional artifacts. Social platforms may evolve toward designs that look closer to games, collaborative environments, or participatory media spaces rather than endless timelines.
Curious how others here interpret this kind of signal. When content becomes abundant, does social organization shift toward interaction-first systems, or do feeds persist despite diminishing returns?
When content stops being scarce, what replaces it?
byu/Educational_Wash_448 inFuturology
9 Comments
I fully suspect that this is an ad disguised as a post, based on how it reads. I will now copy and paste the body of the post into my comment because I posted a comment calling it an ad and it got removed for being too short and I’m not sure how long a comment has to be to adhere to the rules.
When content stops being scarce, what replaces it?
One of the big unknowns in futures discussions around AI and media is what happens when content creation itself becomes effectively free. Not cheaper, not easier, but abundant enough that output quality stops being the main differentiator.
Most current AI video platforms seem to assume the existing social model still holds. Infinite feeds, passive consumption, engagement as a function of novelty. That works early on, but it may not scale psychologically or socially.
Recently I came across a small AI-native social project called [**Slop Club**](chatgpt://generic-entity?number=0) that takes a noticeably different approach. The emphasis is less on broadcasting AI videos and more on remixing, responding, and collective play. The model fades into the background and the social dynamics become the primary object of interest.
What makes this relevant from a futures perspective is not whether the project succeeds, but what it represents. It treats AI as infrastructure rather than destination. It assumes that in a world of infinite content, the scarce resource is not creation but coordination and shared meaning.
If that assumption is correct, then many feed-based systems may be transitional artifacts. Social platforms may evolve toward designs that look closer to games, collaborative environments, or participatory media spaces rather than endless timelines.
Curious how others here interpret this kind of signal. When content becomes abundant, does social organization shift toward interaction-first systems, or do feeds persist despite diminishing returns?
Again, I suspect this is an ad and I think the mods should look into that
When people are interacting with people, the subject isn’t important. When people are interacting with LLMs, then you have major social breakdown.
Same as now. Whatever content gets likes and attention will be on our feeds. And that content will feed future models.
All I know, is that the website Slop Club is a scam, virus-ridden website and should be avoided.
At one point AI Slop will be trained by different AI Slop and the whole quality dissipates.
And we can only hope that when the AI Bubble finally bursts, that there are still people left who actually know what they’re doing.
content will not be “effectively free”, quite the contrary. when the bubble bursts and nobody will be willing to pay the electricity and hardware bills for generating the slop anymore, then slop generation will suddenly cost “creators” money.
so it is more plausible that this will engage in some other business model that’s unknown to us today, rather than it being simply abundant and at everyone’s reach.
Much of it will depend on how corporations handle others using their IP. When you steal from a non-famous person, there are ruffled feathers but nothing of substance overall. But when you start stealing major IPs because the system was trained on it, that’s when you get laws changed.
Other than that… it may also shift to a place similar to food or other entertainment. If an individual or whatnot are able to create compelling content that enough people spend to keep them sustainable, you will start seeing lines drawn: Full AI = fast food, a mix of AI and real people = casual, full human with no AI = fine dining. Expensive, fewer customers, but those who want it, will pay for it.
Trust will be siloed.
I’ve said for a while now that the internet largely needs to return to the small independent forum model, and I think LLMs are the event that will force this realization on the larger internet. When the majority of the content of the internet is fake, you resort to only interacting with members you trust.
So what you really need is a way for members to gain trust. I can think of a few:
* Positive interaction.
* A long reputation in a specific community.
* Contributing to discussions on the direction a community should take.
* Financing the community.
So yeah, I think that the internet is going to evolve into softly paywalled cliques, and I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. What we need is for internet communities you can visit and interact with without you necessarily being a trusted participant, and asking people to pay a token fee (something like $5 a year) for the hosting and moderation of a small website is a great way to earn “I’m not a robot here to pedal marketing or disinformation” levels of trust.
I’m of the opinion llms were developed to solve the problem of content creation because social media’s investment scam ramp was running out as people stopped making things for free