How Does AI Affect Your Online Shopping?

[Epic Meepo]

That’s not the point. It’s not about what you can afford or even personally desire. It’s about the nature of the product and its value.

Are you referring to the monetary value of a product? I'd argue that non-copyrightable content has no monetary value at all. Intangible assets such as content are only as valuable as society's intellectual property laws allow them to be. If intellectual property laws declare the creator of an AI-generated product isn't due any financial compensation if someone else distributes content they created for free, then the content in question has no inherent monetary value.

That's not to say someone can't add value to non-copyrightable content. If someone prints the content out, the physical book has value as a physical product. If someone hosts the content on a website, the website itself has value as a service provided. But I'd argue the value derives from the good or service itself, not the non-copyrightable content associated with the good or service. If someone wants to pay for a freeware download that comes with tech support, they're paying for the tech support, not the freeware.

If, on the other hand, you're referring to the moral or societal value of non-copyrightable content, then that's a different conversation altogether, one which I haven't yet addressed.

 

[Morrus]

Are you referring to the monetary value of a product?

Are you referring to the monetary value of a product? I'd argue that non-copyrightable content has no monetary value at all. Intangible assets such as content are only as valuable as society's intellectual property laws allow them to be. If intellectual property laws declare the creator of an AI-generated product isn't due any financial compensation if someone else distributes content they created for free, then the content in question has no inherent monetary value.

That's not to say someone can't add value to non-copyrightable content. If someone prints the content out, the physical book has value as a physical product. If someone hosts the content on a website, the website itself has value as a service provided. But I'd argue the value derives from the good or service itself, not the non-copyrightable content associated with the good or service. If someone wants to pay for a freeware download that comes with tech support, they're paying for the tech support, not the freeware.

If, on the other hand, you're referring to the moral or societal value of non-copyrightable content, then that's a different conversation altogether, one which I haven't yet addressed.

I'd argue that non-copyrightable content has no monetary value at all. Intangible assets such as content are only as valuable as society's intellectual property laws allow them to be. If intellectual property laws declare the creator of an AI-generated product isn't due any financial compensation if someone else distributes content they created for free, then the content in question has no inherent monetary value.

That's not to say someone can't add value to non-copyrightable content. If someone prints the content out, the physical book has value as a physical product. If someone hosts the content on a website, the website itself has value as a service provided. But I'd argue the value derives from the good or service itself, not the non-copyrightable content associated with the good or service. If someone wants to pay for a freeware download that comes with tech support, they're paying for the tech support, not the freeware.

If, on the other hand, you're referring to the moral or societal value of non-copyrightable content, then that's a different conversation altogether, one which I haven't yet addressed.

I don’t think I could have been any clearer, but no that is not what I said. But my interest level in the topic just evaporated. It wasn’t that high to begin with, and faced with saying the same thing a third time I’m just gonna nope out.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think, within the gaming-publishing space, the thing will be found to be self-limiting. Yes, at the moment, if you take an individual reader, and individual passages, we can find it hard to tell the difference between genAI content and human-written content.

But, in aggregate, I think the truth will out - on the level of the overall market, I expect a sorting to happen, based on the quality of ideas in the product, rather than upon whether a single paragraph looks like it was written by AI.

This is one of the reasons I suspect AI art is going to end up being more acceptable in RPG books than purely AI text; at least at its current stage, I suspect the latter is going to stand out to a lot more people and in an area which is the priority point in buying a game text.

(Yes, I know some people are very sensitive to AI art. Some of that's legitimate, and some of it is people throwing a lot of false positives, and at least the latter group isn't actually impacting the issue meaninfully because they'll see it where it doesn't exist.)

 

[CleverNickName]

(Yes, I know some people are very sensitive to AI art. Some of that's legitimate, and some of it is people throwing a lot of false positives, and at least the latter group isn't actually impacting the issue meaninfully because they'll see it where it doesn't exist.)

It doesn't help that every time AI-generated images are mentioned in the news, it's for the worst reasons imaginable.

 

[The Firebird]

This holiday season I saw several companies with AI ads. I assume they have big marketing budgets and were able to check if those would alienate many consumers. But then, I might imagine they did the research, and some higher-ups suggested they move forward anyway, anticipating consumers would come around. I don't really know of any data on the matter, but I found it interesting.

 

[Umbran]

I meant it's bad news for the economy in general. A lot of people have invested a lot of money in this stuff, and not just within the gaming industry (TTRPGs, video games, all of it.) But you're right, it's not all bad news. I should try to look on the brighter side.

Ah. Got it.

As I understand it, "products" like books and such, are a minor source of income for those who make genAIs. So, it isn't the public's lack of desire for AI text or images that will sink it.

As I understand it, the bulk of the supposed values comes in turning to Enterprise-class companies, and effectively saying, "We will replace and streamline your operation to the point it can be done with two trained monkeys and a shivering chihuahua. Give us loads of cash, and you will be in business Utopia."

Unfortunately for the tech companies, only about 5% of the Enterprise projects using genAI return even today's more modest value expectations, much less the hundredfold greater amount needed to support the expenditures. While everyone in the business world is hyping AI, companies are soon going to be finding it doesn't save them anything - either the results are so full of errors that the damage business, or they spend just as much time correcting AI work as they'd do doing things with humans.

In the end, it isn't bad PR that's going to kill it. That it doesn't do enough to justify its cost will kill it.