Note: I originally began drafting this in June of 2023, never really “completed” it as an article or full argument of any kind. I’m happy to report that my prediction was rather exaggerated and more pessimistic than warranted: I still have my job, and the onsite use of the AI video tool has actually decreased as the hype has died.
But it probably is going to take your job.
An AI video generator tool was recently introduced into my workplace, a tool called Synthesia. It has several virtual “avatars,” a series of models/actors who have been scanned in and voice printed. The platform is an elaborate deepfake generator. You type in your script, and the ai will generate a video of these models speaking your script out loud.
A good portion of the project work I’ve been doing in my professional career is the talking head, corporate training video. Bring an expert into the studio, record their content on the greenscreen, edit the project together into a coherent, finished product.
Currently, there are some drawbacks to this tool, some fine tuning in regards to pronunciation and inflection, smoothness in transitions, and occasional uncanny valley dip as the avatar moves in an unintended way. This is only version 2 of the product.
I anticipate losing my job to this tool within two years.
What has instead happened is that AI chatbots have been crammed into every service, tool, app, website, imaginable.
The result has been layoffs in the tech sector, call centers, tier one support across industries. The effect has been disastrous for consumers, and particularly bad for workers. AI has a disciplining effect on the labor force, whereby too aggressive of a move towards unionization, wage increases, or resistance to return to office work is met with the threat of AI replacement.
We’ll see if consumers reward any tech company that steers fully into AI. So far, I’m optimistic that the general sentiment is anti-ai. Whether that truly becomes a pro-labor sentiment remains to be seen.
Further reading:
- Cory Doctorow: AI’s Productivity Theater
- Matthew Lloyd Roberts: Neural Networks & The Architectural Imagination
