AI "invades" content platforms, are creators ecstatic?

AI can perform repetitive and tedious tasks, thereby improving productivity. For creators, such AI functions are equivalent to an auxiliary tool that helps collect and filter information and improve creative efficiency. This article describes the relevant content and hopes it will be helpful to you.

Will AI’s invasion of content platforms bring about a new spring for creators, or a more serious crisis?

Although AI is still a new thing that is somewhat distant for ordinary people, for creators, AI has already invaded content platforms in a big way.

Whether based on our previous analysis of AI applications on public account platforms or the current attitudes of other content platforms such as Zhihu, Baijiahao, NetEase, and Toutiao towards AI, they all confirm the essence of this "invasion" - the popularization of AI applications.

1. AI “Invades” Content Platforms

Competition among content platforms is often undercurrent, but not many are high-profile.

Until April 13, Zhihu, the largest Chinese question-and-answer community with 400 million users, jointly launched the Chinese large model "Zhihaitu AI" with Mianbi Intelligence, which truly put the attitudes and applications of AI among content platforms on the table.

At present, Zhihaitu AI is mainly used in Zhihu hot lists. On the day of its release, it was announced that Zhihu’s first large-scale model function “Hot List Summary” had started internal testing.

According to the official example, the "Kanshan" AI assistant will appear below the hot questions and capture the opinions of high-quality questions and answers. After being sorted, aggregated, and polished by the AI ​​algorithm, the answer outline will be presented to the user.

Zeng Guoyang, co-founder and CTO of Mianbi Intelligence, said that in the application scenario of Zhihu's hot list, Zhihaitu AI achieved the same effect as GPT-4.

For creators, such AI functions are equivalent to an auxiliary tool, which helps to collect and screen information and improve creative efficiency.

Compared with Zhihu, whose AI function is always kept secret and has been in internal testing for three months, it is still not known to outsiders. Whether it is useful or not remains to be seen in the future. Baijiahao's "AI Notes", which was launched directly and quietly on May 8, appears to be more "confident".

Baijiahao's AI notes include two mainstream forms: video and pictures, which can assist in creating content on emotions, travel, food, fashion, digital, event promotion, etc. After the creator chooses the category in a targeted manner, as long as he puts forward a simple requirement, he can get a basically qualified copy.

Even if the content is to be published on other platforms, it can be created with the help of AI notes, and is not limited to being published on the Baijiahao platform.

Although the official announcement date of AI Notes is new, the function of automatically generating videos from Baijiahao content has been online for a long time. Now this function is also included in the function area of ​​AI Notes, with two options: "Input text to make a video" and "Select articles to make a video".

"Input text to create a video" requires creators to enter text content in the editing box. The official recommendation is 150 to 300 words for the best video quality. If it is difficult to accurately describe the video generation requirements, you can also enter a sentence to describe the creation theme, expand it through the "AI rewrite" function, or select recommended hot topics in the right column to inspire inspiration.

"Select articles to turn into videos" is suitable for converting the format of existing content. It can generate videos from articles with one click, and it is also convenient to distribute them to other video platforms.

Coincidentally, NetEase also openly supports AIGC.

On July 3, NetEase officially announced the "AI Smart Writer Plan" and launched four major writing functions: "AI Outline, AI Title, AI Raw Picture, and AI Article". The entrance is the "Smart AI Assistant" in the right column of the article editing box.

AI can provide one-stop services to assist in creation, including building outlines, continuing paragraphs, adjusting expressions, polishing content, making illustrations, and generating titles.

However, compared to Baijiahao, NetEase’s AI function is subject to limited-time discounts, and payment is made with the platform’s “Yi Beans”, which can be obtained by completing tasks such as check-in and creation.

It is worth noting that while various content platforms embrace AI, there is also strict supervision of AIGC (AI created content).

Zhihu released the "Community Announcement on Applying AIGC Capabilities to Assist Creation" on April 25:

Some users posted AIGC content without declaration, or even content containing factual errors, which caused misunderstandings to readers; some accounts posted AIGC content in batches, illegally raising their account levels. Therefore, Zhihu will restrict content that does not use the "includes AI-assisted creation" declaration in a standardized manner, investigate content that contains illegal and factual errors, and crack down on accounts that post AIGC content in batches.

On June 9, Toutiao also released an announcement on applying AIGC capabilities to create content:

The platform will impose penalties based on the degree of violation of the account. "Disclaimer" related instructions, such as "content is published by AI", "does not represent the author's personal views" or "works are for entertainment purposes only", will not exempt from penalties. The publisher must be responsible for the corresponding consequences of the content generated by AI.

Obviously, the platform hopes to follow the trend, but is also worried about overturning, so it can only promote it with one hand and ban it with the other. But there is no doubt that AIGC has already come onto the stage.

2. What will happen to platforms and creators?

Currently, all content platforms are betting on the AIGC track. AIGC is a double-edged sword for both platforms and content creators.

From a platform perspective, AIGC helps expand the content pool.

The quality of content depends on the ability of the creator, but the amount of content can be increased through platform tools. Convenient AI tools can undoubtedly greatly lower the threshold for content creation, improve creation efficiency, and naturally increase the amount of content. At the same time, the expansion of the content pool can feed back to the AI ​​corpus and further improve the AI ​​level.

But on the other hand, AIGC’s wild expansion will bring risks to the platform’s content ecology.

Everyone knows the quality of AIGC based on the current technical level. Once AIGC becomes widespread, it will inevitably lead to a decline in the overall content quality and damage the user experience. The platform may lose more than it gains.

From the perspective of content creators, AIGC is a new way to embrace the AI ​​era.

The convenience of AI tools is obvious to all, and it is now a consensus that proficiency in AI tools will be a competitive advantage in the future. Production tools have unlimited imagination in enhancing productivity, and the popularization of AI tools may also bring about changes in the way content is produced.

Therefore, it is necessary for creators to keep up with the times.

However, AIGC is also aimed at content creators, which cannot be ignored. AIGC has a huge impact on content creation, which is reflected in efficiency and industry elimination. AIGC is unlikely to eliminate high-quality content creators, but it can replace a considerable number of content movers.

At the same time, we also need to consider whether creators who are accustomed to the AIGC production method can still have their own unique content style and thinking ability. After all, these two are the core elements of sustainable creation.

But no matter what the future holds, it will be hard to stop the AIGC trend now that it has started. Both platforms and creators will be swept up by the trend and continue to move forward. In this process, we need to take advantage of AIGC, constantly learn new technologies, enhance our own creative tools, keep paying attention to the content trend, and improve our own creative ability. Only in this way can we avoid falling behind.

Author: Chen Chumu

Source: WeChat public account "Weiguojiang (ID: wjam123456)"