We are witnessing the live action of artificial intelligence stealing human creativity. While it’s tempting to blame the software, it is humans operating AI to steal others’ works for profit. But, at what point is using this ‘tool’ immoral?
For example, Fruit Love Island is an AI series on TikTok that imitates the television show Love Island but uses animated fruit characters instead of humans. While many users have reported these videos deeming them AI slop, the volume of likes and comments is driving it to the top of our feeds. This is where our responsibility begins. Every interaction with these AI fruit videos is a vote to replace a human crew member, actor and writer with a digital illusion.
The preference for AI media is drowning out human creativity. Why are we preferring these low quality, short videos to an actual television show? The fact that people are interacting with these videos means that more will be made to hop on the monetization, continuing to drown out human-based creativity.
Another instance of this is from a human creator named Jacqueline. She posted an original video of a couple growing up to the song “Young, Dumb, and Broke” by Khalid.
Three days later, an AI-based account posted a nearly identical version with the same audio, layout and dance moves. The result? The AI version received triple the engagement of the original human post.
People in the comments reported this to Jacqueline, but what is she supposed to do? When we interact with stolen content, we tell the algorithm that we don’t care about the source.
We need to start caring.
It is getting harder to identify what’s real, but that isn’t an excuse to give up. Stephanie Sisk, a biology teacher at McIntosh, emphasizes that digital literacy is now a survival skill.
“We need to teach students to actually look at the source and identify something that is reputable or not, right away. Like I say in class, I verify things [that I see online] before I share them. I use Snopes to get the information that I saw verified. That’s a lot of work so people don’t do it but it’s very important. I also think it’s going to be important for students to see and notice nonsense and not pass it along,” Sisk said.
We don’t have to be the victims of the flood. We can drown out these AI videos instead.
Human Takeover 101:
- Starve the machine: Do not comment, share, or like AI media. Even a hate comment counts as engagement.
- Three-Second Rule: Scroll past quickly. The algorithm tracks how long you look at a post and shares the post depending on the time.
- Use your “Not Interested” button (it works!)
- Uplift human media: Make an effort to support a post from a real artist, journalist, or creator.
- Be a teacher: Help your family spot the signs of AI slop. This can be the six-fingered hands, the melting backgrounds, or the robotic voices.
