Creators are getting backlash for using AI. I went to a conference full of those who are proud of it.

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Kelsey Vlamis

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How do influencers and content creators feel about getting roasted for using AI?

Mostly unbothered. At least, that was the vibe at a conference for AI creators that I attended in Los Angeles this week.

I joined hundreds of creators, marketers, brands, and AI enthusiasts on Tuesday at "AI Creator Day," hosted by industry trade publication TheWrap and media brand What's Trending. The one-day event took place at UCLA and featured talks like "What It Actually Takes to Make an AI Series" and "Who Decides What's Human?"

"We're taking it in the head right now," said DeStorm Power about people leaving "slop" comments on content made with AI. He spoke on a panel about how OG YouTubers are using the tech.

Despite the comments, Power, who has over 3 million subscribers on YouTube, said he ignores them and focuses instead on the thousands of people who enjoy the AI-generated content he makes.

Going in, I had expected plenty of conversation about how creators can navigate AI backlash — like the influencers who got skewered for attending a brand trip hosted by OpenAI or the dramatic apology issued by longtime YouTuber Hank Green for "relying too heavily on AI."

Instead, I found a lot of hype, practical AI filmmaking tips, and few apologies. Creators proudly presented their AI-generated projects — from a comedy sketch about having a Merman for a roommate to a black-and-white, old-Hollywood-style short — and dished about how many humans and AI credits they used to make them.

Most of the creators were well past debating whether they should use AI to tell stories and were far more interested in how they should use it and what they could do with it.

A 'safe space' to talk about AI

Several of the attendees I spoke with said they came to "AI Creator Day" in part because it represented a "safe space."

The overarching sentiment among creators was that they were excited to share how they used AI and what it enabled them to do.

Makers of an AI-generated sci-fi action thriller series called "The Arc" said they were able to fully complete the first episode, from ideation to final cut, in three and a half weeks. Chris Capel, a YouTuber who screened his AI-generated short "Living with a Merman," said the idea for the sketch was 20 years old, but that he never had the resources to make it happen, until now.

It wasn't always clear how much each of the works shown had been generated by AI — were the ideas, jokes, and dialogue all generated by AI, or was it a human-written story and script with AI supplying the visuals? — but creators repeatedly emphasized the same message: A human made this, and AI was a tool they used.

AI tools that repeatedly came up included Seedance and Kling for generating video, Midjourney and Nano Banana Pro for creating images, and ChatGPT and Claude for ideation and writing.

David Bianchi, an actor, producer, and director whose credits include work on traditional film and TV productions, said he wanted to dispel the notion that making AI cinema is easy.

"It does take serious craft," he said during a panel discussion. "You have the tools, but you can't make taste."

While the work shown was far more impressive than some of the AI slop that's become increasingly common online, the photorealistic productions still had a bit of that uncanny valley effect at times.

The inevitability of AI

Some talks confronted the tougher questions around AI. During a panel called "Who Decides What's Human?," James Douglas, a vice president at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said it's important that consumers aren't misled about what's AI and what's not.

"The person who is consuming the content should not be deceived," he said.

There was less discussion about other common concerns about AI, like how to ensure AI-generated work is not too derivative of others' and whether the opportunities presented by AI will outweigh the human jobs that could be lost when productions can be made with much fewer people.

Vincent Marcus, a creator with more than 1.3 million Instagram followers, said he expects he'll no longer be needed for the voice acting work he does: "I'm already preparing for my job to not exist." He said that has pushed him to embrace AI and prepare for the future.

A major theme of the day was the idea that the AI wave is inevitable and that creators who don't embrace it will be left behind.

"The game is changing," Bernie Su, a web series creator and head of creative for the AI entertainment company Pickford, said. "We'll do our thing. Audiences will react to us, and we'll see what happens."

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Kelsey Vlamis

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Kelsey Vlamis is a senior reporter for Business Insider, where she covers business and tech news. She also writes business stories about travel, luxury, and culture. Previously, she covered the environment, outdoors, and indigenous issues.Her feature story "Disaster at 18,200 feet" received awards from the New York Press Club and the North American Travel Journalists Association, as well as honorable mention from the Society of American Travel Writers. She has also received an American Journalism Online Award for her coverage on missing and murdered Indigenous people in Wyoming.She's appeared on CBS, NPR, NBC, and other outlets to discuss her reporting. She previously worked on the world news desk at the BBC in London and received a master's in journalism from Northwestern University.She can be reached by email at [email protected] or via the encrypted-messaging app Signal at kelseyv.21.

• AI
• Creator economy
• Influencers
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