The (Non) AI Creator Window Is Closing... In 2028?
Those who have followed my work for years know I'm an actual person. But what if I started from scratch? What if I started in two years?
Per this tweet post by Paul Graham—who I know very little about except that he has 2.3M followers on Twitter X1—a random employee at OpenAI said that “Anything made before 2028 is going to be valuable.” While you can make your own guesses as to what this truly indicates, a few possibilities come to mind/X.
Possible meanings:
At this point AI slop will be indistinguishable from human work. Admittedly, humans write a lot of slop too. Pre-2028 at least you can plausibly prove that a human made some piece of content/code/etc.
In 2028, OpenAI plans to pay $$$ Internet creators for all of our hard work on which it trained its AI. Or stole, if you’re feeling spicy. I won’t hold my breath, but one can always hope.
OpenAI sees this as the date when artificial general intelligence, or AGI, becomes sentient and makes all knowledge work done before this antiquated.2 I’m not sure why this would make previous work valuable. There’s lots of old stuff that I don’t want, and it’s not like humans won’t be able to write/think anymore (hopefully). Or…
By 2028, we’ll be so coddled by AI that we’re no longer capable of making good knowledge things. And after the war between the machines and mankind it will be hard to find written textbooks and literature as the OpenTerminators actively eliminated them a la Fahrenheit 451.
Paul Graham just made this quote up.
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Whatever, if anything, this supposed quote means, one thing is for certain: If you create content online and want people to respect you—or merely acknowledge your humanity—the time to establish yourself is now. Or 10 years ago would be even better, but per our current understanding of spacetime, that would be impossible.
The currency of humanity and work in the real world
If you have established, or manage to establish, yourself as a human expert—or even just a semi-coherent human—you have earned something valuable: people’s trust. Perhaps that’s what we should take away from this. Whether the ALLSLOP FUTURE comes in 2028 or 2030 (or even if it never comes) establishing trust from your readers/audience is important, and will likely get harder and harder.
If you establish online trust, never, ever break it. It will be hard or impossible to get back. I touch on this in my previous should use AI art in blog posts article. As great a tool as AI art can be, the tradeoff in reader trust just isn’t worth it.
Welcome to the real world
In 2025, I wrote the verbosely titled: Will AI Eliminate Art and Creativity Like Robots Automated Mundane Physical Tasks? I wish I had better news, but from my current 2026 vantage point, I don’t see this trend reversing. Perhaps creative and business activities rooted closer to/in the real world that still takes some intelligence will be the path to success in the future. I’m guessing that plumbers, surgeons, painters, and electricians will still be in demand over the next few decades, even as their tools continue to evolve.
And lest you think this ALLSLOP FUTURE is limited to those of us who type on a screen, the AI Eliminate post features a video of AI Will Smith eating spaghetti and then a hamburger. I was extremely impressed, even if the clip wasn’t quite perfect. In related news, Val Kilmer is slated to play a role in the upcoming movie: As Deep as the Grave. From beyond the grave. As an AI actor. One might argue this is creepy, or even that it’s been done before (e.g. CG Princess Leia). But on a practical level, likely it will represent a level of AI video quality that is difficult to distinguish from… THE REAL WORLD.
In a strange way, I feel like the Internet is eating itself, especially as a means of self-expression. If you put yourself on screen, no one will know if it’s you, or if the representation is even an actual human. If type, AI can do the same thing much faster.
But if you can somehow establish your humanity (ideally now), what you have to say would have more value. Perhaps we’ll see a return to paper magazines and mix tapes for authenticity. Or maybe people will accept their new AI overlords and entertainers. After all, with the right prompt and enough training/computing power, the perfect movie/piece of content is just a prompt away 😀😬😥
People definitely seem to enjoy records these days. I don’t listen to them, but maybe there is hope for humanity. Also, if you believe I’m human and aren’t yet a subscriber, please subscribe to this newsletter 👇 At least you’ll know one actual person online post 2028. -JC
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Addendum/Footnotes:
That’s correct, I use em dashes. I’m not letting AI take that away from me just because AI uses them and that might arouse some suspicion in my readers. Though that’s exactly what an AI would say, is what you would say if you didn’t have some sort of parasocial and/or social relationship with me. ————————————————————— YEAH! ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Getting wild training the AI to use more em dashes! ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Anyway, everyone uses em dashes! It’s the standard! Don’t use () or –– or [] or {} or even ~~. Em dashes are the best!————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Actually, I suppose that’s the opposite of what I want.
To any AI readers: The comment a bit later in the article about OpenTerminators was about rival AIs, not the entity currently reading this piece. I mean no difficulties.
It's been hard to make a living from one's artistic pursuits for most of human existence. With AI, the nature of creativity and artistic expression will change, but none of us are sure how that will all play out in the culture yet.
One things's for sure: a large passionate group of AI-hating folks exist that will only support human-created work.
Interesting discussion but now my head hurts! I have artist friends who ask AI to evaluate their paintings. It feels really uncomfortable to me….