AI creator who "went through" Bama Rush was created by a VC firm. Why?

I just caught up on the AI PNM (potential new member) that went through Alabama rush tok. As it turns out, the person that was behind the AI creator is somebody who works at venture firm. A16Z which makes me have a ton of questions about the experiment that I otherwise probably would not have really cared to think about after scrolling past the videos. Venture capital has poured millions and billions of dollars into companies that are betting that there's a future where consumers will like AI creators just as much, if not more than they like human creators. From the blog post about this experiment, it seems like the question that this experiment was designed to answer was, your favorite creator isn't real—does it matter? And does that matter? The best case scenario for this experiment (for a VC firm) is that no, it does not matter. It does not matter if your favorite creator is AI. And people either can't tell the difference between an AI and a human creator, or they do not care. By the way, I do not think we would be creating hyper realistic AI video if there was not some intent to deceive. So for the purposes of this, I'm going to assume that some amount of success relies on people not being able to tell the difference between AI and real. So the good outcome, the best case scenario, is that people cannot tell for them to be willing to spend money on whatever this influencer is selling. And an AI creator could essentially do what Kylen Darnell did then. The bad outcome for this experiment for a VC firm is that it does matter. People do not want to see AI creators. They do not have an investment in how this person's life plays out. They do not want to shop the things that this influencer tells them they should go and get. And that all of the companies that A16Z has in their portfolio that are working really hard to make more realistic AI image generation or video generation tools, products, or models are creating those tools. And models despite the fact that nobody wants the outputs of their tools, products, and models. To me, the outcome of this experiment seems good for society, bad for VC. People could tell that this creator was AI from the first video that was posted. The woman behind the AI creator said that she was kind of impressed to see that the human ability to detect AI seems to have gotten more sophisticated, even as the models continue themselves to get more sophisticated. She carried out a similar experiment last year and it took people longer to identify the AI creator as AI. And I would say her highest point of engagement for this AI creator was leaning into the bit that this creator was AI and making very in-group tech jokes by describing herself as "being great at summarizing" "trying to avoid hallucinations." Her best friend's names are Fable and Sol. Funny AI jokes, but not necessarily a good indication of scalability of an AI influencer. It would seem if there were to be AI influencers who could make as lucrative of careers as human influencers have done, the models we need to advance significantly still. The ability for humans to detect AI when it's in front of them would need to stop evolving at the same time in order for deception to be possible at scale. And we would need to root for an outcome where human emotions are being preyed on by non-human avatars. For example, one way that this AI avatar going through Bama Rush could have been really successful is if people felt really emotionally connected to the outcome of her journey through rush. Her being heartbroken not getting into a house that she liked, her feeling the joy and acceptance of joining a house that she did like. If we understand the primary viewer of Bama Rush talk as middle-aged women, they would need to feel maternal over this young girl going through a range of human emotions. Enough to care about her and to follow her consistently over years. For a VC to do this, the worst case scenario for them is kind of more or less what does happen today, which is that people are saying, "we know you're AI." And they're responding to people who are engaging with AI creators as if they are real with quite venomous comments asking these people, "more or less are you stupid? Are you media illiterate that you could not tell that this was an AI creator?" So what do we learn from this? Maybe because people seemed more entertained when they realized that the creator was AI and the AI creator was playing into that bit. It becomes a reason for venture firms or their portfolio companies to also advocate for platforms like TikTok to do a better job of labeling AI generated content so that viewers can feel like they're part of the bit, rather than always feel on guard for all the ways in which they might possibly be deceived by the things that they're watching. Maybe it's an indication that products prioritizing the human experience and the human connection are ones that should get equal amounts of funding because that's where the return of consumer spending might be higher. Or maybe there's another success metric here that I'm not privy to. Maybe the whole point was just to get people talking about this AI creator like I'm doing right now. What does seem clear to me though, is that the rest of the AI industry, everyone from Zuckerberg to Sam Altman are on a new press tour trying to lessen the distaste and distrust that the average consumer has for AI. I find it curious the timing of trying to put an AI generated creator to deceive viewers of Bama Rush talk at the same time that the rest of the industry is trying to get people to like and trust this technology. A young generative-generated girl intended to deceive loyal viewers of this particular side of TikTok, maybe doesn't seem like a good way to try to increase trust for the technology. But then again, maybe it really was just an experiment intended to understand how far the tools have progressed in the last year.