- July 29, 2025
- FOXITBLOG
The video production industry is at a pivotal crossroads, a moment of profound transformation that is both exhilarating and unsettling. For decades, the democratization of filmmaking has been a gradual, linear process, beginning with the transition from expensive 35mm film to Betamax and eventually to today’s affordable 4K and 8K digital cameras. Each step made the tools of creation more accessible, but the fundamental craft remained: you had to point a camera at something real to capture it. Now, with the advent of generative AI, we’ve taken a leap into a new paradigm. We are no longer limited to capturing reality; we can invent it from scratch with a few keystrokes.
This technological shift has triggered a familiar kind of excitement – a new creative frontier promising to make anyone a filmmaker and eliminate the need for expensive production gear. But as the initial shock and awe of AI-generated clips begin to wear off, a new, more nuanced conversation is taking shape. This conversation centers not on what AI can do, but on what it cannot. While the technology is a powerful new addition to the creative arsenal, it has also unleashed a flood of low-effort, inconsistent content that threatens to drown out genuine human creativity. The promise of boundless creation is being challenged by the reality of a race to the bottom, where the demand for quick and easy content threatens to devalue the very notion of a compelling narrative.
Generative AI, in its current form, is a tool of convenience that can easily lead to creative complacency. When a user can simply type a few words and generate a video, there is a temptation to accept the first usable result, regardless of whether it aligns with the initial vision. This is what many in the industry are calling AI slop. As Rob Wiltsey, CEO and founder of VideoFresh, defines it: “To me, AI slop is like, ‘I’m just going to hammer in a sentence and then whatever that thing gets me, I’m going to say that’s great and I’m going to use it and I’m going to post it'”. The output is often a gamble, with no guarantee that the final result will match the intent, no matter how detailed the prompt. It’s a process akin to a slot machine, where you pull the lever and hope for a jackpot, but with little to no control over the outcome.
This loss of creative control is a fundamental problem. Text-to-video is a powerful way to get something, but it is also the most difficult way to get something specific. The average person using these tools is forced to reverse-engineer their vision, limiting their creativity to what the model can reliably produce, rather than using the tools to bring their full vision to life. This subversion of the creative process (where the tool dictates the art) is a hallmark of a nascent technology still finding its footing. The result is an endless stream of content that is visually novel but spiritually hollow.
The real danger of this era of convenient creation is a potential devaluation of the creative process itself. A study from MIT, referenced by Wiltsey, revealed that when people used a chatbot to write content, their brain activity was significantly diminished compared to when they were writing on their own. This suggests that AI can effectively outsource not just our labor, but our critical thinking and, by extension, our creativity. We risk becoming a society that is complicit with indifference, accepting a wave of potentially mediocre content that we don’t necessarily love or hate, but simply accept as content.
This phenomenon is already manifesting in the public sphere. When people post images that are clearly AI-generated, the comments often feature negative reactions like “AI slop” or “AI garbage”. These are not just critiques of execution; they are visceral reactions to the absence of human subtext and genuine creative struggle. The audience can instinctively sense when a work lacks the human touch. The meticulous planning, the collaborative problem-solving, the soul that goes into a truly inspired piece of work, all missing.
This brings us to a crucial point about the nature of content and why some forms will always remain irreplaceable. The most impactful video, the kind that captivates and endures, is not just about the final visual result; it’s about the subtext and the story behind the content. It’s about the real people, real stories, and real emotions that viewers crave. As Rob Wiltsey points out, “I think that there is going to be such an appetite for authenticity. I think in a world where everything is AI and there’s no subtext behind anything, we are going to have a big appetite for what we’ve always loved about content, which is real people, real stories, real struggles, real victories, real drama.”
This appetite for the real is why audiences are drawn to feats of authenticity, from Jackie Chan’s jaw-dropping stunts to Tom Cruise’s real-life motorcycle jumps off a mountain. It’s also why one of the most popular forms of content on platforms like YouTube is the simple “talking head” video. In other words, a real person sitting in a real chair, speaking directly to the camera. The value is in the connection, in the belief that a real human is sharing a real thought, a subtext that AI simply cannot replicate.
For businesses and content creators, this presents a unique strategic opportunity. In an environment where the bar is being lowered by an onslaught of AI-generated content, making the extra effort becomes a competitive advantage. When everyone is “zigging” with AI slop, the creators who “zag” with authentic, human-crafted videos will stand out from the noise. This shift could even make professional production companies busier than ever, as brands realize that while AI can handle some of the volume, it can’t build a brand’s soul.
The misconception that AI video is always faster and cheaper is a particularly prevalent myth. Many creators, after spending days generating, editing, and regenerating content to get a short, 30-second clip, have found that the process can be just as long and costly as traditional production. In some cases, as Wiltsey explains, “it might even be cheaper for you to pay us to use a camera than to pay us to jujitsu the generative AI models around to get your video”. This is because the creative control, consistency, and specificity required for a professional-grade video can be agonizingly difficult to achieve with current AI models.
The tools themselves have significant limitations, but also particular benefits. Certain AI models, for example, cannot generate a video of a specific, everyday action like a person putting a capsule in their mouth and drinking water. This forces creators to stay within “safe zones” of what the models are good at, limiting creativity and compromising their original vision. This is a reversal of the traditional creative process, where the story drives the tool, and a clear indication that a simple text prompt is a far cry from a professional workflow. The true value of these tools is likely to be found in a mixed approach, where AI is used to manipulate and enhance existing footage rather than creating it from the ground up.
The future of video production, therefore, is not a simple replacement of human labor with AI. Instead, we are entering a new era of hybridization. The most powerful AI tools are not the ones that create from scratch but those that manipulate and enhance existing footage. The most successful creators will be those who can thoughtfully integrate these tools into a larger, human-led workflow. As Rob Wiltsey concludes, “The AI does not have the soul. The AI is a paintbrush”. Ultimately, the biggest takeaway from this technological moment is that our role as creators has not been replaced; it has been elevated. We now have an opportunity to offload the tedious, repetitive tasks that AI excels at, freeing up our time and resources to focus on the uniquely human parts of the creative process: crafting a compelling vision, capturing genuine emotion, and telling authentic stories that resonate with an audience. In the end, the ultimate value of generative AI in video will be not in the pixels it creates, but in the human creativity it helps unlock.
Watch the full podcast interview with Rob Wiltsey here.
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