Never underestimate the power of convenience. (aka laziness)
But, maybe the market for these AI generated 3D models will tank as the AI models improve. We’re in a period where there is a lot of churn-- no one knows what the economic landscape for any given AI impacted market will look like in the near future.
It could be that the cost of flooding this market with AI generated 3D models is low enough that it still makes profit, a la spam mail. Or it could be that AI models improve such that it’s trivial for people to prompt for their own 3D models and the need for this marketplace vanishes entirely. Or somewhere in the middle.
No one knows, and anyone who says with certainty that they do is selling you something.
Edit: two different types of models being discussed. Clarified.
the marketplace is being flooded by AI-generated assets, representing one in six models — but they only account for only $1 out of every $90 in revenue.
Is it? Maybe I’m missing some context you have, but if they are hypothetically selling $90,000/day (a made up, probably too large number) then AI generated 3D models bring in $1,000/day.
Not a perfect fit, but still relevant XKCD. And convenience still is something, people pay for, too. People buy a lot of things they can theoretically do themselves for multiple reasons.
Why would anyone buy an AI-generated 3D model if you could just buy a Claude license and have the AI make it for you from scratch?
Why would anyone buy an AI-generated 3D model if you could buy one created by a real human with real skills?
Because your standards are low, you don’t actually give a fuck, you need a cheap placeholder, it’s for a random throw away thing.
There is literally countless reasons a cheap mass produced slop model is preferable to a high quality human made one.
I guarantee you there are low-quality human-made models, too.
What were people doing before? It’s not like everyone immediately forgot how to do their jobs when AI started… right?
Never underestimate the power of convenience. (aka laziness)
But, maybe the market for these AI generated 3D models will tank as the AI models improve. We’re in a period where there is a lot of churn-- no one knows what the economic landscape for any given AI impacted market will look like in the near future.
It could be that the cost of flooding this market with AI generated 3D models is low enough that it still makes profit, a la spam mail. Or it could be that AI models improve such that it’s trivial for people to prompt for their own 3D models and the need for this marketplace vanishes entirely. Or somewhere in the middle.
No one knows, and anyone who says with certainty that they do is selling you something.
Edit: two different types of models being discussed. Clarified.
As the article says, people are already not buying AI generated 3d models. So the price can’t really tank further.
The article has this to say:
That’s not $0.
It kind of is, though.
Is it? Maybe I’m missing some context you have, but if they are hypothetically selling $90,000/day (a made up, probably too large number) then AI generated 3D models bring in $1,000/day.
That’s not $0/day.
When you consider operating costs, yes, probably less than zero.
Not a perfect fit, but still relevant XKCD. And convenience still is something, people pay for, too. People buy a lot of things they can theoretically do themselves for multiple reasons.