The next Li Ziqi may be done by AI

Original source: Metaverse metaverse

Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI

Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, once put forward the idea that in the past, it was generally thought that AI first affected repetitive work such as manual labor, and finally creative work, but now it seems to be in the reverse order.

For those jobs that require "creativity", AI seems to be able to do it well, or even better.

Kwebbelkop is a YouTube game streamer with 15.1 million followers, which is comparable to Li Ziqi's 17.9 million followers.

Kwebbelkop's YouTube homepage

Back in 2010, Kwebbelkop started uploading videos on YouTube, starting with Call of Duty gameplay, now mostly GTA 5 and Minecraft, as well as some real-world challenge videos.

Kwebbelkop is challenging to have Mentos and Coke in his mouth at the same time

Kwebbelkop tried to make the car turn as many laps in the air as possible in GTA 5

Enough humor and quirky content, plus a decade of high-frequency updates, and hair full of personal style. These remarkable personal qualities have allowed him to attract audiences from all over the world.

From hobbies to work, Jordi (Kwebbelkop's real name) has always been an integral core of the Kwebbelkop channel.

Five years ago, he discovered that as soon as he left the camera, his company would be paralyzed.

"Every time I want to go on vacation or have a little bit of time for myself, it's hard for me to achieve. Because it will bring my career to a complete standstill."

He had to think about how to change the status quo. Until the advent of generative AI, he found a glimmer of hope, and he became one of the first video creators to embrace AI.

Kwebbelkop's first AI-powered video went live a week ago.

This is a Minecraft game live. Kwebbelkop has to complete the "One Block Challenge" in-game, which is a common challenge in Minecraft, and even Kwebbelkop has done this genre for the third time.

What makes this video unusual is the discovery that Kwebbelkop has become VTuber (virtual streamer).

YouTuber Slogo, who had worked closely with him, could see that his English accent had changed, mixed with the smell of machine synth.

Even Kwebbelkop, who started with Minecraft game live, actually forgot how to grow watermelons in the game.

In addition to these unusualness, viewers also saw Kwebbelkop's avatar suddenly twist his neck eeriely, possibly due to a motion capture device recognition error.

Kwebbelkop didn't reveal too many details about how he uses AI to make videos. But what can be guessed is that this is a video made by another person holding Kwebbelkop's "holster" and then using AI to imitate the sound of Kwebbelkop.

Viewers are clearly not satisfied with his "upgrade", and the video currently has 19,000 likes, 10 times more likes.

"I think I can speak for most people, I miss the old version of Jordi and I think it was a bad decision for him."

"He went from a Minecraft game commentary to an artificial horror I couldn't understand."

But Kwebbelkop doesn't think so, at least now that he has a work-life balance. He was able to take a good rest while the channel was constantly changing, and even retired directly.

Kwebbelkop said on X (Twitter) that the idea that Kwebbelkop AI "has no soul" is ridiculous, because people only say that a piece of content is "soulless" if it is known, thought or assumed that it was generated by artificial intelligence. If people don't know, AI will perform better creatively than ordinary people.

What he said seems to be reasonable. Since Kwebbelkop announced the use of AI to make videos, many people have started accusing him of also sending tweets and YouTube comments that are also generated by AI. But he directly laughed at the fact that these people couldn't tell what content was AI-generated. Finally, he did not forget to sign "Jordi (real person)" at the end of the tweet.

Kwebbelkop told Wired, "In this industry (YouTuber), you start a company, but the company is completely dependent on you as a person to run it, it's definitely a terrible business model, it's too risky."

In 2021, Kwebbelkop launched a VTuber powered by artificial intelligence technology, Bloo. This is his first attempt at running a YouTube channel with an avatar. Now he has 783,000 followers, making Kewbbelkop another source of income.

Bloo's YouTube homepage

Unlike other VTubers, who usually have only one "man in the middle" (the actor behind VTuber), Kwebbelkop bluntly stated in an interview that Bloo is played by 3 people and has three different voices. But they share a persona – a blue-haired vegetarian.

▲ Bloo is playing a game

Compared to Kwebbelkop, Bloo without flesh can only make live video of the game. At first, he increased his popularity by working with Kwebbelkop, and only gradually turned to independent "appearances".

Bloo and Kwebbelkop overlapped in the theme of the video, so Bloo did take on some traffic from Kwebbelkop. Even some Youtuber observers have found that the launch of Bloo has caused the Kwebbelkop channel to slip.

But Bloo's experiment has been so successful, and Kwebbelkop has opened a second channel, allowing his company to operate two IPs at the same time. At the same time, Kwebbelkop can also take a break from the show to manage the company's development or start other businesses.

▲ Bloo updated his image in July

Jordi has also said that he will gradually abandon Kwebbelkop's channel once Bloo's playback steadily exceeds Kwebbelkop.

Later, Jordi suffered from mental illness due to the death of his father and a change in his relationship, and he and two other YouTuber partners temporarily disbanded the collaboration, and even the game live updates became fewer.

These changes also confirm that Bloo did generate some revenue for Jordi to keep his company moving. His next step is to make Kwebbelkop VTuber as well.

Admittedly, for Kwebbelkop, there are endless benefits to having AI replace itself. After all, Kwebbelkop AI can always withstand a plastic explosion hairstyle, it won't get longer, frizzy, and don't need to be taken care of. Kwebbelkop no longer needs to maintain the same hairstyle all the time in order to maintain his personality.

Lia Haberman, an influencer marketing expert at UCLA, believes this gives creators a new way to clone a "person" who looks like themselves in every way without worrying about aging, weight gain or health problems.

But she also said that audiences won't necessarily buy it. Because the appeal of YouTubers is that they have the human nature and can make some kind of social connection with their audience. People will at least empathize with YouTubers, or want to be them.

But when Kwebbelkop became AI, people seemed to lose that connection with him. The audience knows that behind this 3D explosive hairstyle "person" is not their familiar Kwebbelkop, but another actor, using AI to imitate the voice of Kwebbelkop. Even the script of the video may have been generated by an AI who repeatedly watched and learned the style of Kwebbelkop's videos.

And, of course, replies on social platforms. Kwebbelkop confirmed in a recent video that some of his tweets were automated by AI.

Although fans are disgusted with Kwebbelkop AI, Kwebbelkop clearly doesn't think so. He felt that it was a misconception that people thought AI would ruin his creativity, and instead he felt that AI would enhance his creativity. He believes that for a storyteller, just tell a good story, and no one cares if the story is written, filmed or AI-generated.

He was confident that AI could learn and replicate his creativity and decided to bet his most important asset, the Kwebbelkop channel, on the transformation of the artificial intelligence VTuber.

Kwebbelkop also hopes that more creators will join in AI creation, or rather, people will buy the AI creation tool he has developed, Project V.

This is another tool different from Kwebbelkop AI, Project V is more automated, requiring almost only a few hints to complete lines, images, sounds, clips, and even a VTuber image in ten minutes, but can only generate a few short videos.

▲ The channel is an experiment by YouTuber Jensen Tung, who managed to get nearly 100,000 views in one month for his short videos created by AI

Kwebbelkop opened up registration for the AI authoring tool on his X (Twitter), but currently only allows 10 screened users to try it out. In the future, he hopes to sell AI creation tools publicly for $100 a month, with a limit of 60 videos per month.

He summarizes three advantages of this tool: giving you a break, expanding your brand, and thinking about how your life's work will last forever when you die.

The comment retorted to him very unkindly, "The third virtue simply belittles your efforts as human beings, and your life's work does not belong to you at all".

Copyright attribution for AI-generated content aside, this is more like a reflection on the relationship between AI-generated content and creators.

Now the human version of Kwebbelkop no longer sits in front of the camera and plays games. Instead, there is a "man in the middle" unknown to fans, who manipulates the game's characters while having a motion capture device scan faces to match Kwebbelkop's VTuber image.

And he is sitting here now only because AI cannot yet replace his existence.

Is it possible that the "man in the middle" will also disappear? After all, AlphaGo's twin brother, AlphaStar, not only played StarCraft, but also defeated StarCraft II's world champion.

When we see Sun Yanzi facing the exclamation of AI Sun Yanzi, Universal Music takes the initiative to embrace AI, digital human anchors open to sweep the live broadcast room, whether it is bloggers who attract fans by beauty, talent, and humor, it seems that they will usher in tireless new opponents.

At least for a game creator like Kwebbelkop, it doesn't seem so surprising that it becomes completely AI.

Perhaps even a top stream like Li Ziqi may be made with AI.