Summary
This ESL lesson for C1 English students delves into the intriguing world of AI-generated influencers and their transformative impact on media and business. Designed for advanced learners, the material uses an engaging video to spark discussions on the ethical and practical implications of this rapidly evolving technology.
Students will enhance their English skills through a variety of activities, including a comprehensive warm-up discussion, a fill-in-the-blanks listening exercise, and key vocabulary matching. The lesson also features targeted grammar practice focusing on the Past Simple Passive and practical exercises with idioms related to new trends and technology. Ultimately, students will engage in speaking tasks to articulate their perspectives on the future of content creation and digital authenticity.
Activities
- A warm-up discussion where students share their understanding of AI-generated influencers, the pros and cons of AI-generated content, and their thoughts on audience connections with virtual characters.
- Video comprehension questions based on a video exploring the business models and rapid growth of AI influencers, followed by a fill-in-the-blanks exercise to reinforce listening skills.
- A vocabulary matching exercise where students pair key terms like "media empire," "virtual influencer," "gained traction," and "AI slop" with their correct definitions.
- A grammar exercise focusing on the Past Simple Passive voice, challenging students to identify and select the correct active or passive verb forms in context.
- Practice with idioms, where students complete sentences using common expressions related to technology and new trends, such as "on the rise" and "a game-changer."
- A vocabulary in context exercise, reinforcing the new terminology by having students complete sentences using the learned words from the video.
- An active to passive grammar practice, tasking students with rewriting sentences from active to Past Simple Passive to deepen their understanding of this grammatical structure.
- Speaking practice where students discuss critical questions about the future of content, including the challenges of "AI slop," ethical implications, and the concept of the "liar's dividend."
Hi, Bloo.
Nice to meet you, Zach.
This is Bloo, an AI generated YouTuber with millions of fans
and a growing media empire.
I'm a virtual influencer with a big and fun personality.
I'm all about good vibes and engaging content.
And I'm built by humans, but boosted by AI.
And here to keep my millions of viewers worldwide
entertained and keeping.
And keeping on coming back for more.
Since launching, Bloo has pulled in over 700
million views, and Blue's creator says he's
earned more than $1 million through YouTube ads and
sponsorships. But blue is just one example from creators
uploading dozens of AI generated videos a day to
virtual characters made in seconds with tools like
Hydra's Character three AI.
Content is accelerating, and so is the business behind
it.
I think it's just a growing market,
right? I think what we're seeing is not that people that
were content creators shifting to being virtual content
creators, I think what we're seeing is instead that people
that didn't feel like they could create content before
because they didn't want to be in front of camera or they
didn't have, you know, a really nice podcast
capturing setup are now able in a couple seconds to just go
to our website and create an image,
upload an image, and immediately bring
something to life.
Vtubers first gained traction in Japan,
but they're now expanding fast in the US,
where audiences are forming real emotional bonds with
virtual creators.
But as content spreads, it's raising new questions
about authenticity, automation,
and what happens when audiences can't tell the
difference. So how far can this go?
And is the next generation of YouTube stars even human?
Bloo was created by Jordi van den Bussche ,
better known as Kwebbelkop, a long time YouTuber with over
15 million subscribers.
The flaw in this equation is the human.
So we need to somehow remove the human out of this,
out of the channel.
But after nearly ten years on YouTube,
van den Bussche was burned out.
So he replaced himself with an AI blue.
I would say a natural evolution in my own YouTube
career. So it started about 12,
13 years ago. I started creating content myself,
and eight years down the line,
I realized, okay, well, what if I want to stop?
Can I then continue the business?
And unfortunately, the answer is no.
If you make a brand that revolves around you,
I have not seen a single influencer who was able to
replace themselves successfully.
Today, Bloo is still voice and puppeteer by a real voice
actor, but everything else from scripting to dubbing to
social media is handled by AI.
I have the freedom to be on top of my game whenever,
and I can be on top of my game every day,
every video, and make sure that each video is to the
quality I want it to be.
When I can do it better or faster or cheaper than humans,
that's when we'll start using it permanently.
For now, he calls it a hybrid model.
The AI takes care of the scale and the human brings the soul.
My viewers can keep on coming back,
and the viewers are always happy because the contents at
the level I want it to be.
Vanderbeek isn't alone.
A growing number of startups are racing to support this new
generation of AI enhanced creators.
The global generative AI market,
which includes tools for video,
voice and content creation, is expected to pass $1
trillion by 2034, according to Precedence
Research. One of them is Hedra,
the company behind character three.
They're really excited to be launching a new model that
will allow users to interact with the characters in real
time, and we think this has massive implications from
everything from net new learning experiences to
creating the next generation of customer support,
to fundamentally changing how we interact with AI agents.
Character-3 lets creators animate faces,
add voice, and customize personality,
all with minimal effort.
It's already powering content from virtual artists like
Milla Sofia.
The road is narrow and long.
And comedy projects like the Talking Baby podcast.
On today's episode, we'll be talking to the weird
looking person who lives at my house.
We've seen people create entire online identities
around Hedra. This ranges from people creating,
like podcasters that talk about current events,
to people creating whole virtual influencers where
those influencers have their own personality that might
actually be decoupled from the creator.
So I think this is really exciting because it's a new
way for people to express themselves.
Not everyone wants to get on camera,
but a lot of people have a story to tell.
And we think tools like Hedra and Character-3 allow people
to create really interesting personalities and increase the
diversity of content that you're going to see online.
Hedra isn't the only company.
Google's Vo 3 and OpenAI's Sora are a few examples of
other AI startups offering video generation services as
well. But you don't need a cartoon character to go viral.
Some creators are running fully automated YouTube
channels and are scaling at an unbelievable rate.
My job is pretty much used to do the aviation part,
obviously render and upload, but like the rendering part is
automated.
They're using AI for everything writing scripts,
generating visuals, and dubbing narration.
One creator I spoke to is running 30 YouTube channels
and is uploading as many as 80 videos a day.
He says coming up with the right idea is still the
hardest part, but everything after that AI takes care of
it.
I think I'm more creative than ever because basically, like
the creativity you need, the level of creativity you
need to have to actually be able to ideate content because
we're attacking that. Okay. It's not just like,
yeah, this title is good.
We actually try to make sure, like every single title,
obviously I know it's not possible,
but you know, like imagine every single day.
Like idea. Like ideating.
Or creating yourself like ideas for 60 to 80 videos that
you want them to go viral.
It's a new model for content creation,
one built for scale, speed and search algorithms.
I think I agree with Jordi and what he's talked about a
little bit earlier, and I think this is only the
beginning.
As AI generated videos spread,
so do concerns about what they're doing to content.
Some critics even call it AI slop.
A wave of low quality, repetitive videos optimized
for clicks, not meaning on TikTok,
YouTube and Instagram.
It's getting harder to tell what's real and what's not.
You can pick up a camera and you can take a really
uninteresting photo of a white wall.
You can take a photo of paint drying and people just won't
get that surface right.
The algorithm won't show engagement.
Adding all AI tools.
Is this just made it easier to make something that's a little
bit more diverse than just taking a picture of nothing?
And that is kind of the origin of all of this slop.
But content ranking algorithms are going to prioritize that
over time, and they're going to surface what's creating
engagement with people.
And I do think over time, people do get inundated with,
you know, just things that are exciting for the sake of
exciting.
The tools are improving fast, but many say they still lack
the human intuition that makes content truly resonate.
Even van den Bussche, who built one of the most
successful AI personalities online,
says full automation isn't ready.
We're just trying to find the sweet spot.
Simply compared to humans, humans have this intuition and
good understanding of the world.
Or maybe you have this certain data set that this AI system
just doesn't have, right?
That gap is what keeps creators like van den Bussche
involved for now.
But experts say the bigger risk isn't that content is
bad. It's that it's convincing.
Because if synthetic content looks real,
sounds real, and performs well,
who's watching that?
We sort of now live in an environment where anything
could be AI, and therefore we we need a way to try and get
to a point where we can definitively figure out,
well, is it or not?
Ajder calls it the liar's dividend.
A world where doubt spreads faster than truth.
I feel we are moving into a time where you do not have a
right, and you do not have a way necessarily,
to understand what is human made and what is not.
What is a human voice or a synthetic one.
And nowhere is that confusion more volatile than social
media.
Social media is the perfect storm,
is kind of a cauldron of all of the the kind of ingredients
that can make AI generated content as disruptive as,
as as possible, really.
While AI transforms the way content is created,
meaning, connection and voice still come from people,
at least for now.
But as the tools improve and audiences evolve,
the line between creator and code is only getting blurrier.
Vocabulary focus
The vocabulary section introduces advanced terms directly related to the video content and the world of AI, influencers, and digital media. Key terms include "media empire," "virtual influencer," "gained traction," "decoupled," "ideate," "AI slop," and "resonate." Additionally, students will practice using common idioms to describe new trends and technological impacts, such as "on the rise," "a game-changer," "the tip of the iceberg," and "blur the lines."
Grammar focus
This lesson focuses on the Past Simple Passive voice. Students will review and practice the structure "was/were + past participle" to describe actions where the agent (the person or thing performing the action) is either unknown, unimportant, or already evident from the context. This grammatical focus helps students accurately describe events and processes in the context of content creation and technological advancements.
