AI Content and the War for Your Attention

a16z Podcast

a16z

Science, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Disruption, Software Eating The World, Technology

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What happens when AI starts generating content for everyone—and no one wants to watch it? In this episode, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and ad tech veteran Antonio García Martínez join a16z General Partner, Erik Torenberg to unpack the shifting economics of attention: from the rise of “AI slop” and spammy feeds to the difference between what we want to pay attention to and what platforms push on us. They explore: -How AI changes what gets created and what gets seen -Why internet ads still mostly suck -The return of group chats—and the slow death of mass culture Based on Chris’s new book The Sirens Call, this is a candid look at what AI might amplify or break in our online lives.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Humans who are able to be creative and use AI tools correctly will have superpowers.
0:05.0	Does AI so ruthlessly optimize for that former what you will pay attention to?
0:12.0	It totally alienates you from the latter, what you want to pay attention to.
0:16.0	Acquisition and retention are different things, right?
0:19.0	It's amazing how sort of bad, schlocky, and ineffective most internet advertising is.
0:24.6	I would literally bet large portions of my net worth in time.
0:27.6	That's the future.
0:28.6	That's going to be the game.
0:29.6	AI is going to upstream everything about the consumer experience.
0:31.6	We're in the midst of an apoccal transformation in how we get energy.
0:36.6	And it's just not that sexy.
0:40.3	We're not all going to be famous for 15 minutes.
0:42.4	We're all going to be famous to 15 people.
0:44.1	15 people, yeah.
0:46.0	In a world where everyone is famous to 15 people,
0:48.8	what happens when AI starts generating content for all of them?
0:52.1	In this episode, I'm joined by author and MSNBC host, Chris Hayes,
0:56.3	and longtime ad tech operator and writer Antonio Garcia Martinez to talk about the shifting
1:01.5	economics of attention, how we got here, what's breaking, and what AI might make worse.
1:07.3	Chris's new book, The Sirens Call, is about the way our attention has been bought, sold, and overwhelmed.
1:12.6	Together, we explore the rise of AI slop, whether platforms can contain it, and what comes next as digital content, fame, and identity get increasingly fragmented.
1:22.6	Let's get into it.
	...

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