This is a shocker to me. We think that AI increases productivity many times and must be good. But the reality of the market tells a different story. It is a lesson for government policy makers and all businesses.
AI Productivity Paradox - The Seedance Lesson
If you want to understand the future of every knowledge job, look at what's happening in short‑film production right now.
A tool called Seedance lets creators generate cinematic shorts in hours instead of weeks, at 1% of the cost. Sounds like a dream, right? Instead, it's becoming a nightmare.
Production houses that adopted it aren't thriving—they're drowning. They're making 30 films a month instead of 1, yet earning the same or less money. Audiences haven't grown 30x. Attention is fixed. The math is brutal:
More output + fixed demand = price collapse + burnout.
This isn't an anomaly. It's a warning. Here are 6 hard principles from the fallout—and they apply to writing, design, consulting, coding, and beyond.
1. Efficiency kills differentiation
When everyone can produce 30 films a month, "more" stops being valuable. Your real product was never quality—it was scarcity. AI obliterates that moat. If everyone has the same superpower, no one has an advantage.
2. Bottlenecks just move upstream
Remove production costs → attention becomes the bottleneck.
Remove attention costs → trust becomes the bottleneck.
AI doesn't eliminate competition. It just shifts where the fight happens. Winners are no longer the best producers—they're the best at capturing attention and keeping trust.
3. Volume is a trap
Doubling output while halving unit price means you're running faster for the same paycheck. More work, same money—that's a disguised pay cut. The graveyard is full of efficient producers. Survivors are efficient owners.
4. Platforms eat the surplus
All that newly created value doesn't flow to creators—it flows to distributors (YouTube, TikTok, streaming) who host the glut. If you don't own the shelf, you don't capture the upside. Build your own audience. Own the relationship.
5. The only durable moat is non‑scalable
Taste. Relationships. Brand. IP. Community. These are hard to copy and don't improve with AI. They are your human hedge. Invest in them like your career depends on it—because now it does.
6. “Productivity” is double‑edged
For society, AI productivity is growth. For you, it's only good if demand is elastic—if your customers want more of what you make. If demand is fixed (and for most goods, it is), AI productivity just means more competitors fighting for the same pie.
“Don't be the best producer. Be the best owner, curator, or connector — because AI makes producers abundant, but trust and taste stay scarce.”
Your move
The Seedance story is playing out in slow motion across every industry. The question isn't whether AI will affect your work—it's whether you'll be the producer racing to the bottom, or the owner building something that can't be replicated.
Choose wisely. The shelf is filling up fast.
Which Infographics do you like?
With AI, I can produce many of such infographics. The first one at the start is from Gemini. Below is from ChatGPT. You see, AI still needs your judgement and wisdom to create the attention and impact you need.
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