I don't agree with that argument. I am constantly finding new movies and TV shows to watch that I genuinely enjoy, but I still (reasonably often, even) watch or re-watch older content that I end up enjoying just as much.
Flooding the market with AI-generated content -- even if that content is good -- is not going to stop me from watching (or re-watching) older human-created productions.
I don't think I'm all that unique. I don't watch broadcast/cable television anymore, but I know people (especially those less technologically sophisticated, of any ages) who still flip through the on-screen TV guide, and are happy to tune in to watch a 1980s movie on some random channel, ads and all.
I agree with that, although for me it's books that I really enjoy currently.
After quitting most of social media, the jump-cutting in a lot of shows and movies nowadays gives me headaches weirdly... maybe that's just me though.
Also, everyone that's at least a teenager has grown up on human produced content - most of this worry will only manifest if there's a generation that strictly prefers AI produced content instead of it just being a complement (e.g. the generated pictures in articles, or automatic clips from Twitch streams)
I’m not sure compelling & bountiful AI films and interest in older films are mutually exclusive.
A flood of high quality AI content might devalue it as it becomes too normal, familiar or expected. In a strange way, this might reinvigorate interest in back catalogs.
Also, some content is truly timeless regardless of its production quality. Our kids have the world’s content at their disposal and their favorite is currently Tom & Jerry episodes from the 1960s. Go figure.
A flood of content has actively devalued media even before AI.
In the era of "the cinema has fewer screens than an AI character has fingers", "big media" -- movies and TV -- were cultural touchstones. Everyone knows Luke Skywalker, the Brady Bunch, or the Jaws theme as baseline references, even if they've never seen the corresponding media.
Now, even before the AI boom, we've got so many choices that we're all in independent fandoms with less and less "common currency". If I made a joke at work about dressing up as a human-sized NEC PC-9801[0], what are the odds any of my co-workers will get it?
AI would accelerate that process. You'll have a thousand niche movies a week all sliding through the local cineplex. There might be fifteen people who ever pay to see "Dragon Locomotive Mechanic Samurai Warrior XVI: Return Of Admiral Becky", and will anyone want to talk with you about it after you leave the cinema?
"Culturally significant" is the wrong metric, and shows that you don't really understand why people watch what they watch.
People watch all sorts of things, from all different time periods, because they enjoy them. Sometimes those things are "culturally significant", but I'd expect that's not the most common case. Sometimes those things are B-movies from the '70s or brain-candy sitcoms from the '90s.
The premise is that there is so much good AI content that if you just pick something you enjoy, no other criteria, 90% of the time it'll be an AI work.
The only people that would be watching a significant amount of older work are the people that have a reason beyond that.
The back catalogue will have a few scattered gems that you can find amongst the sea of mass media that appealed to its audience at the time. Most of that content no longer relates or makes sense to us. There's also a massive load of dreck and garbage.
People should be realistic about this instead of emotionally invested against AI as the news media has tried to sway this. It's just a tool, and artists are starting to use it productively.
The argument is that few will watch the majority of WB's back catalogue, because their time is being spent with all the other attention sinks.
This places a monetary value on the content, not a social or cultural value.