In this solo, unscripted podcast episode, Steve Lichtman critiques the rise of formulaic, AI‑generated social media content that he dubs the “lazy AI apocalypse.” He points out how feeds on platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X are flooded with near‑identical carousel posts, bullet‑point lists, stock‑style AI images, and excessive emojis that feel like “robot vomit.” While he acknowledges that AI tools can be useful when they augment original ideas, he argues that most creators misuse them as a shortcut, turning content creation into busy work and eroding genuine human connection. Lichtman urges creators to abandon the efficiency‑first mindset, put authentic, real‑time voice and storytelling back into their feeds, and embrace imperfection. He introduces the RISE framework (Reset, Identify, Simplify, Execute) as a practical method to reclaim humanity in content, offering concrete actions such as recording raw video/audio, using personal photos, and sharing personal stories instead of mass‑produced AI posts. The episode ends with a rallying call: AI can write words, but only humans can convey truth and reality.
Chapters
Hey everybody. Today we're gonna talk about the apocalypse. Sounds fun, right? Mad Max. Great times. Not that apocalypse. It's what I call the lazy AI apocalypse. And it's why your feed is starting to sound a little bit like a robot threw up all over it, Right? Like, think about it. Just take a look. Today. Grab your phone and take a look. You scroll LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook or X or anywhere right now and tell me what you're seeing. Are you seeing maybe 10 identical styled carousel posts that all start with in 2025, the businesses that win will. Or now it's going to be in 2026, the businesses that win will be doing this. Here are some top trending posts. Here's the trending things you need to buy or you need to do, or it really comes down to the trending things people are trying to sell you. And that's why they're telling you it's trending in the first place before it actually takes place. They all have the same bullet points. They use similar stock photos or highly unmanicured AI images. Look, if I'm going to be dead honest with you, AI images aren't necessarily the problem. Depending on how and where you use them. If you use them for the header picture of your blog and you spend a couple of minutes iterating and turning an idea or a base photo you have. See, I love using a base photo as inspiration and adding that in first. So I'm putting original content in. For me, it's always about that. If you put original content in and then massage it with what you're maybe incapable of doing as a designer, well then now you're talking about something where you're getting value because you're still using your original stuff. You're putting your original thought and mind and energy into it and then you're just using a helping hand that you're guiding. If you just go into ChatGPT and say, create for me a hero image for my website of a bunch of squirrels eating a banana. Well, that sucks. Let's be real. At the end of the day though, all these posts, they have the same bullets, the same stock photo style, the same robotic cadence, massive amounts of emojis. Think about all the emojis you're seeing these days. My lord, it's just emoji. Hell, you know, how many can you possibly put in one post to distract me and or try to figure out what the hell it is you're trying to use it for? Unless it's just a rocket ship, a Bullseye, a check mark, you know, all the standard ones that everybody uses. It's still not even content to me. Right? It's just AI vomit with a canva filter. Wouldn't that be a great riff of the day? It's not, but that would be fantastic. But here's what really pisses me off about the whole AI apocalypse. It's not using the tool itself. It's the mindset of thinking that, well, I'm being efficient now, I'm crushing it now. You're just at the end of the day making busy work for yourself, hiding from what you really need to be doing, which is picking up a phone, a microphone, a camera, take a picture, take a video, go talk somewhere, go meet somebody, go shake a hand, kiss a baby. You know the old politician statement, oh, shake hands and kiss babies. Well, that's a hell of a lot better than sitting in front of ChatGPT for an hour, if you ask me. Now, not everybody will agree with that. And that's great. That's fine. You're welcome and entitled to any opinion you have on this. I'm just giving you mine and showing you where my kind of head lies. And the way I really believe that most people see things, even if they're not really willing to admit it. Because nobody's going to look at all the AI posts going through LinkedIn these days and go, wow, this is great content. Nobody's doing that. So lazy AI is really the new spam folder, right? The only difference is you can't separate it, but your audience smells it from a mile away and just scrolls faster than you can say engagement rate. They're just bouncing. You know, the nobody's sticking to something that looks clearly made by a robot. Sometimes you'll stay for curiosity, sure. Sometimes you'll stay because you want to see how somebody else is doing it. Yeah, but AI content isn't exactly pulling people in over the line 24 hours a day. And ad people will argue with me and say, well, I make all my ads with AI tools, yada, yada yada. It's not the same thing as high ticket sales. Let's be honest. If you're selling T shirts, if you're selling low level merch and or cheap software services under a hundred bucks a month at least, if not more than that. It's not the same market. It's just not. And there's nothing wrong with it per se. I see ads all the time. They're clearly AI written ads. I don't typically click on them, but it doesn't mean that they're, they're terrible. If I had the need for the product they were selling, maybe once in a blue moon, I would have clicked on one of them. So look, if you really want to stand out this coming year in 2026, well, you gotta do the opposite of what everybody else is doing. So put the human back in. That's what I'm, I'm always gonna tell you, to put the human back in. Because I'm always gonna preach that humanity and people communicating with other people Real, real time. Like when I record these, this is real time. I'm not stopping and editing. I'm not sound biting myself. I' 20 takes. If I screw it up bad enough that I need a new take, I'm just doing the whole thing over from scratch. And then that's my learning lesson. Five, eight, nine, whatever minutes in. So for 20, 26 and beyond, let's, let's be more human. When everybody else is crippling down on AI, I want you to quadruple down on being yourself. I want you to tell the story that only you could tell, because your story is yours and yours alone. Nobody can manufacture it with AI. And you could record that 47 second voice note from your pickup truck or your muscle car or your electric car instead of the perfectly scripted reel. Give yourself some bullet points, give yourself some liner notes. You just prompt yourself so you can put your head in the right head space where you're able to go deep into where your intellectual value is and what you're able to bring to the world and just put it out there and help people and do what it is that you really love doing. So in this case, we could run this whole scenario of getting away from the AI universe and being human with the RISE framework. So you're gonna reset and stop creating content like a chore that you gotta outsource to a robot or to somebody else that uses robots. You gotta identify what's the real problem that you're scared of. It's using your own voice, right? That's really what it comes down to. So let's all identify that we're afraid of using our own voice when we really should be. We should be using it more now than ever. In a land of misinformation and in news and the media and all the crazy crap out there, human voices need to be spoken louder than ever before. Simplify. One raw story is going to be better than 10 AI posts, I promise you. It's just you might get more likes or more views on the 10 posts for the sheer volume and number, but that one raw story is going to convert better quality people to you than a bunch of garbage. And last but not least, execute hit record right now. Imperfections and all right, pick up your phone, flip this off. It's ending in a couple of seconds. Flip this off and go take a picture outside and write something about it. Go walk your dog. I mean, you know, do something out of your normal and document it and share it with people and let people get to know the human side of you. So the riff of the day is going to be this AI can write words, but only you can write the truth of what's happening in your reality. So, hey guys, listen, be human in the feed. The rest is all noise. I'm Steve Lichtman. This was unfiltered and unshakable. Have an absolutely amazing day.
