Content Creation with Generative AI: How Do Content Creators Responsibly Use Generative AI Tools? CSCW009

Abstract

The rise of Generative AI (GenAI) has demonstrated significant potential to improve productivity and foster creativity among content creators, social media influencers with large audiences on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. However, as GenAI tools became increasingly integrated into creative workflows, significant concerns have emerged about potential risks and harms, including misinformation, social biases, and threats to authenticity. While prior research in HCI and CSCW has documented the pressures content creators face within algorithmic ecosystems, relatively little is known about how creators practically manage responsibility work when using GenAI tools. To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews (N = 16) with content creators active on popular social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, examining their motivations, practices, and specific challenges related to responsible GenAI use. Our findings reveal that creators’ motivations for practicing responsible AI use span personal reputation management, audience trust-building, and broader social responsibility. However, they face persistent tensions, as integrating GenAI significantly intensifies conflicts between responsible AI practices and the pressures of visibility, engagement, and monetization imposed by platform algorithms. Content creators are required to perform extensive and often invisible responsibility work, which directly conflicts with the rapid production cycles and engagement demands of algorithm-driven platforms. Based on these insights, we propose concrete socio-technical design implications at the individual, community, and institutional levels, advocating solutions that shift responsibility beyond individual creators alone.