I knew that AI was bad. I didn’t know how ugly it was.

Over the summer, I had the privilege of studying with the CNN Academy Summer Institute and Simulation in their Storytelling in the Age of AI program. Long-winded name aside, it was an amazing opportunity to learn about the ethical applications and implications of using AI in journalism.

The first week featured online classes, which I did in the United States; then I flew to Dublin, Ireland, and joined the rest of the participants at University College Dublin.

After everyone introduced themselves on the Zoom call, Glen Mulcahy, our presenter, changed my life within 10 minutes. He shared an anecdote I am not sure I will ever shut up about, much less forget: People are making years’ salaries in just a month by creating Instagram accounts with AI models.

Mulcahy shared with us that, at a conference about AI, one of his single, slightly past-middle-aged colleagues came to him gloating about his success. By employing an arsenal of AI chatbots, image generators and whatever other tools he needed, he had created a female Instagram model whose content generated a year’s worth of earnings for him in a month.

We were then shown exactly how he did it. It took all but 6 minutes.

On the Zoom call, we watched in real time as Mulcahy replicated his colleague’s get-rich-quick scheme. He prompted the AI to generate the image of a beautiful girl, specifying everything from the color of her eyes to the emotion expressed by them. He then took the generated image and prompted a photo-to-video tool to create a video of her saying hello. He used that image and video to have a chatbot describe her personality. That personality then dictated multiple other images that would seem authentic to her, effectively developing Instagram content.

He then expanded on his colleague’s operation. He created a Spotify account for this personality. He then used AI to write and produce a single, as well as create album art for it.

In just 10 minutes, a well-developed personal footprint was born. Something that takes some 10 years to do.

What should have been the result of a real person’s hard work, sacrifice, bravery, time, money — whatever it is that goes into creativity — was the result of 10 minutes and a robot.

It’s devastating to understand that oftentimes, it’s more successful than human-generated content. AI is algorithm-savvy — in other words, it knows what people want to see and engage with — so its success is probably the most natural thing it will ever have.

Therefore, we learned how to create content that the algorithm prefers.

As of July 2026, Reels created with Instagram Edits perform better in Instagram’s algorithm as opposed to Reels edited with other software. Videos are given a tag that signifies such, and serves as a way for Instagram to promote its editing app. CapCut and TikTok have a similar deal.

On the topic of CapCut, I urge anyone who uses it to do so with extreme caution. In the terms and conditions that we all so blindly accept when downloading an app, you’re signing any and all content over to CapCut. Whether the content makes it to the final product or not, anything you upload into CapCut is then used for “AI model training.” However, it’s not made clear where this video actually goes. Therefore, any content you upload into CapCut may come across your For You page from another AI influencer’s account because you agreed to those terms and conditions just to use the app.

CapCut is likely just one of many editing apps with these terms and conditions.

This is terrifying for just anyone using these apps, but especially for journalists, who have to ensure that sources and content are protected at all times. Policies such as CapCut’s limit their ability to do so.

Journalists have had to add storyboarding, creating, and editing short-form video content to their already significant workload. Traditionally, journalists have had to find stories, vet sources, conduct interview and produce their primary content, whether newspaper articles, packages for television or magazine articles. Now, they’ve had to add a variety of digital content — in the form of blogs, podcasts or social media posts — referring their audience to their work.

This is a small portion of the knowledge I walked away with as a student of the CNN Academy. However, it guided me towards a steadfast truth: Real people are powerful.

In a world of social media feeds saturated with AI-enhanced videos of floods or AI Instagram models that make more than kindergarten teachers, human storytelling is more powerful than ever.