Refreshing read amid all the AI fear-mongering.

If you can’t see a future for your own creativity, then that’s on you, not on AI.

https://adage.com/opinion/aa-ai-wont-replace-creatives-with-judgment-instinct-emotion/

He’s right, and it’s additionally refreshing to see a creative leader in the industry with a take that’s both accurate and shows he understands the technology. (Or at least what it can really do)

I’m seeing too many Linkedinfluencer creatives talking confidently about a space they don’t understand. Happy to see this

Article sans paywall:


Good science fiction should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”

I’ve always been obsessed with the idea of second- or third-order thinking. What is the consequence of the consequence or the effect of the effect?

It’s particularly interesting in terms of AI, and where we are with it at this moment.

(Sorry, this is another article about AI.) You still here? Cool, cool.

It’s hard to fathom all the ramifications of AI—how it will shape our industry, much less our society.

Also read: What AI means for agency and marketing roles—the jobs most at risk and how to adapt

But some interesting examples from the past, when other game-shifting technologies have been introduced, are worth looking at, both in terms of what went away and, more importantly, what endured.

In his smarter-than-me Substack, author Sangeet Paul Choudary talks about the introduction of the rifle: “The English longbowman was once the decisive military asset. Training took years, and the skill was rare and lethal. But when gunpowder entered the battlefield, skill mattered less than the ability to reload and fire en masse. Archers didn’t lose to other archers using the latest technology, they lost to an entirely different model of warfare.”

That’s a pretty cut-and-dried, black-and-white reading of the past. But like most things, I think the real learning is found in the gray area.

Black-and-white thinking would lead you to believe that great archers became irrelevant in the age of rifles. But I would argue they became more valuable, but in an internally different way.

These were people with keen eyes and killer aim, adept at hitting hard targets under pressure. Along with their arrows, they were armed with judgment.

Riflery does not necessarily replace the archer, it replaces the archer who sees the job merely as pulling back the bow and releasing an arrow at the target. What about the rare individual who knows what it’s like to look another human being in the eye and decide whether to kill them?

This got dark quick, but the point is there is a difference between what we do and what we are made of.

“What we do” is easily replaced, or made less valuable, by technology. “What we are made of” is algorithm-proof.

At the moment, AI is great for data, research and churning out executions—anything objective. But humans still have a lock on the subjective. The stuff that requires judgment and gut instinct. Things that are often illogical and brilliantly off.

This is not a new revelation. You’ve read various versions of this thought before. The shift is in rethinking the real value of what we in advertising actually do.

It’s not to create what tech companies lovingly refer to as assets. Mark Zuckerberg is actively training his bots to create assets as my human hands type this. Mere asset creation is going to be very efficient and very easy. If those are the metrics you’re being measured by, you will fall miserably behind.

Choudary brings up the example of typing pools that existed in the early days of office work. Typists were valuable because the act of typing was a real skill, and the cost of making a mistake was high. One typo, and you had to start all over again, and probably again, because who gets through a draft with no mistakes? The time cost of getting masses of documents out the door error-free was large. Skilled typists were the way to manage all costs.

But once the word processor came out. The cost of mistakes became minimal. You could quickly and easily fix typos infinite times. Typing skills became less relevant. Typists tried to combat this looming obsolescence by learning to use word processors. The problem was that the new world didn’t need people who just knew how to use word processors. The new world needed people who could write. Value was shifted from the doers to the thinkers.

Which brings us to today and tomorrow.

Our job in marketing and advertising isn’t to create assets. Our job is to use our creativity, instinct, knowledge and taste to solve business problems in a way that connects with other human beings.

It’s creating big thoughts and uniquely capturing minute moments. It’s the elusive insight, observation or “ah-ha” that comes from relevant as well as seemingly irrelevant experiences as living, breathing creatures.

It’s connecting through emotion in an intangibly human way. Like an invisible CAPTCHA that says, “I am not a robot.” And more importantly, “I understand, you are not a robot.”

That is what we do.

We can, and should, use AI in this process. But when everyone has access to the same tools, our real value is in what we uniquely bring to them. Our real value is derived from what we are made of.

I predict nothing that goes by the name Artificial will be able to replace that.

This is all true however this hinges on clients valuing/wanting creative that has taste to begin with instead of whatever performs better or is easier to produce. Ultimately I don’t see clients being the ones to all of the sudden champion creative with human sensibilities if thoughtless garbage can get the job done for them.

Can someone paste the article without pay wall please?

all due respect, eh. I’m equally tired of the “it’s a calculator” argument too. not to say his analysis is or isn’t correct, just another side of the coin.

You all think you’re some kind of exception and it’s really sad. For clients to insist on human-produced ads, they’d have to have taste. And even if they had that, they’re a lot more concerned about keeping their bosses happy and cutting costs than they are about “championing creativity.” They won’t save you. They’re actually itching to get rid of you. AI is already better at writing, designing, and concepting than you are.

He’s right and it’s true (for now) but those truly creative jobs account for a very small portion of the ad industry.

He’s 10000000000% correct. Unfortunately, brands no longer play the long game. And as if the last 4 years of creative mediocrity haven’t already proven… clients simply don’t care.

Absolutely! Spot on.

He's one of the smartest people I've worked with. (Even though you wouldn't think that by looking at him. JK)

AI is just another industrial revolution. People will adapt and find jobs relevant to the new world.