AI is taking over the world! It’s only a matter of time before AI enslaves humanity, strips us of free will and runs the world without any need for us at all. Well, that’s what Chat GPT told me when I asked it to give me a controversial opener to an opinion piece that could also be dispelled by said AI platform.

So what’s the deal? Has it got a place, sure. Is it useful, sure. But is it THE solution for tasks? Absolutely not - and I’m not playing the ‘starved creative’ card here either, I’m actually in awe of some of the amazing things that AI can create - but that’s the problem, it's a human who provides those prompts to /imagine A digital art composition of a shampoo being used by a float of crocodiles deep in the Amazon River, not Artificial intelligence, that’s the enabler.

LinkedIn Individuality

AI aggregates data and collates the opinions and stereotypes of the masses which means subjectively it isn’t creative. That’s why when you scroll down LinkedIn and see every status update formatted with elongated hyphens–like this, and a series of ‘Here’s how I see it’ bullet points, well, it’s because that’s what AI believes people want to engage with… and maybe we all do?

But, and the big but, in using the above analogy, is that a platform like LinkedIn is so successful because it helps peers market to peers through their own ‘personal brand’ - how they want to be seen as a professional. That’s why I’d question the thought process behind this approach to captions. ‘Write a LinkedIn caption for learnings about X’ does not tell me that you’re a person I am interested to connect with for value about ‘X,’ it’s just generic material for the sake of posting that’s been regurgitated through a hypothetical machine of aggregated data from people who had success with that format before. So no, I don’t want to hear from you, generic person (or not) in that case.

However, using AI as a tool to amplify your writing - BIG YES - this is what platforms like Chat GPT are designed for; have a conversation with it, probe it with questions, what are other people in this space saying and why? What do I know that I can share to provide value to my peers from this experience, what is relevant that I’m talking about here? AI can be such a powerful tool to enhance writing, imagery, imagination but it should be treated as a tool, a companion, not a sole solution.

Just use AI.

Nowadays, on social media, the landscape isn’t selfless, you don’t just follow or befriend people out of the kindness of supporting a friend. We’re all metaphorical blood-sucking vampires and our follows are transactional, quid pro quo, we need value. (Please forgive my cynicism - this is all super rich coming from someone who has the worst posting schedule of most people I know; I digress). 

And that’s how algorithms are swayed, high point scoring for watch time, shares and ‘saves’. And why do you save? Well, because the post has provided you with value - a recipe you want to make later, a photography style you want to emulate, a place you want to visit.

People buy from People, not AI.

The phrase ‘people buy from people’ is often one I refer back to during conversations with colleagues, clients and creative pitches. I actually thought about it recently whilst filming on location for a client; introducing a human interacting with the environment that otherwise would have been a reasonably pretty, but otherwise static shot adds relatability, context and emotion and enhances the storytelling. 

Whilst there’s a whole other tangent I could divulge around human-led storytelling, I’ll shelve that for now, but this is why even if you are ignorantly ‘just using AI’ to do a task, the output (like any machine) is only as good as the person operating (or in this case prompting) it. So yes, you can ‘just use AI’ provided the person operating the platform gives it the time and respect it deserves, but treat it like if you were chatting to a human colleague to nurture the best results.

Is AI going to take over the world?

I don’t think so, but what is my actual point here? Am I anti-AI or part of the ‘new’ wave? Well, neither really. My point is that we need to realign our perspectives of AI being used as a tool, just like how we use Photoshop to imagine new designs, a Google Meet to chat to colleagues, or our imagination to come up with a new creative concept.

It should be part of our swiss-army knife of available resources, not a replacement for them. AI isn’t the solution to all the world’s inefficiencies, it’s there to support creativity and enhance innovation. A wise man once said, you wouldn't use a spoon to cut a steak. So use the right tool, with the right operator, to enhance not replace.

And now that you’ve arrived at the conclusion, my grand reveal… You’ve all been completely duped, because I wrote this all using AI… Or did I? 

Can you tell the difference? I surely hope so, after all, this would have only taken 5 minutes with AI.

From,
A wise man. 

James Coe, Creative Producer