By Jasmin Bedir, CEO of Innocean
My father, who still doesn’t know what I do for a living, has grasped what “Chat GPT” is – which for me personally means that AI has well and truly settled into our daily lives.
As with any technological innovation, developers can easily get caught up in the arms race of endlessly iterating to create the latest and greatest ‘solution.’ This approach often leaves any potential concerns and limitations on the cutting room floor. But really, what are we going to do about this as creative companies, that are caught between the tensions these new tools present such as value creation versus value destruction, and automation for the sake of automation.
Back in the 2000s, when Apple was still making ads for wired earphones, many people praised the potential of social networks for their ability to connect us. Almost 20 years on, while we spend more time on social networks than in our actual social circles, misinformation on these platforms has led to greater division rather than connection. And we’re dealing with a worldwide loneliness epidemic.
As many mindlessly dance to the beat of the AI buzz, much like one of Apple’s iconic silhouettes, we should pause and ask ourselves what impact will AI have on us, and wow, there is a lot to consider.
Fortunately we can use the time these tools are saving us to pause and ask ‘why’ at pivotal points.
Reminding ourselves of our core objectives while using these tools will ensure the efficiencies we desire align with our wider mission of understanding our customers, delivering great solutions for our clients and making Innocean a great place to work.
As someone that leads a creative agency I believe that we also have a responsibility to ensure our use of AI tools contributes to a better world. This means we have to unplug from the hype and consider the limitations of these tools including negative biases and ethical dilemmas.
Negative biases
For decades, the advertising industry has been guilty of perpetuating negative stereotypes, which is something that I constantly harp on about, so I feel conflicted about AI’s unfortunate likelihood that history will repeat itself through the reinforcement of damaging, outdated stereotypes, by learning from current digital content. This presents another opportunity to pause and reflect on our ingrained biases.
Ethical dilemmas
Much to the chagrin of artists and writers, many of the current generation of AI tools have been trained on their works without their express permission, so misappropriation of content from successful creative works without permission, is a significant concern. Although ChatGPT originally used non-profit sources such as Common Crawl, its applications of this data carry significant implications, such as copyright and IP losses, for the marketing world that require careful consideration.
As technology progresses and AI is able to develop ads better than this disturbing AI beer ad, I believe we have an obligation to protect the livelihoods of these talented humans and use these tools to elevate and integrate their skills across our businesses.
That means that we’ll have to lead from the front as an industry, which is not an easy feat. Anyone who has followed the rapid acceleration in quality with Midjourney V6, understands what I mean. Still, I like to pose the question for us as a business and the wider industry, where will we take AI in the next decade and beyond?
The framing of the question puts the onus on us to use these tools in a way that keeps our employees and clients happier than they were before my father knew the word ‘ChatGPT’. Even if he does mix up the last couple of letters.
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Top image: Jasmin Bedir