It continues to amaze me the positioning and even the antagonism that some institutions have shown, in the face of the rapid growth of AI. We cannot stop the future and the wind that blows will not stop.
A few days ago, I read an excellent interview on ECO by André Veríssimo to the New Dean of NovaSBE, which was the origin of my short reflection on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its use, or not, as a substitute for human creativity.
I must say, to begin with, that I am not one of those catastrophists who think that we are all going to be replaced and that machines are going to rule us. What I believe is much simpler: Those who don’t use AI will certainly be replaced, as they will quickly become obsolete. And this is true for people, processes, and organizations. AI’s acceleration capacity will be decisive and necessary for our new tasks, replacing very quickly everything manual, repetitive, and with little added value.
At a time when we are still “scratching” the surface of what is to come, it is important to note that Artificial Intelligence is not a new technology. What is new, and disruptive, is the found way of interacting with the machine through natural language instead of programming. This capacity democratizes access and allows a set of applications that are transversal to all areas, businesses, and practices.
The big discussion at the moment, in companies, universities, and society is whether the product that comes out of AI is creative or not. If it is, whose property is it, or if we want who is its author? The machine or who managed to generate it? And do the models on which the machine was inspired have any rights?
Generically, creativity is the ability to produce original and valuable ideas, solutions, or products. It is a complex and often difficult-to-describe process that involves imagination, divergent thinking, an association of ideas, and the ability to observe and establish connections between apparently unconnectable facts and objects.
AI, on the other hand, develops its product based on computation made through algorithms and mathematical models that are based on data and information from the past. That is, the machine needs to understand the past and relate it to produce some kind of knowledge. The best example of this is music. Being very simplistic, seven notes can be combined. Soon there is a set of combinations for those same notes that are multiplied every second of the musical passage. When AI is applied, what the machine will do is check which combinations have already been made and look for others that have not yet been made. And with that, it builds the first level of the score. Then it does the same for the rhythm, then for the instruments, and so on, until it manages to build something completely new. If you like these themes, check out the AIVA project (Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist) where we can quickly become composers of any musical style.
The same goes for art. The French company Obvious created a painting called “Portrait of Edmond de Belamy” that imitates the classic painting of the 18th century. It was so surprising that it ended up confounding critics and “experts” and ended up being sold by Christie’s for over $400,000.
Although AI has made considerable progress in recent months, there are still many limitations to human creativity. One of the main limitations is AI’s inability to fully understand the cultural and emotional context in which human creativity is generated. In this sense, AI is limited as it learns from pre-existing data, which can lead to a bias in the production of creative content.
Another limitation is the lack of experimentation and improvisation capacity. Human creativity is often influenced by emotional factors and personal experiences, which leads to a more accessible and less constrained approach to creating creative content. AI is not only limited to algorithms and mathematical models, it cannot replicate the talent and technical skill of human nature. The biggest challenge for these tools is the inability to understand emotional contexts, cultural nuances, technical skills, and emotional sensitivity that so often make the difference.
The ethical-legal issue has been one of the points of greatest discussion. Is it useful for a society to place a machine imitating the paintings of one of its great masters? Who is the author? Who should receive the value that these works may still have? Then there is still the question of “deep-fake”, models of image and sound composition that, using generated images, manage to “imitate” a personality in a place or at a time that he did not live saying what he never said. But as someone once told me, a hammer is a hammer and can be used to hammer a nail and be useful or it can be used to attack someone. But it will never stop being a Hammer.
When we look at Communication and Marketing, we immediately see a huge set of opportunities for clients and agencies, advertisers and marketers.
The good news is, as both will have the same tools at their disposal, therefore what is effectively created with more value will be immediately perceptible by all. Work will be more focused on what will effectively add value to brands and the capacity for focus and productivity will be greatly increased for both parties.
I imagine that on the side of the marketers deeper works of knowledge of the brand and its competition. Greater sharing of information with its partners based on a set of data that, although public, will now, due to systematization, be even more valuable. Strategies will be more demanding and more thoughtful, and business insights will be even more important and the true catalysts for building brands.
On the side of the agencies, there will be tasks that will no longer make sense and for this very reason, some of their services will cease to exist in the current model. New professions will be created for each one that disappears. There will have to be, for example, a “prompt engineer” in each organization. Someone who will learn and develop sensitivity to better interact with the machine. Will it be a linguist? A copy? An engineer? We’ll still have to find out.
However, I am still amazed by the positioning and even the antagonism that some institutions have shown in the face of the rapid growth of AI. We cannot stop the future and the wind that blows will not stop just by putting our hands in front of our faces. The wind is here and here to stay. And how lucky we are, as a generation, to be living it.
As with the appearance of electricity, after the internet and now AI, many jobs and professions will disappear, but many others with much greater added value will be created. And at the limit, this is progress and evolution and it has always happened throughout history.
May mistrust give way to hope and curiosity, because the faster we do it, the better our profession and our life will certainly be. May the hands leave the face so that we can see the smiles.
Originally published at MaisM.
