Does AI Realise That It’s Got a Bit of a Brand Problem? Isn’t It in the Name?

AI has arrived, it’s smarter, faster, more creative than humans, and finally clients can throw out those slow, moody, tricky opinionated creative types with ideas. They can have a scientific conversation with a machine that’s connected to the world. In a flash it’ll generativity smash out an idea, and artwork if you like, inspired by centuries of human culture and learning. But is it us or does anyone else think that AI might have a long-term brand issue? Does AI realise as we write this that its long-term survival could be under threat?!

It kind of starts in the brand name – artificial.

In every other walk of human life things that are ‘Artificial’ aren’t considered truly valuable. Artificial is a synonym for a fake. And humans haven’t historically placed long term value on things that are fake and not real.

It’s probably because the human condition is built on the things that are real.

Real experiences, real life. Not artificial life…

AI has never lived a life, AI has never been bullied at school, never experienced a sunset, held a dying hand, kissed someone for the first time. AI has never smelt Glastonbury portable loos on a hot summer’s day….and the rise of AI is coinciding with a growing consciousness that our world is becoming more and more fake. Fake news, fake people, fake photography, fake celebrities, fake profiles, fake friends….and now…fake intelligence. We’re now wondering whether the whole of the web will be fake and without truth, and if that happens the web is dead and totally untrustworthy. Then what? 

The truth, that’s what, we’ll want the god honest authentic real McCoy of the truth more than ever.

We’ll want our brands to be more authentic and real than ever. Brands will be really valuable if they feel real, if they connect with people in a truthful and authentic way. And people will want to know if they are talking and interacting with real people. Not an artificial machine generating things it thinks you want to hear.

And so, we reckon people will want to feel a real connection with a brand and know it came from a real human, with a real, not an artificial experience of the world. Like great art, communications with a real backstory, a context, a real lived human experience. 

That’s what gives art soul.

Therefore, it might be stating the bleeding obvious, but AI is Artificial. And that’s a bit of a big old brand challenge for a sentient being that wants to rule the creative waves.

Throw in the lingering feeling that it could annihilate the entire human race. That billions of jobs could disappear in the time it takes to press the delete key. And that’s not a great brand vibe either.

Cue the music, Arnold Schwarzenegger and a pump action shotgun. Hasta la Vista baby…

So, while the creative industry is going to be disrupted, we have a sneaky feeling AI may need human creativity to sort its brand image out first if it’s going to destroy us all.

Until then, keep it real.