I was going to write this using an AI. I’ve got a couple I use periodically to help me get stuff done. We all do now, don’t we?
I don’t think I know anybody who doesn’t have some kind of bot on their phone or laptop to help with
their to-do lists. When you’re stuck for an idea or just too busy, AI, like any kind of tool, can be useful. But everything has its limitations.
Around my home there are tools from the past that have been created to be useful but now mean we have lost some of the skills we once had. If not as efficiently, then at least with a bit more personality – and where is all the time back we were promised?
In full transparency, I’m not technically writing this. I’m reading it into a machine that will upload it to the cloud and turn it into words.
It’s hot, I’m tired, and typing just takes too long. In fairness, memos have been done like this for years. My mum was a school secretary and used to take dictation from senior staff.
But dictation meant that the ideas were coming from a person, from time spent ruminating on a topic. Dictation was created when scribing became a thing – even deities don’t write their own books by hand. Since the dawn of humanity, there’s always been a tool or a method of getting things done more quickly or by somebody else.
The danger comes, however, when the tool travels too far up the value chain.
If the tool takes over, we get lazy and the convenience becomes king. The value of doing things for yourself that involve mental and physical commitment cannot be underestimated. If we keep outsourcing our thinking, eventually we lose the capacity to do so – our distant ancestors could swim huge distances underwater, remember.
Within marketing and comms, this is important. We, by design, are creative people. It’s a key aspect of our role and it’s often the difference between a campaign or a strategy flying high or falling flat.
We’re also risk takers. We see something, ponder over whether it will work and often do it anyway.
We calculate these things based on our life experience, understanding and temperament. If we outsource thinking and analysis, whether cost, operational or elsewise, we lose that. I’m great at giving prompts to AI tools, and the bots are learning my little quirks and techniques. What they can’t do is draw on my 20 or so years working in financial services.
They can’t draw on how a campaign, or an approach has made me or someone else feel. They can’t replace the excitement of winning an award or coming up with a novel idea – and seeing it land.
I understand the pressure that marcomms teams face. When margins are slimmed, we know where the axe falls first. But without understanding what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and being part of that creative process, we do ourselves, our clients and our teams a disservice.
We need to balance understanding where the technology starts and stops and where we can still offer something our teams, employers and clients appreciate.
The AI genie is out of the bottle, but we can stay alert to what changes. I don’t want to be dumbed down just because the technology is there.
My plea is not to keep churning out AI-generated content because it’s boring – but because it makes us boring and we need to retain our value for what comes next.
Elizabeth Pfeuti is the publishing director of Financial Promoter and director of Rhotic Media