AI Can’t Shock: Here’s Why You Should

Earlier this year, Peter Thiel took to the stage at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles for the best part of an hour to discuss politics, education, the inexorable rise of Nvidia and, of course, AI.

He produced devastating insight after devastating insight on the state of the US economy and the higher education bubble, revealing that student debt has reached an astonishing $2 trillion.

But there was one, throwaway, comment he made that resonated with me. It generated a massive amount of controversy when he said it but I understood exactly what he meant.

With a single joke, he summed up the greatest opportunity anyone looking to start a personal brand has in the face of AI.

Let me explain…?

The democratization of ‘content’

I blame Canva.

There was a time, not too long ago, when infographics were the reserve of legacy media and established brands. Then, in 2013, an Australian company launched a drag and drop platform that meant anyone could create an Instagram carousel. And they did. You saw them: the last few years have been a deluge of template designs edited quickly to rehash blog content or demonstrate what a virtuous person they are.

I understood the theory behind this. With access to near-professional levels of graphic design, they could equate themselves with respected businesses and demonstrate their ‘expertise’.

But I also hugely disagreed with this as a long-standing believer in personal branding: why would anyone looking to promote themselves online look to emulate old fashioned branding methods?

Still, they persisted.

And up until eighteen months ago, this wasn’t much of an issue. Someone really committed to building their personal brand could at least do so in their tiny niche with the help of some innocuous content and an inoffensive caption.

The problem came with AI.

Now captions, comments and content can all be automated, people aren’t competing with each other anymore…

You’re now competing with robots

It actually started before AI.

In 2003, Magazine Luiza – one of the largest e-commerce sites in Brazil – created Lu do Magalu, a ‘virtual influencer’, before either influencers or AI were a thing.

Today, she has 7.2 million followers on Instagram, has been featured in music videos and graced the cover of Vogue.

And she’s not alone: Instagram has 35 verified ‘virtual influencers’. And despite Meta ending an experiment with an AI-version of Kendall Jenner early, users are showing no signs of fatiguing when it comes to forming parasocial relationships with bots.

@noonoouri has 493K followers and proudly boasts she is a vegan, Miquela, 3M followers, supports Black Lives Matter, obviously and Aitana Lopez – a hyper realistic travels the world, posing in front of the Eiffel Tower and on the Amalfi Coast.

These are extreme examples and really only the tip of the iceberg. The greater threat comes from automation. Half the comments on my LinkedIn posts are AI-generated and I’m willing to bet a small fortune if you scan the comments on this you’ll find plenty of? examples.

With mass content generation democratised and automated, there’s only one option to stand out.

It’s time to shock

Peter Thiel made a joke.

“If you want to be a successful actor, you should be maybe a little bit racist, a little bit sexist or just really funny and you won’t have any risk of AI replacing you”

And he’s right.

AI isn’t programmed to be offensive, controversial, or ‘out there’. It takes some creative prompting to even get it to make an edgy joke.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should aim to offend. But that every piece of content you produce needs to have one important factor: authenticity.

It sounds like a buzzword trotted out by a marketing agency but it’s the reason my own personal brand has gone from strength to strength. I’ve shared the real, unfiltered, embarrassing moments of my life — as well as the highs. And I’ve never once shied away from expressing my real opinion on topics despite having a team of people behind me trying to stop me from doing just that.

But don’t go thinking that authenticity means drunk Instagram stories and conspiracy tweets.

Inauthenticity is obvious

Without turning this article into a self-help blog, it’s important to stress that people can sniff out inauthenticity in a heartbeat.

Back when I started my personal brand, I didn’t want any affect. I dressed in the way I always had, even before the ‘old money’ aesthetic became popular.

Now it is, I’ve lost count of the number of people trying to replicate it. To me, this is just as offensive as AI.

On a more prosaic note, I see it all the time with conventional ‘business advice’ too. Influencers regurgitate the perceived wisdom without ever testing it.

Inevitably, the guy who comes along and challenges a norm is the one who goes viral

As a solid rule of thumb, if you’re about to post something, ask if AI would post the same thing. If the answer is yes: do everything you can to shock, bewilder, and be authentic.

If the answer is no, you’re on the right track.

Be yourself

By now, you know that in 2024, a personal brand is the ultimate and only way to build your business.

The problem is, businesses know that too. As you’ve seen, businesses are starting to create virtual influencers and customers have no qualms about forming the same parasocial bonds with them as they would you.

If you’re going to build a personal brand in the age of AI and differentiate yourself from the crowd, you’d better have something interesting to say.

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