Let's pray for Taylor Swift

With OpenAI's verbal GPT crossing benchmarks and ethical lines right from its release weeks ago, the next top platinum artist being an AI isn't too far off. In fact vocaloids, mere singing voice synthesisers, have been commanding a sizeable piece of the Japanese pop market for at least a decade now; the appeal, however, seems to be the clean and predictably-paced delivery. Could record labels be postulating: put a powerful enough marketing engine behind a pre-Taylor-Swift-trained generative-AI and we'll have our own world's number one pop artist?

At the Next Stop: AI marketing conference days later, a quip from a chat outside stuck with us:

'But if you want ??????????????? ???????????????, it’s got to be human.'

—Farrokh Madon, Chief Creative Officer APAC, Merkle B2B

Five styles of music in a song defies logic, and can only be dreamed up by a human mind and delivered by human emotion. Imagination and soul are yet to be pre-trainable. Human creativity at the highest levels goes beyond building brands like Swift. It creates legacy.

The human factors of emotion, instinct and creativity were—surprisingly for an AI-themed conference—the common thread that prevailed with key speakers and captains of industry. These are how we best recall them to be:

'AI is trained on human intelligence. It is a derivative. So as long as we remain truly original, Gen-AI creativity will always be a few steps behind.

A fitting reminder to all of us in creative agencies: Be Creative. Or else.

While AI can support and streamline creative processes, it cannot replicate the extraordinary creativity unique to humans. Creative agencies offering genuine, innovative ideas will thrive, as their work will guide future AI development.'

—Farrokh Madon

'If this is what AI can do, I have nothing to worry about.'

—Farrokh Madon, when presenting the four cases of an AI vs Adland exercise

'Some things AI will never be able to do—replace the need for human contact and the five senses. At a property showroom, a potential customer can interact with a physical representation of the space. AI, however, can help in sharpening marketing reach, database-cleaning... better segmenting and sharpening the target list, not just emailing invites to everyone in the database. For instance, why send an invite for a launch in Ara Damansara to someone who’s in Johor?'

—Datuk Lai Shu Wei, Chief Marketing & Sales Officer, Sime Darby Property

'It's still the knowledge you gather on-ground and at face-to-face meetings that gives a marketer the insights, the edge. Instinct is everything. AI cannot process this.'

—Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, Group Chief Marketing Officer, RHB Banking Group

'Our business is very much a relationship-based model. When clients come over to the office, they’re surprised that KJ and Shahril Hamdan are the ones they actually meet.

We attribute our growth to the relationship or human factor. The ability to gauge each other, to immediately access whether the client likes what we're proposing. AI cannot read sentiments or expressions. Only humans can.'

—Khairy Jamaluddin, Political Commentator, Radioshow Host, Former Minister of Health

'AI is a wonderful tool. Grab is deploying AI to streamline and speed up traditionally time-consuming processes and tasks.'

—Hassan Alsagoff, Regional Head of Loyalty & Marketing, Grab

'Let's just talk Streamlining Processes... '

—AI Pros

'AI will raise the floor, but it won’t let you touch the stars.'

—Farrokh Madon

They more or less confirmed our thoughts.

Emotions, human truths and insights are the core of brand experience.

Current AI technology will assist in streamlining, speeding up processes but it cannot yet replicate the human creative instincts that bring about genuine consumer emotions. Creativity remains exclusively human.

At some point of mass AI adoption, the survival of the fittest will come into play and cull weaker agencies and marketers, or poor performers. Clients will inevitably grow more aware of getting what they pay for. While paying premium for the remaining fitter and more creative sapiens is justified, gen-AI tools will help the majority of firms to save costs. Especially for big organisations and networks, AI expedites jobs that don't require critical thinking or creative solutions. Clouds, for instance, allow multiple users to work concurrently in real-time and help remove day-to-day time-consuming internal red-tapes, increasing efficiency and productivity. This also frees up human minds to focus on and arrive at a crucial decisions much quicker.

'AI can’t take over your job. Someone using AI can.'

—Overheard

Hype is pushing brands to rush into AI in a big way. But they'll soon wise up on only the essential tech, or reinvest in the increasingly rare human creativity. Because post-survival, it will deliver on an even higher level.

This is why our principal product Visible Brand Actions? will always be conceived solely by humans—as promised by our brand manifesto previewed at the same conference.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/samballab_mcf2024-ai-artificialintelligence-activity-7203428763823480832-WwRn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Visible Brand Actions? celebrate the human factor, particularly the human imperfections that make human intelligence uniquely human.

Human intelligence is at its best when driven by unpredictable unquantifiables such as curiosity, instinct. intuition, meditation and emotions. They come from our understanding of what's beautiful, what gives pleasure, what our desires are. Inherent artefacts developed over millennia of evolution and civilisations. They cannot be manufactured. Most evidently in Petronas films and our Guinness experiential spaces, it's our personal human experience and endorphins that go into creating not just another tv spot and another event. Perhaps rural Americana's most honest voice described this effect best:

'No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.'

—Robert Frost, Poet, Playwright

Cautioned the last true advocate of human intelligence, however:

' ...human comprehension may erode, if we overestimate the intelligence of our artefacts and become over-reliant on them.'

—Daniel Dennet, Cognitive Scientist, Philosopher

In other words, use it or else we'll lose it.

'??????????'????, ??????????'????, ???????????'????... '

—???????????? ??????????

#MCF2024

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