May: It's existential

As we don our critical PR hats and reflect on May, the phrase "The good, the bad and the ugly" comes to mind. The good? Three bank holidays. The bad? AI might drive us to extinction. The ugly? Trump is back on our news screens. Today's issue of firstlight focus spans political campaign fumbles, privileged banker gaffs and whether AI will have us all out of a job next month. We promise we didn't generate this intro on Chat GPT...

???The month in review:

Olivia Parkinson puts the spotlight on recent stand-out stories from the communications sphere.

???A 'poor' choice of words: After telling Brits they ‘need to accept’ they’re poorer, The Bank of England’s chief economist, Huw Pill, apologised.?

The takeaway: Anything you say can be published, and result in you and your business being dragged through the mud – so really think about how your message could be portrayed before committing. ?

???The rise of the robots: ‘Godfather of AI’, Geoffrey Hinton, quit his job at Google earlier this month to speak openly about the dangers of the tech, warning it could ‘become more intelligent than humans’ and ‘exploited by bad actors’. Scary stuff.

The takeaway: Given his deep level of expertise, Hinton's warnings should be taken seriously – as well as those of others in the space. We’ll have to wait and see how the likes of Google and Microsoft change the narrative and get consumers back on-side, while heading off the risks of Armageddon. Watch this space.

???? DeSaster: Ron DeSantis joined the 2024 presidential race last week, becoming Donald Trump’s main rival for the Republican nomination. DeSantis chose Twitter to announce his run for US president, but technical glitches on the troubled platform soon got in the way of the biggest moment of his career. ?

The takeaways: Technology can disrupt in unexpected ways, so it’s important to have a Plan B in case things go pear-shaped. Otherwise, your technical disaster could generate more headlines than the message you wanted to deliver in the first place.?

?? Pick up your pen and start writing

Neil Young, firstlight's head of digital and content, momentarily channels Jordan Belforte.

In Martin Scorsese’s scabrous masterpiece The Wolf Of Wall Street, Leonardo Dicaprio’s character beats himself about the head with a microphone and flings his Rolex into a roomful of frenzied traders, repeatedly exhorting them to “pick up the phone and start dialling”.?

In much the same way, I’ve been known to encourage firstlight colleagues to start writing – but with a pen, rather than a computer keyboard.

To put real ink to paper, rather than peck out words on a glowing screen via a QWERTY layout, is to engage a different part of the brain.

This act of writing helps us do our best thinking – and as the world is reconfigured by AI, it is more important than ever that we strengthen the writing-thinking feedback loop.

My worry is that AI can corrode or short-circuit this loop by immediately supplying writing outputs, with no real thinking required.

We’ve been warned that this new technology could engineer a global cataclysm –?but perhaps the outcome we should really be worried about is the slow erosion of our critical faculties.

So, repeat after me: pick up your pen... and start writing. ?

?? We're a top ESG agency

Sam Rowe reveals some exciting news from firstlight HQ.

Earlier this month, PR Week unveiled its UK agency league tables. As well as climbing 17 places in the main table of top 150 consultancies, we were ranked as the 33rd leading corporate comms agency and the 13th top ESG PR agency in the UK.

2022 marked one of the fastest rates of growth we've ever seen at firstlight, with our work in climate and sustainability a key factor in that success. We're thrilled to be named as one of the leading ESG agencies in the UK, and to be recognised for all the team's brilliant work in this area. We have lots of exciting work in the pipeline for the rest of 2023. Watch this space for more updates!

?? In Brief

• We loved this interactive use of data by Raconteur: how do you compare to the average FTSE 100 CEO?
• While it won't reduce scrutiny of its wider employment practices, Amazon's move to offer term-time only work to warehouse workers with children is a bold one that may encourage others to follow suit.
• For communications at its most powerful, take a look at this statement signed by 350 (and counting) industry execs – including OpenAI and Google Deepmind leaders – warning that AI presents an existential threat to humanity.
• No hot take here, we simply enjoyed the fact it took two BBC journalists to report that Liam Gallagher visited a chip shop.

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