THE RISE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

A big thank you to We Are Social for hosting the ‘Artificial Intelligence in Digital Marketing’ event on Wednesday which got us thinking about the so-called ‘rise of artificial intelligence’ and what its implications might be.

Think about the last time you used Siri. Did she help you find that song you had stuck in your head? Book the restaurant you wanted? Or did she just tell you that she couldn’t find any results for ‘Porn’ on the web?

Whilst this might seem like a bit of a stupid question, this was an actual example used at this week’s #AI101Event hosted by We Are Social to demonstrate that the i-Robot world of personal AI devices which will help us navigate the menial and the mundane tasks of our daily lives is still very much ‘under construction’. But when you think about it, is ‘real’ AI really that far off?

Whilst consumer-ready AI such as the likes of Siri and Mr Kaname Hayashi – the world’s most famous companion robot – might still need a little bit of work, conceptual-development AI is actually not that far off of the futuristic world we all grew up dreaming of (if you happened to be a teenage boy that is). After all, the novelty of a phone in your watch was the stuff of fiction in the Sci-Fi Star-Trek world not too long ago.

Take for instance, that despite sweeping claims from WIRED magazine back in 2014 that it would never be possible, an AI powered computer actually beat the World Champion at Go in 2016 – a game requiring almost inhuman levels of creativity and strategic thinking, as it comprises of more board combinations than there are atoms in the known universe. And it’s not just the geeks who are getting all of the fun either.

Think about how we live our day-to-day lives. Facebook’s ChatBots now helps us to book the right hotel for that Lad’s Weekend away and Netflix’s algorithms helps us select that perfect ‘Netflix and Chill’ movie based on what we have seen and liked before. AI isn’t just coming, it’s here! And now it’s just learning how to be better.

A spokesperson from Google recently stated that ‘overtime, we will move from a mobile first world to an AI first world’ and it’s a reality we are increasingly seeing as Machine Learning – machines teaching machines – becomes an increasing norm in our day-to-day lives. In fact, technology research firm, Gartner recently predicted that the AI industry will be worth a staggering $200bn by 2040 and will over time replace 47% of jobs currently occupied by humans.

But whilst this seems like a scary prospect at first (and some of the more paranoid among you might be reaching for the shotguns and praying for Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear in a ball of light to come and save us), the prospects and opportunities AI will afford us far outweigh the losses and initial adjustment period – especially as the first AI produced advert recently received less than award-wining praise. And actually, the creative industries remain the top five industries least likely to be replaced by AI (phew!).

What we, as creative and marketing professionals, will start to see however is a growing dissociation between brands and consumers, as AI algorithms increasingly gain power over which toothpaste is the chosen ‘Siri, I need toothpaste – please order some to be delivered’. Over time, we could see marketers both using machines to target humans, and marketing to machines to sell the products that humans want, without choosing them themselves.

But who knows what will happen in 10, 15 or 20 years. Maybe we won’t be here and your agency’s robot will be sitting reading what my replacement robot has written (which won’t be nearly as funny), making decisions on whether or not to be concerned about how the myth of the human is interfering with stock market prices. Or maybe we’ll just be rewriting the same content just on flasher screens and with better spell-check. All we know for certain is that we are now seeing the frontier of the fourth industrial revolution appearing on the horizon at Olympian speed, and it’s something we have to be aware of. From automated social media advertising and predictive website suggesting what brand and product you should choose, the AI driven world is not nearly as far away as you might think.

All we can say for now is a massive thank you to We Are Social and their great selection of guest speakers for a brilliant evening, made all the better by the ever-appreciated combination of free pizza and beer.