We shouldn’t think about creative work as “AI-generated” vs. “human-generated”

Welcome to AI2, where I discuss trends in artificial intelligence and share my opinion on what they mean for the consumer insights and market research industry.

The 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity was last week. While I didn’t attend this year, it’s clear from all the headlines coming out of the event that AI was the biggest topic there. AI was also an incredibly hot topic when I attended last year, so its importance this year was expected.?

But AI has grown up a lot in the last year. So the conversations have become more specific. And seemingly everyone present had a perspective on AI.?

From what I can tell, there is no single, definitive takeaway on AI coming out of Cannes. And while there is a lot of optimism, there is also still a general sense of fear and concern surrounding AI’s potential impact on advertising and creativity in general.

We can see this in the creation of the humour category in the event itself. The use of humour has generally declined in advertising in recent years, so it makes sense that Cannes might want to celebrate ads that successfully utilise humour. But as The Financial Times reported last week, the creation of a Cannes category solely for humour can also be seen as a response to AI — which isn’t known for its ability to be funny. (That might be an understatement. AI-generated jokes can be terrible). Humour seems like an area humans can still own for a while.

We’ve also seen push back against the use of AI in other creative endeavours, like film making. Just last week Prince Charles Cinema in London cancelled its screening of The Last Screenwriter, which was written entirely with ChatGPT, after public outcry. And the horror movie Late Night With the Devil faced backlash after it came out that the film’s directors had used AI to generate a few images that appear briefly in the film.?

My take on AI & creativity after Cannes

We certainly don’t need more people weighing in with their takes on AI in creativity after a week of Cannes content, but I can’t help sharing my thoughts.?

To me, it’s no surprise that many creatives are uncomfortable with the idea of technology taking on creative work. Or even that the public doesn’t want to accept AI-produced art. It’s hard to think about AI creating something on its own that’s a more emotive, resonant piece of work than a human being could create.?

But I don't think that's the right way of looking at this. I don’t subscribe to the idea that anything should be either AI-generated or human-generated. I think that, if we let it, AI can be an incredible tool for humans to use to help them enhance their creativity.

What we’ve found in our experiments with innovation concepts is that AI can come up with incredibly creative ideas. It can ingest all the information we give it and produce creative solutions to problems. Solutions humans might not consider because they can often limit their thinking to the constraints of their existing brand and category.?

But I don’t believe this means AI should be used to create ads on its own.?

The future won’t be defined by ads that are produced by AI vs. ads that are produced by humans. Instead, humans will leverage AI at certain points of the process, but they will still be the ones in control.?

My last newsletter posited that AI-created video will — in the not-so-distant future — be something that helps turn advertising ideas into realities incredibly quickly. You’ll be able to immediately turn an idea into multiple versions of a 30-second video ad to test it with consumers and then optimise it based on what you learn.?

And yet that’s just one way AI can be used in the ad development process. AI could be used to help a person kickstart their creativity and generate an initial list of ideas. It could be used to write an initial draft of a script. It could be used as a way to get feedback from synthetic consumers at any point of the process.?

The important takeaway here is that AI should be used by humans at their discretion throughout the process. At no point should someone ever approach an AI tool and say “make me an ad for X brand” and then let the machines take over from there entirely.?

Final thoughts

I understand why the fully AI-generated script of The Last Screenwriter was unpopular. But that movie was created as an experiment — I don’t believe anyone is advocating for that to be the norm going forward.?

And the same applies to advertising. 100% AI-generated advertising shouldn’t exist. Humans should use their judgement about how AI can help them produce great work.

I worry that anyone who is thinking about AI as something that should be kept out of creativity entirely might be missing an opportunity.