Why AI is so scary.

Way back in 1984, the Apple Macintosh came out. Seeing a computer write "hello" on its screen as an art director certainly got my attention. I checked it out, and I had to have one. It had 512K of RAM. Yes, that's K for kilobytes. But it had a program called MacDraw, and I had to have one. It cost $3,000, more than ten percent of my annual salary. I didn't care. It was a revolution. With this computer, the one for the rest of us, 1984 wasn't like?1984.

I went to work the next day excited to justify my "investment." I bragged to my boss that the Mac was the future of our industry. We'd all be doing layouts on a Mac one day soon.

"You better never bring me a layout done on a computer," he said.?

Perceiving his statement as a challenge rather than a warning, I spent that evening doing what he said never to do.?

The next morning, I left my Mac layout on my boss's desk. He showed up at my office a few minutes later with it in hand.

"You did this on a computer?"

"Yes."

He studied it for a minute, smiled, and said one word, "Wow."

As rudimentary as that little layout was, It showed me the future was one where we could spend more time thinking of great ideas and less on layouts and mechanicals.?

Six months later, he called me to his office. "There is a conference in New York about Macintosh computers. I want you to go and find out more about it."

At the first MacWorld conference, I saw the beta of Adobe Illustrator and Freehand and a page layout software called Pagemaker by Aldus. It was like watching magic happen to see what those programs could do.

The rest, as they say, is history. Within a year, the agency where I worked was among the first in the eastern U.S. to produce advertising on the Macintosh. Many thought it was a tragedy. They will never be good.

Fast forward ten years. The internet is becoming viable—dial-up email. Companies were building websites to advertise their products, and advertising spaces called "banners" were being sold as ad media. Creatives in advertising hated it, swearing they would never do a banner ad. They can never be good.

Fast forward ten years. Social media platforms have become major advertising media channels. Social posts are anathema to ad creatives. They can never be good.

Fast forward ten years. AI is a hot topic. It's going to replace creatives. It isn't good for advertising. It will keep us from producing great work.

I don't know about you, but I see a "scary" pattern here–new technology disrupting how I do things and threatening my comfort zone.?

About every ten years, a new technology disrupts the way to do great advertising. Does the work get worse? For a time, some of what the technology produces, like my first ad layout on a Mac 512K, is worse than doing it the old way. But soon, very soon, that new way is an invaluable tool. So it isn't good for a time, then someone does something with it that makes everyone else jump on the wagon.?

Within two years of me using a Mac for work, it was the standard. A year or two after banner ads first appeared, we experienced Burger King's Subservient Chicken. Social media was the bane of creative advertising until things like Oreo's famous tweet during the power blackout during the 2013 Superbowl showed that great advertising could happen in real-time.

Ai will perpetuate some mediocrity. But some in advertising will harness it and ride it to fame. Like all other tech advances in our industry's history, it's a tool. Tech advances have always contributed to our industry's bad work while empowering creativity in our industry.?

History shows that those committed to great thinking and work never compromise that commitment when technology tempts them to do so. The creative mind will use AI to redefine how we connect brands to consumers in more authentic, relevant ways.?

AI may replace some people in the industry. But it will not replace the creative mind. They will use AI to assist their minds' creativity, just as the Mac helped art directors and designers create.?