AI, artificial intelligence, robots, job stealers, the thing of nightmares.
It is a HUGE topic at the moment. But, it started to infiltrate our lives before 2023, believe it or not.
If you take a look at social media, specifically LinkedIn, you’d do well to scroll through more than 5 posts without seeing somebody mentioning it. And would be led to believe it was invented at the back end of last year.
This recent surge in interest is down to, you guessed it, Chat GPT.
So, before we get into whether AI is here to replace the marketing department, let's take a look at what the artificially intelligent landscape REALLY looks like.
Artificial Intelligence – what the research says
When you start looking into AI, there are so many “experts” out there, it can be easy to quickly become confused. Is this the best thing since sliced bread or the end of human civilisation as we know it?
Normally, when you get such a clear split, reality sits somewhere in the middle.
To avoid falling into the trap of repeating “thought-leaders” opinions, we thought we’d focus on the research by respected institutions.
Hopefully, you’ll see from this, that the presence of artificial intelligence can be seen as both an opportunity and a threat.
One of the key stats we’ve seen circulating from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is that AI could provide a $15 trillion boost to global GDP by 2030 with UK GDP being 10.3% higher than it is now. Not bad, eh?
Government reports have focused more on employment, highlighting that 7% of jobs are at risk of automation in the next 5 years. Unfortunately, for any locals reading this, Kingston Upon Hull is expected to be one of the worst affected areas.
Although the Government expect specific jobs to be at risk, the overall impact on employment is expected to be neutral as new roles are created. For example, professional jobs are likely to increase with administrative roles most negatively impacted.
Should marketers be scared?
As we mentioned above, there’s a lot of fearmongering around the impact of AI.
Now, we’re not experts. So we can’t say whether it will have a negative impact or not. But, surely, there are opportunities?
Generally speaking, we don’t think marketing departments should be scared of AI. Cautious, possibly. But not scared.
Even the Government’s report says, “the most plausible assumption based on historical trends and past macroeconomic research for the UK being for a broadly neutral long-term effect”.
Obviously, this discussion, especially regarding marketing, has been prompted by the rise of Chat GPT and its potential impact on marketers, specifically copywriters.
On a wholly practical, deliverable basis, yes, Chat GPT could replace a copywriter.
Why?
Well, if you ask it to write a 1,000-word blog post about content marketing, it will do just that.
The edge that copywriters and, more broadly, marketers have is creativity.
To get even a mildly creative response from Chat GPT, you have to be creative with your prompt in the first place. And even then, it’s pretty standard.
Creative ideas come from experience, absurdity and even mistakes. The whole point of AI is that it doesn’t make mistakes. And if it does, it learns from them to rectify the problem in future.
It goes back to one of our core values at Different Resonance, look beyond the obvious. It’s essentially our way of saying, think outside the box. Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman at the Ogilvy Group, wrote in his book, Alchemy, that “the problem with logic is that it kills of magic.”
AI works by logic. It is made to be efficient. It is made to deliver on a specific task.
Marketers shouldn’t always be logical. We should look beyond the obvious. We should be irrational.
We’ll leave you with this...
“Solving problems using rationality is like playing golf with only one club.” – Rory Sutherland.
Until next time, thanks for reading.