I remember some years ago, in one of the marketing agencies where I worked for a while, my designer friends used to get annoyed with me and made all kinds of ironic comments every time I took Photoshop and prepared my own graphics to make my Google ads campaigns, or different posts on websites. They would say things like “it’s because of people like you, that we designers are running out of work”, that comment makes me laugh, because it was partly true, but it also had a reason.
What was really happening was that if I sent a work order to any of my designers, regardless of the urgency of my launches or the anticipation of my request, I could be sure that my material would not be ready on time, and of course, that my campaigns, publications, or any kind of content, would not see the light before my deadline; all this without counting the piles of previous corrections that I would have to do. So I decided to shorten the path by doing several things by myself.
Is Artificial Intelligence about to take control of our lives?
I say all this because, due to the irruption of artificial intelligence, just a generation ago, digital tools that were only within the reach and understanding of professionals in image editing and visual communication, were opened in an unprecedented way, to be accessible to virtually anyone with a halfway decent computer. Photoshop, illustrator, Adobe Premiere, after effects, Final Cut and many more, represented for many “professionals” a rupture from which it was very difficult for many to recover.
The above is just an example, if we go further back, just 20 years ago, Apple Inc. announced what for many producers, musicians, and people in the music industry, would be a break that would “leave them in the street”.It integrated into its Mac OS operating systems, GarageBand, a program that gave any user (with a Mac) the ability to compose, record, and create their own songs without the need for a studio, producer, session musicians, record label, etcetera etcetera.”Artists” like the somniferous Moby, put the cry in the sky, and did not hesitate to criticize that “now anyone could be a musician” Guess where Moby is now? Guess what else: the world is still turning, the music industry has not collapsed, the multimedia industry is more buoyant than ever, and despite the fact that these tools are available to virtually anyone, competition has become (not completely) much more democratic, and those who stand out for their skills, have to stand out.
Known for plagiarizing his own songs since his first song, Moby was a fierce detractor of tools like GarageBand.
This preamble seems excessive and in fact it is, but it is necessary to draw a perspective under the new context of the irruption of artificial intelligence in virtually all digital levels.In this case, within digital marketing. In fact this post is just the first part of a few more.
Just as multimedia design tools, operating systems, user interfaces, content platforms, and more, have evolved with the aim of becoming mass consumer products available to anyone; Ingenuity and human direction are the constant resource that differentiates transcendence from irrelevance.Nothing has to offer a YouTube channel by itself, but from a strategic design and a properly optimized operation, designed by someone expert in this resource.
Artificial Intelligence is, by itself, a powerful tool that synthesizes in an amazing way the capacity of several human disciplines in the communication environment; however, and despite any catastrophic scenario we can imagine, human direction must always prevail over it. To put it clearly in one sentence: we are further away in the Matrix and closer to Mad Max.
The question then is how do I use Artificial Intelligence without becoming a lazy Automaton?