Well, it’s official. The robots are coming for our jobs. Us creatives always thought we were safe, that we couldn’t be replaced by machines… But the machines had a different idea. Of course, we’re talking about artificial intelligence, and how AI has begun to creep into the more creative sectors like creating art, designing logos and writing articles. So what is artificial intelligence being used for, is it doing a good job, and how are things going to progress from here?
Well, it’s official. The robots are coming for our jobs. Us creatives always thought we were safe, that we couldn’t be replaced by machines… But the machines had a different idea. Of course, we’re talking about artificial intelligence, and how AI has begun to creep into the more creative sectors like creating art, designing logos and writing articles. So what is artificial intelligence being used for, is it doing a good job, and how are things going to progress from here?
The rise of the machines
When we talk about the rise of AI, we really are looking at a strong upward trajectory. Google Trends has shown that interest in AI tools is currently at an all-time high. As the technology continues to evolve, we’ll see it used in more and more applications. Artificial intelligence has already come a long way over the past few years.
Back in 2016, chatbots were all the rage. Touted to be the next big marketing trend, with brands of all sizes rushing to get on the hype train, the excitement kind of just fizzled out after a year or so. A lot of this was due to disappointment in the reality of what a chatbot actually is, or what it was in 2016, which didn’t amount to much more than Microsoft’s universally detested Clippy.
The initial buzz around chatbots was caused by examples like Facebook’s chat assistant M, which was a virtual assistant capable of completing tasks for users. However, when M didn’t understand something (which turned out to be a lot of the time), a human quietly intervened to help out. This gave users an unrealistic expectation of what chatbots of the time were able to do, and people began to lose interest in 2016’s Next Big Thing.
Everyone’s chatting about ChatGPT
The current household name in the world of all things AI is ChatGPT. Developed by OpenAI, this conversation-style artificial intelligence tool has been all over social media and news channels over the last few months. Google Trends shows that, just 6 months ago, absolutely nobody was talking about ChatGPT.
The moment “ChatGPT” jumped into the everyday lexicon lines up with the increased interest in AI tools, which had been simmering in the public consciousness over the last 5 or 6 years but never really boiled over. The easy-to-use chat format and the API capabilities of this tool are some of the reasons why ChatGPT has become the breakout tool.
However, even these more advanced tools don’t always deliver, and trying to get them to understand what you’re looking for can sometimes be more time consuming than its worth. While 2016’s chatbots were only really suitable for repetitive tasks within limited applications, they were pretty much perfect at doing it. ChatGPT is much more advanced, which means there is more expectation and more that can go wrong. To a degree, these more advanced AI tools are capable of ‘creating’ – and that’s an issue in itself.
When artificial intelligence isn’t so intelligent
AI is still in its infancy and, as such, there are quite a few issues to be ironed out. For example, ChatGPT has started to share completely made-up information as facts, including inventing sources. This is a huge problem for a wide variety of industries, particularly those that rely on reliable research, such as science and journalism. Of course, it also means that the general public is being exposed to even more ‘fake news’ on a daily basis – fake news that can be generated from a prompt in just a few seconds.
Tools like ChatGPT work by being fed huge amounts of information and using a model of machine learning to ‘understand’ and reproduce text as if written by a human. So this system relies heavily on ‘what you put in is what you get out’. Only feeding an AI tool information from very right-wing sources is going to provide biassed responses. Similarly, AI tools are surprisingly easy to manipulate by using leading questions, and (unless programmed otherwise) can be encouraged to create harmful content.
Putting the ‘art’ in ‘artificial intelligence’
One of the big issues using AI for creative applications is the fact that everything that comes out of the tool has to have been fed in from somewhere else. So while the words or images made with tools like Deep Dream Generator are technically unique, they use existing images, photographs, articles and more as the ingredients. This is of course a nightmare in terms of copyright and intellectual property.
Artists have been particularly vocal about the legal and moral complications of AI-generated images. Artificial intelligence doesn’t ask for permission to use copyrighted media, or reference its source material. This is all aside from the argument that the creation of art is an intrinsically human endeavour, combining years of lived and shared experiences with complex stories and emotions. AI tools aren’t able to create unique concepts; they can only remix existing material, often resulting in images that feel just slightly wrong or uncanny.
AI image creation offers an exciting starting point for reference material, ideation and experimentation, but it can’t replace the true experience of creating and enjoying art. While the technology will likely continue to evolve to be able to generate even more realistic images, the issues surrounding copyright and morals will still exist. Unless they can be addressed, AI-generated art will continue to be a complicated matter with no clear solution.
Rather work with a human?
As a digital agency, it’s important that we keep up to date with the latest developments in the wider marketing sector. However, AI certainly isn’t a trend that we’re planning to jump on. We only offer services that we stand behind 100% and are happy to put our name to. Having experimented with AI-generated articles, we’re confident that our human-led services are still above and beyond the capabilities offered by artificial intelligence.
If you’d like to benefit from our expertise with all things design, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch today and let’s have a chat about your project.
Claire Baldwin
Claire has over 10 years' copywriting experience across a range of print and digital media, working with a variety of styles, formats and tones of voice. She has written as part of an in-house team client side, as well as at marketing agencies based in the East Midlands. Claire's services include copywriting, copy editing, content creation and proofreading.