Nick Sadeghian, Campaign Director at Ingenuity, shares his perspective on AI and how, despite being riddled with ethical complications, it can be a truly wonderful tool that gives the creative power back to the people. If it’s used properly, of course.
When all it takes is a phone and a thumb, it’s a surprise to absolutely nobody that absolutely everybody is a bloody content creator. But not all thumbs were created equal.
Mine, for example, can’t seem to cooperate with the rest of my hand enough to even write my name legibly. Not to mention my drawing - I draw like someone who’s just had 12 sambucas (who couldn’t really draw in the first place).
So whilst everyone’s been ranting and raving about how AI is going to take over the planet, I’ve been silently celebrating the fact that the creative process is becoming increasingly democratised for all us uncoordinated people.
I have a head full of silly little ideas that I struggle to bring into actuality, which has proven a massive creative barrier for me in the past.
So whilst AI is indeed terrifying, wrought with ethical dilemmas, and fundamentally derivative, I can’t help but feel slightly excited for myself and the other Average Joes out there who have a whole new world of creativity opened up to us.
Adelina Glodean
For around six months now, I’ve been using Midjourney to create some exceptionally goofy artwork for my crew Fourth World’s monthly radio show on AAJA (compulsory plug: it’s 8-10pm the second Sunday of each month – although fair warning I’m better at drawing than I am at DJing).
AI has helped me produce some genuinely cool shit by augmenting my creative outputs a thousand-fold. Rather than being limited by a serious lack of drawing talent, the only limitations I’ve come up against so far have been my own creativity and mastery of prompt writing.
Case in point: the artwork for my latest show (see header image). The producer even emailed me back to say it was the best artwork they’d seen in ages. Nice!
So where can we extend the principles of ‘democratised creativity’? Something I’m extremely interested in seeing is how platforms like Midjourney change things for brands from a User Generated Content (UGC) perspective.
There feels like a huge opportunity for brands to jump on the fact that tools like Midjourney have unlocked an entirely new creative channel for consumers to create a much higher standard of UGC.
Think of how cool and wacky some of the entries to Starbucks’ White Cup Contest might have been in AI tools were as advanced and ubiquitous as they are now. Or how Burger King’s rivalries with other fast-food brands could be escalated by an army of consumers motivated to use Midjourney to deface other fast-food mascots. After all, it was only a few years ago when they were encouraging fans to ‘burn’ rival fast food ads in exchange for a free Whopper.
Edward Younan
And on the topic of fast-food rivalries, you’ll have undoubtedly seen McDonald’s, Burger King and Subway making headlines for using ChatGPT to demonstrate brand equity, and one of the main reasons everyone was talking about it was because it’s original thinking in untrodden ground.
The novelty factor is still massively apparent, which intrinsically gives the shareability of any AI-based campaigns a boost. Remember those AI avatars that were all over Instagram at the end of last year? Remember how gorgeous everyone thought they looked? People are massively excited by AI, and bar a few generic emails written by ChatGPT, many probably haven’t got their teeth properly stuck into its full capabilities yet.
As a slightly tangential point, the metaverse has seemingly become ‘yesterday’s tech fad’ (for now at least). Disney eliminated its entire metaverse division earlier this year, and Meta announced a 38% loss from its metaverse unit Reality Labs in Q2 results posted 26th July, making way instead for AI technology.
But rather than sounding the death knell for the metaverse, the continued development of AI will inevitably unlock truly exciting possibilities for people to access and interact with each other in Web3. For example, the continued implementation of generative AI could give people the ability to create unique content at scale themselves, which is another example of how AI will continue to democratise the creative process.
InstaVerse, for example, is a tool which allows you to input prompts that then generate a playable 3D world, complete with a little avatar you can use to run and jump around your entirely unique creation with. Now this is seriously rudimentary stuff (it looks cool, but the avatar has all the dexterity of me after those 12 sambucas), but in the not-too-distant future the opportunity to create fully immersive virtual worlds will add a whole new level of depth to what’s possible in the metaverse.
One of the businesses I’m most excited by is Unity, whose ethos is that ‘the world is better with more creators in it’ and that ‘simply put, we think that this technology’s accessibility will help more people to become creators.’ In June its stock rose 15% after the announcement of a marketplace for artificial intelligence software, with CEO John Riccitiello commenting ‘I think AI will change gaming in a couple of pretty profound ways. One of them is it’s going to make making games faster, cheaper and better’.
Gonzalo Duque
And if creative barriers continue to lower at this rate, maybe one day I’ll even be able to turn Disco C3PO into its own PlayStation franchise?
I’ll keep my fingers firmly crossed!
Mark Masterson October 8th, 2023, late at night
While I find some points in the commentary, the idea that creativity can exist without the process and knowledge of the tools is misguided. What you're doing, is creating some very complex collage works which are pleasing to the eye. If you can't draw, then you can't draw, so don't call yourself an artist. You've just made a machine mimic something in your head that is about as creative as finding the shortest way to the store without using a GPS. If you can write a prompt for ChatGPT, it doesn't make you a writer, but if you're able to write well and use ChatGPT as a tool to assist in your method, you can still hold your head high. I'm glad people are having fun with this amazing new box of crayons, but maybe keep it on the fridge where it belongs.