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I may regret saying this one day, because I'm begging John Connor to put me in a bunker to escape the machines, but marketers, there is no such thing as real AI, much less AI. Not to mention the inherent threat of
And so-called AI threatens nothing. The people who develop and use it do.
Misconceptions about AI in marketing
Many technology commentators, academics, and scientists outside of the marketing field seem to have clear views on so-called AI, but what I see and hear from most of the marketing industry is very one-sided and not very I don't feel critical.
On the other hand, marketers, like those who jump on other trends, have the right to be the first to master a technology before addressing whether it actually adds value (or whether it is ethical). is in a hurry to claim. On the other hand, we fear the threat of it taking our jobs or transforming our marketing departments outside of our control.
It's frustrating to watch. While unions are on strike and artists are filing lawsuits over the issue, marketers are using AI in marketing to the point where so-called AI threatens marketing jobs and makes marketing departments obsolete. It's bothering me.
To me, that dichotomy and how marketers are actively trying to contribute to a constructed problem that is making our professional lives worse and making us self-fulfilling a destiny of our own making. I can't understand what I see at all.
And while that's a sentiment Sarah Connor can support, the technology isn't exactly Cyberdyne-level groundbreaking.
The reality of generative AI
Focusing on the so-called generative AI that most of the marketing industry uses, this technology, as leading scholar Emily Bender puts it, “randomizes sequences of linguistic forms according to probabilistic information. It's nothing but an algorithm that “stitches things together.”
They don't learn and don't refer to the meaning at all. These are expensive and energy-intensive autocompletes, both literally in the case of large-scale language models (LLMs) and figuratively in the case of image and video generators.
Dr. Bender co-authored the seminal paper, “The Danger of Probabilistic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” This seems to be a must-read for many communities looking for meaningful dialogue about LLM and AI. But I've never heard of it in marketing circles.
I feel that the term “probabilistic parrot” is partly to blame. This is a near-perfect term for his LLM, but a marketer touting expertise in a tool with a name that indicates a backwards idea repeating the same old one wouldn't stand out at all on LinkedIn.
How AI will impact content, creativity, marketers, and marketing
Even if our irrationality has consequences that change the value we provide to our brands and clients, that's another story. But so far, the output has been full of errors, bias, and probably mostly plagiarized, downright crappy content.
I don't know what kind of generated content you're consuming, but from what I can see, people with some tastes don't want any part of it (not to mention that our customers don't either) included).
But our biases are so firmly planted that few of us want to admit that what we boast about mastering is nothing more than a bullshit generator. Or, as someone on my Mastodon feed called it, “mansplaining as a service: superficially plausible but completely fabricated nonsense presented with unwavering confidence.”
I wish I had figured that out. Maybe I'll start saying I did it — you know, just like my privilege as a man. If that doesn't get you away, just say you asked your LLM to come up with it, which is clearly a departure from plagiarism, which is acceptable today.
Anyway, if you or your team are using these digital mansplainers as brainstorming partners, content kickstarters, or pitch/demo creators rather than as actual content creators, these processes faster than the old-fashioned, time-consuming process. It seems to me then that you are abandoning the value of separating your work from the commoditized.
These processes give meaning to content, fill in gaps, and create connections. If you abandon it, you are abandoning the creative process itself.Creativity teeth You can always beat the bullshit by following the process.
marketers are being used
AI companies are playing a game of duck with us and these honed processes. By manipulating these algorithms, we give AI companies more information, making them more likely to sound more accurate and look more right. Of course, that gives us all the more reason to continue to fear the worst about our future as marketers. An added bonus to this inside-out doom loop is that it facilitates the theft of your brand and clients' hard-earned copyrighted content.
It was bad enough when we were giving all of this away to AI companies for free. Now we're actually paying them for that privilege. Make it meaningful.
Nowhere is this destructive loop more evident than in the constant habit of marketers contributing to LinkedIn collaborative articles for free. why do you do that? Let me tell you, LinkedIn can build an algorithm for writing articles. You are helping his LinkedIn make you obsolete.
Makes our job harder and undermines marketing integrity
It's also noticeable when marketers sing the age-old song about how hard it is to “cut through the noise” when you're using these algorithms to generate exponentially increasing noise. This is one of his most urgent calls to action regarding so-called generative AI. That means delivering more content in less time. “Don't fall behind. Your competitors are more efficient than you.”
But no one seems too worried about that tradeoff. We're flooded with tools that spew out more meaningless content than ever before, making it harder for search engines to find our and our clients' brands.
And in the process, the world as a whole has also become a little bit worse, as people around the world are finding it harder than ever to find accurate information online.
Is that why you got into marketing? How to become a spammer? Will we leave the digital landscape worse than it was when we started? We don't need to point this out, but if we want to stay relevant, we need to take our technology beyond the stereotypes of clickbait and spam mailings. We should strive to improve it. And I was fulfilled.
Hear me when I say that what you do professionally is worth far more than what the companies hyping this technology want you to believe. By doing what they tell you, you are commercializing your work and doing their work for them.
Ethical concerns about the use of AI in marketing
As marketers, we also need help unraveling any perceived ethical hypocrisy when using these tools.
AI and inclusion: Algorithmic bias
The words I shout the loudest are: If you’re like the many people who are making a statement to their brands and clients with the DEI Pledge , MLK Quotes , and links to the Inclusive Marketing Courses we’ve completed, you’re committed to inclusion and equity. If you're interested, publishing content from these algorithms contributes to perpetuating real and tangible harm due to racial, gender, and other biases.
The problem is so serious that New York University professor and author Meredith Broussard calls algorithmic bias “the civil rights problem of our time.”
If you haven't already, dive deeper into this topic and understand what your ethical obligations are when you knowingly publish this kind of content, or when you use tools to give them more power. I encourage you to ask yourself if there is.
If you're interested in this issue, here are some more names. Abeba Birhane, Rediet Abebe, Rumman Chowdhury, Safiya Noble, Timnit Gebru, Karen Hao, Mehtab Khan, Joy Buolamwini, Seeta Peña Gangadharan.
Reading about them gives you an undeniable sense of deja vu. Black women and other women of color are the ones most likely to sound the alarm about the ethical issues of so-called AI. And, amazingly, they are. Ignored.
Sustainability and AI: Going green
Speaking of alarms, is that the climate doomsday clock snooze button we keep pressing? In that respect, AI is nothing like Greta Thunberg.
One of the most popular tools, ChatGPT, currently consumes the same amount of energy as 33,000 households, and even those who benefit from this huge cost to our livable world are concerned that they are I am concerned about the energy crisis that is driving us headlong.
Many marketers ask these algorithms to generate or help generate ESG and other green content for their brands and clients, a model that consumes four to five times more carbon than search queries. There is no doubt that you are using . Trained as a lifetime (including manufacturing) of 5 vehicles.
Similarly, you can ask an image generator (which studies show uses more energy than LLM) to create background images for your Earth Day ads or social media posts, and it costs as much as it does to charge your phone. I think some people consume carbon dioxide. in the process.
Some of us do this just for fun. This is Olivia Rodrigo with wrinkles! Elderly Mutant Ninja Turtles!
From my point of view, so-called generative AI is nothing more than an energy-hungry algorithm in a competitive industry with a highly effective propaganda machine to drive investor interest. They do so through threats and bold claims about their power and abilities, counting on humanity's oldest prejudice that language equals intelligence and marketers' oldest fear of falling behind the times. .
At the end of the day, we marketers seem to be falling victim to effective branding. For marketers, AI should stand for “Actual Irony.”
Choose integrity over trends, reject flawed AI tools, and take practical steps
So what should I do? First, realize that what you're worried about is not inevitable. You don't have to surrender your skills and the joy you find there to Silicon Valley. You also don't have to abandon your ethics. you have a choice.
Once you get past that, you can choose not to use so-called generative AI. it's okay. In fact, you can opt out and still remain competitive and innovative. Race your competitors to the bottom. You continue to increase your worth.
Then, you can tap into the spirit of rebellion that resides somewhere within every marketer and actively resist the hype. If possible, bring the story back to reality. Move the narrative away from tech billionaires and venture capital fund managers. Introduce people to academics and activists who use peer-reviewed research to clearly explain the real power and dangers of technology.
Next, follow, support, and amplify the work of alternative AI groups such as The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) and Black In AI.
AI has an ethical path, and talented people are devoting their professional lives to it. In this process, you don't have to be the only person with the loudest voice.
And finally, we demand that AI policies include some impact, not just PR platitudes. (Marketers definitely know how to tell them apart.) Specifically, we should demand that AI companies be transparent about their training datasets.
Knowing where the people developing these tools choose to collect their training data from can help hold them accountable to applicable laws and help them assess and correct systematic biases in their algorithms. objective parties can be given the necessary channels to do so.
how? One is support for the AI Foundation Model Transparency Act. We can liaise with our representatives on this matter, but locally we can also ask professional bodies for support and other transparent action on this issue.
Why haven't the Association of National Advertisers, the Public Relations Institute of America, and the American Marketing Association taken a stance on this issue?
You can get your association to really represent you by asking them to address bigger issues rather than simply offering tactical how-to seminars. we, Not the algorithms or the corporate interests behind them.
If we don't like politics or community agitation, can we at least think critically and talk to each other? Do you make room for contrary information?
Perhaps the start we need is to help each other avoid falling for bad marketing.
More resources on how AI is impacting marketing
Generative AI: Why I can't sleep at night
Marketers’ biggest concerns about AI
ChatGPT is now #1: What have we learned from a year of AI breakthroughs?
When there’s too much AI: How to balance human and AI marketing
