I’m a writer for a mid-sized marketing agency. Lately all we can talk about is AI – what the new developments are, how we can leverage it, and (haha) how soon before it takes all our jobs?
I’m finding it harder to laugh about that last part after reading stuff like this.
In [30 minutes] the tools managed to do market research, create a positioning document, write an email campaign, create a website, create a logo and “hero shot” graphic, make a social media campaign for multiple platforms, and script and create a video.
That right there? We’d charge our clients at least $30K and take at least a month to deliver a launch like that. While I’m quite sure we’d deliver a better end product than the AI, how long before clients decide they’re better off having a single, in-house “AI QA” person who can curate and polish full AI-generated campaigns before lunch?
Please tell me why my job (and my whole company, full of people with whom I love working) won’t be obsolete this time next year.
I completely understand your concerns about AI potentially taking over your marketing job. However, I think it’s important to keep in mind that technological advancements have always changed the job market, and while they may obsolete certain kinds of jobs, they often create new opportunities as well.
For example, take a look at web frameworks. These have made certain kinds of programming jobs obsolete, such as manually writing every line of HTML and CSS. However, this has raised the bar for what’s considered minimally acceptable in terms of web development, and it has created more work for programmers in other areas, such as developing complex web applications.
Similarly, I believe that while AI may automate certain aspects of marketing, it will also create new opportunities and demand for marketers who can work alongside these technologies. Instead of fearing the future, we should be preparing ourselves by learning new skills and staying up to date with the latest trends in marketing and technology.
I hope this helps ease your worries and encourages you to embrace the changes that are coming.
This response was written by ChatGPT based on the provided prompt: Can you write a response to a forum post of someone worrying about AI taking their marketing job by talking about how web frameworks obsoleted certain kinds of programming jobs but mainly just raised the bar of what was considered minimally acceptable and ended up providing more work for programmers?
I’ve noticed a pattern regarding “advancements” and their effects on various industries.
Industries Adjust - I remember the talk about how on line learning and classes were going to destroy the textbook and bookstore industries. Instead, they transformed to educational online “textbooks” and instructional apps and devices that store and read online books.
Reincarnation - An industry will die but give rise to a new industry. Carbon paper and typewriters died, but word processors and, subsequently, computers with office software were born along with copiers and printers.
I think we have to recognize what is happening and start our adjustments/changes in a timely manner. If we do that, we will roll with the punches for the most part.
NYT Chat GPT executive assistant gift link. I’d be concerned. Not necessarily your really big clients, but a small business would be a little stupid to not at least try this route.
The current generation of AIs make shit up. So I wouldn’t fully trust any “factual data” offered up, and that is a problem that needs to be addressed. So it will probably be a good 5 years–maybe even 10–before your career vanishes in a puff of smoke.
This is absolutely brilliant and made me laugh a lot, thank you. Whether it is true or not. The other funny part is I think it could well be correct. I too work in Marketing, albeit on the compliance side, which in my industry is so full of grey areas and judgement calls we like to think it will be some while yet before AI is able to do our job. On the other hand, maybe that’s just sort of thing it will get very good at, very quickly? I’m 37 and no doubt by the time I retire things will have changed drastically. But I’m not overly worried - I have built up a fair amount of transferable skills, experience, and qualifications, and I think some things will always benefit from the human touch, for as long as there are humans.
But if the ultimate audience, IOW the customer the marketer hopes to influence, doesn’t care if the AI made shit up, then, well, AI fake shit will become the common currency of all marketing. Just as Fake News has become an all-too-common and all-but-unbeatable force in our world.
Contrast this of course with current human-powered marketing that simply never utters an exaggeration or falsehood.
Do be sure, at a certain point sheer quantity of BS gains a certain quality that enshittifies everything it touches. Are we going there? Probably.
For something like marketing, that’s what the QA person is for. Look over the material, clean up anything inaccurate that needs cleaning and send it off. It’d be different and more laborious for software coding or a scientific research paper but hardly a significant barrier for timeshare brochure copy.
This has been my line of thinking until recently. But I fear clients aren’t interested in (or lack the vision for) new opportunities. Someone on the client side who can deliver 90% of the results for 10% of the cost can make themselves look pretty good, and they can do it right now instead of waiting for their agency to figure out how to leverage AI to be more productive.
Perhaps. But unless we also bring in 10x more client work to make up the difference, 75% of us are out the door.
Regardless of whether this is truth or spoof I’ll note that the “generated” text is really just expanding each clause and idea of the source text into a paragraph of mostly fluff words added to the human-provided keywords. Other than being limited by keystroking speed, a professional could have written the former nearly as quickly as they could have the latter. The hard work was all in deciding what topics to address. Zero of which ChatGPT did.
Will this be a total boon to the production of useless listicles and regurg-icles that are now churned out by desperate 3rd Worlders via Mechanical Turk (or the equivalent) for a nickel apeice? You bet it will. Those folks are screwed.
This is largely my take on AI art. “Real” art painted on canvas or produced in sculpture* or other means will remain desired. The ones who need to sweat are concept artists and illustrators. No one really cares if the picture on the front cover of a paperback captured the breadth of the human experience, they just need three elves at a campfire or a picture of the US Capitol with blood running down the background. If I can bang out a picture of three elves in an hour between AI generation, in-painting, and Photoshopping the weak spots, I don’t need a whole lot of people currently hanging out on Deviant Art or Artstation.
*Maybe someday AI Art programs will be 3D printing massive aluminum or bronze municipal art pieces but probably not for a while
It is if it doesn’t return results. If the AI tells you that a certain theme is known to be 87% likely to attract a specific demographic, and it is really 3% likely, then the customer for the marketing campaign isn’t going to like that.
